Possible acceleration of alcoholic cirrhosis in a patient with bulimia.

We report the case of a 27-year-old Caucasian woman with a history of bulimia and alcohol abuse who developed cirrhosis at a rapid rate. We hypothesize that the patient's bulimia, in combination with other possible predisposing factors, potentially accelerated the development of her alcoholic cirrhosis and subsequent medical complications. The association between eating disorders and liver disease is discussed, and the importance of aggressive treatment of eating disorders in combination with alcohol abuse is highlighted.

Right hemisphere mediation of verbal learning and memory in acquired right hemisphere speech dominant patients.

Forty-eight patients with temporal lobe epilepsy completed measures of narrative recall and list learning prior to surgery. The intracarotid amytal procedure (IAP) established that 13 patients were right hemisphere dominant for speech and 35 (18 left foci, 17 right foci) were left hemisphere dominant. Hippocampal volumetric neuron densities were measured after surgery. The left hippocampal neuron densities in subfields CA3 and the hilar area were significantly correlated with list learning ability and percent retention for narrative recall only for left hemisphere speech dominant patients with left seizure foci. No significant correlations between measures of neuron volume and memory were found for the left hemisphere speech dominant patients with right seizure foci or the right hemisphere speech dominant patients with left seizure foci. This suggests that the right hemisphere of right speech dominant patients mediates verbal memory as well as speech. This conclusion is supported by patterns of correlations among measures of verbal memory that differed for patients undergoing resection of the dominant hemisphere versus those undergoing resection of the nondominant hemisphere. However, it is premature to conclude that the cerebral organization of cognitive functions of right hemisphere speech dominant patients is equivalent albeit reversed from that of left hemisphere speech dominant patients. Right hemisphere speech dominant patients with left temporal foci differed from left hemisphere speech dominant patients with right temporal foci with respect to the patterns of correlations between measures of verbal memory and intelligence as well as the level of intellectual ability that they demonstrated.

Oxidative polypeptide cleavage mediated by EDTA-Fe covalently linked to cysteine residues.

Chemical cleavage with reactive oxygen species generated by EPD-Fe, a protein-tethered EDTA-Fe reagent, has been proposed as a method to map the structure of nonnative equilibrium protein folding intermediates [Ermácora, M. R., Delfino, J. M., Cuenoud, B., Schepartz, A., & Fox, R. O. (1992) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 89, 6383-6387]. The chemical structure of protein cleavage products and the mechanism of backbone scission for this class of reagents have been unclear. Here, we report the nature of EPD-Fe-mediated backbone cleavage of a small model peptide. The EPD-Fe reagent was attached to a partially alpha-helical peptide, alpha 1BA1a (Ac-AEAEEAAKKAKEACKA-NH2), through a mixed disulfide. Backbone cleavage was initiated by addition of the iron reductant ascorbate. Chemical analysis of the novel cleavage products revealed an oxidative cleavage mechanism, probably initiated by diffusible hydroxyl radicals. The EPD-Fe-mediated cleavage technique appears to be suitable for the analysis of nonnative protein states such as the molten globule.