Preliminary study of histological comparison on the growth patterns of long-bone cortex in young calf, pig, and sheep.

Some young large farm animals show a laminar bone formation in the long-bone cortex. Such a laminar bone is gradually replaced by Haversian bone with osteons during their growth periods. In this preliminary study, we observed the transverse ground samples of tibia cortex in young calves, pigs, and sheep by backscattered electron imaging. The cortex bones of all the newborn (NB) animals were basically formed with laminar bone structures. The NB and 1-month-old (1-M) calves had a typical concentric structure of laminar bone, whereas the NB and 1-M pigs showed a wire-netting bone with laminar-bone units. The NB sheep was similar to the calf rather than the pig. In the growth rate of bone volume, sheep was similar to calf up to 6 months after birth (6-M). Such calf and sheep showed a more rapid ratio of bone volume than pig. A few osteons had initially appeared in the innermost layer of the 6-M calf. A 1-year-old (1-Y) calf showed scattered osteons in the bone cortex, but many laminar-bone units were still retained in the outer layer. A 6-M pig had many osteons in the entire cortex but only a few osteons in the outermost layer. In the 6-M sheep, no osteons were observed, whereas a 1-Y sheep showed a relatively small number of osteons mainly in the middle layer but a higher osteon-volume than the 1-Y calf. In the 1-Y sheep, the more widely absorbed areas by bone-remodeling with osteons were observed as compared with the 1-Y calf, and the bone volume was decreased from the 6-M into the 1-Y sheep because of the remarkable bone-absorption. Thus, calf kept on possessing many laminar-bone units for a longer time in the growth period than sheep, while pig showed the earliest bone-remodeling with osteons. These results may be caused by their different body size and withers height in calf and sheep after growing and the difference of the dependence upon mother's body during juvenile period between pig and calf with sheep. The initial region of osteon formation may be distinguishable among their animals, respectively. However, further detailed investigations of their young animals at successive stages will be necessary.

Inhibitory effect of flavonoids on N-acetylation of 5-aminosalicylic acid in cultured rat hepatocytes.

5-Aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA) is an effective drug for the treatment of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. A large group of flavonoids was investigated for their inhibitory effects on the N-acetyl-conjugation of 5-ASA in rat hepatocytes and subcellular preparations. When added to cultured hepatocytes, some flavonoids inhibited the production of N-acetyl-5-aminosalicylic acid (5-AcASA) with potencies that depended on the specific structure of flavonoids. Among the flavonols, quercetin, kaempferol and galangin had inhibitory activity with a tendency to be more effective at increasing the number of hydroxyl substitutions in the B-ring. Flavones such as luteolin, apigenin and chrysin were as effective as the corresponding three flavonols above. 7,3',4'-OH flavone was more effective than other simple flavones such as 7-, 5-, 3-, 7,3-, 7,4'- and 3',4'-OH flavones. Isoflavones were relatively weak inhibitors. Taxifolin and catechins had little or no inhibitory effect. These data suggest that the presence of C7 hydroxyl substitution on the A-ring and the catechol group on the B-ring in the flavone structure is required for effective inhibitory activity. The inhibitory effect of flavonoids on N-acetyl-conjugation of 5-ASA was also examined by incubating 5-ASA with isolated liver cytosolic preparations. The active flavonoids in the cells inhibited the N-acetylation of 5-ASA in the cell-free enzymatic preparations with a potency comparable to that for cultured rat hepatocytes.