Verification with the utility of an established rapid assessment of brain safety for newly developed vaccines / 한국실험동물학회지

In the twenty-first century, high contagious infectious diseases such as SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), FMD (Foot-and-Mouth Disease) and AI (Avian Influenza) have become very prevalent, causing treat harm to humans and animals in aspect of public health, and economical issues. The critical problem is that newly-reported infectious diseases that humans firstly experience are expected to continue to emerge, and these diseases will be spreading out rapidly. Therefore, rapid and safe supplies of effective vaccines are most pivotal to prevent the rapid prevalent of new infection, but international standards or assessing protocol the safety of urgent vaccines are not established well. In our previous study, since we established a module to assess the brain safety of urgent vaccines, therefore, it is necessary to verify that this established module for assessing brain safety could work effectively in commercially available two vaccines (one killed- and on live-vaccines). We compared the results of Evans blue (EB) assay and qPCR analysis by injection of two kinds of vaccines, PBS and Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) under the condition of the module previously reported. We confirmed that the brain safety test module for urgent vaccine we established is very reproducible. Therefore, it is believed that this vaccine safety testing method can be used to validate brain safety when prompt supply of a newly developed vaccines is needed.

Chronic oral administration of Passiflora incarnata extract has no abnormal effects on metabolic and behavioral parameters in mice, except to induce sleep / 한국실험동물학회지

Although the number of prescriptions and dependence on sleeping pills are increasing, the associations with unexpected abnormal behaviors and metabolic diseases caused by the overuse of sleeping pills are not well understood. In particular, such as abnormal eating-behavior and the occurrence of metabolic disorders caused by psychological unstable states are reported. For this reason, herbal medicine, which has not had such side effects in recent years, is attracting attention as an alternative medicine/food for sleeping inducer. We have used ethanol extracts from Passiflora incarnata (PI) to steadily obtain positive effects on sleep and brain microenvironment. However, as mentioned earlier, sleep-inducing efficacy can only be used safely if the behavioral and metabolic abnormalities do not appear.Thus, in this study, we used Phenomaster equipment to continuously monitor the movement, feeding, water consumption, gas changes, etc. in C57BL/6 mice at a dose of 500 mg/kg/day for 5 consecutive days with PI extract group compared with the control group. Before sacrifice, differences in body composition of mice were also compared. Monitoring of 24 h/5 days through the equipment showed no change in PI-treated group in anything except for significant decrease in blood melatonin levels and activity after PI administration. Taken together, the statistically insignificance of any behavioral and metabolic phenomenon produced by repeated treatment of PI are not only expected to have an accurate sleep effect, but are also free of side effects of the prescribed sleeping pills. This study has given us greater confidence in the safety of the PI extracts we use for sleep-inducer.

A Case of Mucinous Ductal Ectasia of the Pancreas Presented with Acute Pancreatitis / 대한소화기내시경학회지

We have experienced a case of mucinous ductal ectasia of the pancreas. The patient visited hospital with the symptoms of acute pancreatitis. The plasma levels of amylase and lipase checked at hospital were elevated. Abdominal ultrasonography and CT scan showed cystlike, intrapancreatic defects localized in the uncinate process of pancreatic head, On duodenoscopy, bulging ampulla of Vater and patulous papillary orifice were seen. Mucin leaked out of the patulous opening. Endoscopic retrograde pancreatography was performed and the localized, grape-like cyatic dilatation of the side branch of a main pancreatic duct on the uncinate process was shown. The main pancreatic duct was also dilated and had multiple filling defects in it. Whipple' s operation was performed and the histologic diagnosis was a benign intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm of the pancreas.