Porencephaly with an optic organ abnormality in a beagle dog.

A female TOYO beagle dog showed porencephaly and visual organ abnormalities. At necropsy, there was a cavity filled with cerebrospinal fluid in the right cerebral hemisphere and an adhesion area between the cerebral cortex and the skull, which was partially thickened. Additionally, the right optic nerve showed a slight decrease in diameter. Histopathological examination revealed increased glial fibers and collagen fibers, hemosiderin deposition, and an increased number of microglia in the adhesion area, along with a marked reduction of the cerebral parenchyma. In the right eyeball, the retina and optic nerve showed focal atrophy in the nerve fiber layer and inner granular layer to full retinal atrophy and hypoplasia of the myelinated nerve fibers, respectively. Electron microscopic examination revealed hypoplasia of the myelin sheath of nerve fibers in the right optic nerve. This is an extremely rare case of porencephaly and congenital optic nerve hypoplasia, along with independent retinal thinning.

Construction of Models for Nondestructive Prediction of Ingredient Contents in Blueberries by Near-infrared Spectroscopy Based on HPLC Measurements.

Nondestructive prediction of ingredient contents of farm products is useful to ship and sell the products with guaranteed qualities. Here, near-infrared spectroscopy is used to predict nondestructively total sugar, total organic acid, and total anthocyanin content in each blueberry. The technique is expected to enable the selection of only delicious blueberries from all harvested ones. The near-infrared absorption spectra of blueberries are measured with the diffuse reflectance mode at the positions not on the calyx. The ingredient contents of a blueberry determined by high-performance liquid chromatography are used to construct models to predict the ingredient contents from observed spectra. Partial least squares regression is used for the construction of the models. It is necessary to properly select the pretreatments for the observed spectra and the wavelength regions of the spectra used for analyses. Validations are necessary for the constructed models to confirm that the ingredient contents are predicted with practical accuracies. Here we present a protocol to construct and validate the models for nondestructive prediction of ingredient contents in blueberries by near-infrared spectroscopy.

Dietary cholesterol reduces plasma triacylglycerol in apolipoprotein E-null mice: suppression of lipin-1 and -2 in the glycerol-3-phosphate pathway.

BACKGROUND: Cholesterol metabolism is tightly regulated by both cholesterol and its metabolites in the mammalian liver, but the regulatory mechanism of triacylglycerol (TG) synthesis remains to be elucidated. Lipin, which catalyzes the conversion of phosphatidate to diacylglycerol, is a key enzyme involved in de novo TG synthesis in the liver via the glycerol-3-phosphate (G3P) pathway. However, the regulatory mechanisms for the expression of lipin in the liver are not well understood. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Apolipoprotein E-knock out (apoE-KO) mice were fed a chow supplemented with 1.25% cholesterol (high-Chol diet). Cholesterol and bile acids were highly increased in the liver within a week. However, the amount of TG in very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL), but not in the liver, was reduced by 78%. The epididymal adipose tissue was almost eradicated in the long term. DNA microarray and real-time RT-PCR analyses revealed that the mRNA expression of all the genes in the G3P pathway in the liver was suppressed in the high-Chol diet apoE-KO mice. In particular, the mRNA and protein expression of lipin-1 and lipin-2 was markedly decreased, and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator-1α (PGC-1α), which up-regulates the transcription of lipin-1, was also suppressed. In vitro analysis using HepG2 cells revealed that the protein expression of lipin-2 was suppressed by treatment with taurocholic acid. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These data using apoE-KO mice indicate that cholesterol and its metabolites are involved in regulating TG metabolism through a suppression of lipin-1 and lipin-2 in the liver. This research provides evidence for the mechanism of lipin expression in the liver.