Squamous cell carcinoma of the bladder in a pediatric patient.

A 16-year-old North American girl with a prior history of a bladder calculus removed by open cystolithotomy 8 years earlier, subsequently had squamous cell carcinoma of the bladder along the site of the previous incision. The authors believe that this child is the youngest documented patient with squamous cell carcinoma of the bladder not associated with schistosomiasis.

Heart failure in Korean elderly patients - clinical features, prognosis and prognostic factors.

Heart failure (HF) is very common in the elderly but there are not sufficient data about the clinical characteristics and prognostic factors of HF among the Asian elderly patients. The aim of the study was to find out the clinical characteristics, survival, and prognostic factors of HF in Korean elderly patients. Among elderly patients admitted from February 1995 to February 1998, the patients with a discharge diagnosis of HF were enrolled. Through the medical record review, the diagnosis was confirmed and clinical parameters to affect survival were identified. Total number of the subjects was 104 [age: 77+/-7 years (65-96), male:female=36:68, follow-up duration: 20+/-14 months, LVEF: 46+/-16%]. Ischemic heart disease (IHD) was the most common cause of HF (42%) followed by valvular heart disease (28%), and hypertension (20%). The 1-year survival rate was 71.3%. Advanced age [risk ratio (RR): 1.41 per 5 years of age; 95% CI: 1.11-1.80] and reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (0.69 per 10%, 0.52-0.93), poor initial functional class (2.40, 1.15-5.00), diabetes (2.79, 1.30-5.97) and past history of HF (2.37, 1.10-5.10) badly affected the survival rates. When the Cox proportional hazard model was applied for multivariate analysis, only aging (1.64 per 5 years of age, 1.19-2.28) and diabetes (4.92, 1.83-13.23) predicted poor prognosis. Twenty-seven percent of the patients had diastolic HF (LVEF>45%, LVEDD<55 mm) who had higher survival rates with marginal significance (0.35, 0.10-1.17, P=0.09).

Spinach nitrite reductase: subunit composition and siroheme redox potential.

The molecular weight of the spinach chloroplast, ferredoxin-dependent enzyme ferredoxin:nitrite oxidoreductase (EC 1.7.7.1) was shown to be 85,000 using gel filtration chromatography under nondenaturing conditions. In the presence of denaturants, either gel filtration chromatography or gel electrophoresis separated the enzyme into two subunits, with molecular weights of 61,000 and 24,000, respectively. Oxidation-reduction titrations of the siroheme prosthetic group of the putative native form (Mr 85,000) of the enzyme yielded a midpoint potential value of -305 mV, a value considerably more negative than the value of -30 mV obtained for siroheme in a modified, Mr 61,000 form of the enzyme.

Evidence for the presence of a [2Fe-2S] ferredoxin in bean sprouts.

An iron-sulfur protein with properties similar to those of ferredoxins found in the leaves of higher plants has been isolated from bean sprouts--a non-photosynthetic plant tissue. The bean sprout protein has a molecular mass of 12.5 kDa and appears to contain a single [2Fe-2S] cluster. The absorbance and circular dichroism spectra of the bean sprout protein resemble those of spinach leaf ferredoxin and the bean sprout protein can replace spinach ferredoxin as an electron donor for NADP+ reduction, nitrite reduction and thioredoxin reduction by spinach leaf enzymes. Although the reduced bean sprout protein (Em = -440 mV) is a slightly stronger reductant than spinach ferredoxin and appears to be less acidic than spinach ferredoxin, the two proteins are similar enough so that the bean sprout protein is recognized by an antibody raised against spinach ferredoxin.