Vesicle consisted of calcified core and intervening turbid fluid, a possible composition of calcification in intervertebral disc calcification in children.

Intervertebral disc calcification (IDC) is one of the uncommon diseases in children. Normally, it is a benign lesion which is self-limited and has an excellent prognosis under conservative treatments and symptomatic support. Surgical treatment is usually carried out only for patients with progressive neurological deterioration in order to prevent the spinal cord from being irreversible injured. After conservative treatments for months or years, the calcification reduces gradually or even disappears through imaging. Until now, the etiology remains unclear and the mechanism for resorption of IDC is still unknown. Surgery was performed on an IDC patient with progressive neurological deterioration, it was found that the high density calcification region on CT is actually not "hard" but more like an enlarged cell. In such a cell, a calcified nuclear was surrounded by limewater-like liquid inside a large membrane. This study aims to unveil the mechanism for the resorption of IDC. We hypothesize that the high density calcification on imaging is a vesicle consisted of calcified core and intervening turbid fluid. Furthermore, the increase or diminution of calcification is caused by the production or resorption of inflammatory fluid around the calcified core in lesion disc. This could explain the mechanism of IDC resorption in children.

Efforts to develop methods for in vivo evaluation of the native beta-cell mass.

Visualization and quantification of the native beta-cell mass in vivo in humans appear to be important in the study of the natural course of diabetes, and in ongoing trials aimed at preserving beta-cell mass in patients with diabetes. This cannot be done by biopsy sampling, and therefore there is a great need for development of a non-invasive method. This article discusses the principle theoretical requirements for reaching this goal. In addition, it provides an overview of tracer probes, which have been examined as potential beta-cell mass imaging agents in the past. Finally, some future perspectives are discussed.

[Use of three-dimensional fluorescence deconvolution microscopy for study of spatial distribution of secretory vesicles in living cells].

A three-dimensional image of a living cell is helpful for cell secretion study. In this report, the three-dimensional fluorescence deconvolution microscopy for observing living cells was studied, because this technique can obtain a quick three-dimensional imaging with minimal fluorescence quenching and cytotoxicity for living cell observation. The property of three-dimensional point spread function (PSF) of imaging system was analyzed. The relationship between experimental and theoretical PSF was illustrated, and the theoretical PSF was proved that it could reflect the principle of imaging system with NA 1.65 objective in use. Three-dimensional deconvolution algorithm in this report was proved effective by well-defined three-dimensional specimens. Furthermore, the rat pancreatic beta cell secretory vesicles labeled by acridine orange was observed by using this technique. Results showed that the blurring induced by out-of-focus light was removed by the deconvolution algorithm effectively, under current experiment conditions (with NA 1.65 objective) the experimental PSF approximated the theoretical PSF very well, and deconvolved living cell images exhibited the spatial distribution of the secretory vesicles clearly.