[Anesthetic Management for a Patient with Fibromyalgia].

A 22-year-old female with fibromyalgia (FM) was scheduled for tonsillectomy under general anesthesia. Her medication included pregabalin 300 mg x day(-1) and dantrolene 50 mg x day(-1). Anesthesia was maintained with sevoflurane-remifentanil-fentanyl. Intravenous injection of fentanyl 20 µg x hr(-1) and droperidol 100 µg x hr(-1) was continued for 24 hours. On the first postoperative day, she reported that she had slept well and had no pain. There are some perioperative problems in a patient with FM. Therefore, anesthetic managements for a patient with FM is worth reporting.

Rapid analysis of gasoline-contaminated soil using multiphoton ionization/time-of-flight mass spectrometry.

Multiphoton ionization/time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MPI/TOFMS) was modified for the rapid analysis of gasoline-contaminated soil. This technique uses a nanosecond laser emitting at 266 nm, and has the potential to produce the mass spectrum for gasoline 30 min after sampling. The rapidity and robustness of the method can be applied to the screening of gasoline-contaminated soils while minimizing the risk of contamination when gas chromatograph (GC) is used. GC/MPI/TOFMS was used for a simultaneous determination of aromatic compounds of gasoline in a soil sample, and this was achieved without interference. A peak for toluene can be observed from 0.02 ng of gasoline, and ten peaks of aromatic hydrocarbons, which are sensitive to measurement by a laser, can be observed from 0.65 ng of gasoline. The MPI/TOFMS had good sensitivity and selectivity, and was therefore useful for the rapid analysis of gasoline-contaminated soils.

The structural mechanism of the inhibition of archaeal RelE toxin by its cognate RelB antitoxin.

The archaeal toxin, aRelE, in the hyperthermophilic archaeon Pyrococcus horikoshii OT3 inhibits protein synthesis, whereas its cognate antitoxin, aRelB, neutralizes aRelE activity by forming a non-toxic complex, aRelB-aRelE. The structural mechanism whereby aRelB neutralizes aRelE activity was examined by biochemical and biophysical analyses. Overexpression of aRelB with an aRelE mutant (ΔC6), in which the C-terminal residues critical for aRelE activity were deleted, in Escherichia coli allowed a stable complex, aRelB-ΔC6, to be purified. Isothermal titration of aRelE or ΔC6 with aRelB indicated that the association constant (Ka) of wild-type aRelB-aRelE is similar to that of aRelB-ΔC6, demonstrating that aRelB makes little contact with the C-terminal active site of aRelE. Overexpression of deletion mutants of aRelB with aRelE indicated that either the N-terminal (pos. 1-27) or C-terminal (pos. 50-67) fragment of aRelB is sufficient to counteract the toxicity of aRelE in E. coli cells and the second α-helix (α2) in aRelB plays a critical role in forming a stable complex with aRelE. The present results demonstrate that aRelB, as expected from its X-ray structure, precludes aRelE from entering the ribosome, wrapping around the molecular surface of aRelE.