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ABSTRACT-In the course of experimental infection of Penaeus monodon with white spot syn drome virus (WSSV) for virus isolation and purification, one unexpected virus was found to be domi nant in purified virus samples prepared from shrimp hemolymph. Under electron microscopical virions with a density of 1.154-1.162 g/mL in sucrose gradient were obtained and at least three viral structural proteins of 20, 63 and 110 kDa were observed when analyzed by SDS-PAGE. Injection of P. monodon with this purified virus demonstrated rapid and mass mortality. By ordinary histo logical studies, the cells with densely basophilic inclusions were found in the lymphoid organ, gill, stomach, hepatopancreas and heart. By electron microscopy, ultrathin sections of lymphoid organs from infected shrimp showed that numerous enveloped virions and nucleocapsids scattered or enclosed in the vesicles within the cytoplasm. The morphology, histopathology and structural proteins of this virus closely resemble those of the yellow head virus (YHV) from Thailand. More over, the results of RT-PCR diagnosis using primers specific to the 135 bp of YHV also suggest that this virus is closely related to YHV. PCR diagnosis of YHV and WSSV in P. monodon sampled from culture farms in Taiwan between 1996 and 1999 demonstrated that YHV has been present in P. monodon for at least 3 years and that all of the samples, which were diagnosed as YHV positive, were also co-infected with WSSV.

Stillbirth remains an event that has an important impact on global health issues. Different levels of health care between countries suggest that the stillbirth rate may be one of the indicators of the quality of a country's medical system. In this review, major risk factors for stillbirth will be discussed, especially in different trimesters of pregnancy. Early identification of risk factors for stillbirth and appropriate antenatal management may reduce preventable stillbirths and improve general outcomes of pregnancy.

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SummaryTransgenic mice have been generated that express the E. coli /J-galactosidase gene under the control of the promoter from the mouse heat-shock gene, hsp68. Sequences from -664 to +113 relative to the start of transcription of the hsp68 gene were sufficient to direct stress-induced expression of the /3-galactosidase gene in adult tail tissue and various tissues of fetal stages of development. Expression was detected in situ by staining with the chromogenic substrate, X-gal. The hybrid gene was refractory to induction in preimplantation embryos until the blastocyst stage of development, as reported for the endogenous hsp68 gene. No constitutive expression was observed by in situ staining or Northern analysis at any stage of development, even in tissues that constitutively express the endogenous hsp68 gene. We conclude that the hsp68 promoter region included in the construct contains sufficient sequence information for heat and arsenite inducibility, but it does not contain sequences controlling tissue-specific expression during development. This tightly regulated inducible promoter may provide a useful tool for short-term inducible gene expression in transgenic mice.

Objective: To analyze quantitatively the circumaxillary suture opening after alternate rapid maxillary expansions and constrictions (Alt-RAMEC). Materials and Methods: Twelve inbred cats were randomly grouped into two equal groups for 1 week of rapid maxillary expansion (RME) (1 mm/day) or 5 weeks of Alt-RAMEC (1 mm/day). At the end of the experiment, the craniofacial skeleton of each cat was harvested. Each circumaxillary suture was then probed at three sites with a 0.5-mm pointed periodontal probe. A smooth probing without penetration was an ineffective suture opening (Ͻ0.5 mm), while a probing with penetration was an effective suture opening (Ͼ0.5 mm). For each suture, the quantity of suture opening (%) was the effective suture opening/(effective ϩ ineffective suture opening). The intergroup differences were analyzed by chi-square test (P Ͻ .05). Results: Five weeks of Alt-RAMEC opened the circumaxillary sutures significantly more than 1 week of RME. This affected the circumaxillary sutures running coronally and articulating directly to the maxilla (56.9% vs 36.1%, P Ͻ .001), the sutures running sagittally, but articulating indirectly to the maxilla (94.4% vs 64.8%, P Ͻ .001), and the sutures running coronally, but articulating indirectly to the maxilla (58.3% vs 33.3%, P Ͻ .01). The sutures running sagittally were opened significantly more (94.4%-100.0%) than those running coronally (56.9%-58.3%), no matter if they articulated directly or indirectly with the maxilla. Conclusions: Alt-RAMEC opens both the sagittally and coronally running circumaxillary sutures quantitatively more than conventional RME. However, more than 5 weeks of Alt-RAMEC would be needed to increase the opening of the coronally running circumaxillary sutures. (Angle Orthod. 2009:79; )

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The spatial arrangement of individual cell types can now be routinely controlled using soft-lithography-based micropatterning of complementary cell-adhesive and cell-resistant patterns. However, the application of these tools in tissue engineering to recreate tissue complexity in vitro has been hampered by the challenge of finding noncytotoxic procedures for converting complementary cell-resistant regions that define the arrangement of the first cell type into cell-adhesive regions to allow for the attachment of other cell types. A polyelectrolyte assembly approach is presented here for the first time, which allows for this noncytotoxic conversion and, thus, micropatterning of two different cell types, for example, endothelial cells and fibroblasts, on biodegradable substrates. The flexibility of this approach is further demonstrated by inducing organized capillary formation by endothelial cells on micropatterned lines followed by subsequent assembly of fibroblasts.