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Biomedical subjects

P A Moses

Publications and source records attributed to P A Moses.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

Intramedullary interlocking nail stabilisation of 21 humeral fractures in 19 dogs and one cat.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the suitability of the intramedullary interlocking nail to stabilise humeral diaphyseal fractures in dogs and cats. METHOD: This multi-centre study retrospectively examined medical records, between June 1994 and May 2001, of 19 dogs and one cat, in which a total of 21 humeral fractures were stabilised with intramedullary interlocking nails. RESULTS: Animals ranged in body-weight from 4 to 97 kg. Eighteen (86%) of the fractures were comminuted. Adjunctive stabilisation was used in twelve (57%) fractures and bone grafts in nine (43%) fractures. A rapid return of function was noted in the majority of animals, with 14 (67%) having good or excellent function within four days of surgery. In two fractures the repair collapsed when a single proximal transcortical screw was placed cranial to the tricipital line of the humerus. This suggests that if a single transcortical screw is placed proximally the screw should be distal or caudal to the tricipital line in order to engage sufficient cortical bone. Eighteen (86%) of the fractures healed when stabilised with intramedullary interlocking nails. Three fractures did not heal. One was in a dog where a pathological fracture was temporarily stabilised with an intramedullary interlocking nail, one in a dog that died of an abdominal crisis three weeks after surgery and one in a dog in which fracture stabilisation collapsed due to incorrect implant selection. CONCLUSION: Intramedullary interlocking nails are well suited to the stabilisation of humeral diaphyseal fractures in dogs and cats.

Animals↗

Glucocorticoids decrease interleukin-6 levels and induce mineralization of cultured osteogenic cells from children with fibrous dysplasia.

Fibrous dysplasia (FD) is a progressive bone disease in which abnormal fibroblast proliferation results in the replacement of normal cancellous bone with an immature fibrous tissue that is poorly mineralized. The disease manifests itself in the monostotic form in which only one bone is involved and the polyostotic form in which multiple bones at different sites are affected. The McCune-Albright syndrome is a variation of the polyostotic form in which patients demonstrate a greater extent of bone involvement and a variety of endocrinopathies. Somatic activating mutations in the GNAS gene have been demonstrated in the fibrotic lesions of patients affected with either monostotic or polyostotic FD. The increased cAMP levels caused by the G-protein mutations lead to increased interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels in the affected tissues, resulting in abnormal osteoblast differentiation and increased osteoclastic activity. Utilizing cell culture techniques that have been developed for mammalian bone marrow stromal cells, we have successfully cultured osteogenic stem cells from the affected stroma of 11 FD patients. Cells cultured from patients with polyostotic FD showed a high frequency of the Gsalpha mutation, whereas cells from monostotic FD patients showed a low frequency of the mutation. Both the normal and FD cells displayed the osteogenic phenotype when exposed to medium containing glucocorticoids. Glucocorticoids also caused a dramatic inhibition of IL-6 mRNA and protein levels in osteogenic cells cultured from the FD patients. These findings suggest that chemical alteration of cellular function may lead to new treatment options for patients with FD.

Adolescent↗

Hemin enhances differentiation and maturation of cultured regenerated skeletal myotubes.

Satellite cells, isolated from marcaine-damaged rat skeletal muscle, differentiate in culture to form contracting, cross-striated myotubes. Addition of 20 microM hemin (ferriprotoporphyrin IX chloride) to the culture medium resulted in increases in the number, size, and alignment of myotubes; in the number of myotubes that exhibited cross-striations; and in the strength and frequency of myotube contractions. Hemin increased satellite cell fusion by 27%, but decreased cell proliferative rate by 30%. Hemin increased the specific activity of creatine kinase (CK), a sensitive indicator of muscle differentiation, by 157%. Separation of CK isoenzymes by agarose gel electrophoresis showed that hemin increased only the muscle-specific CK isoenzymes (MM-CK and MB-CK). Thus, hemin seems to duplicate some of the effects of innervation on cultured myotubes by increasing contraction frequency and strength, appearance of cross-striations, and muscle-specific isoenzymes. In contrast, 3-amino-1,2,4-triazole, an inhibitor of heme biosynthesis, decreased the number of cross-striated myotubes, the strength and frequency of myotube contractions, and CK activity. These inhibitory effects were reversed by hemin. Collectively, these results demonstrate a physiologically significant role for heme in myotube maturation.

Animals↗

Assignment of the human dihydrofolate reductase gene to the q11----q22 region of chromosome 5.

Cells from a dihydrofolate reductase-deficient Chinese hamster ovary cell line were hybridized to human fetal skin fibroblast cells. Nineteen dihydrofolate reductase-positive hybrid clones were isolated and characterized. Cytogenetic and biochemical analyses of these clones have shown that the human dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) gene is located on chromosome 5. Three of these hybrid cell lines contained different terminal deletions of chromosome 5. An analysis of the breakpoints of these deletions has demonstrated that the DHFR gene resides in the q11----q22 region.

Animals↗

Effect of triplet repeat expansion on chromatin structure and expression of DMPK and neighboring genes, SIX5 and DMWD, in myotonic dystrophy.

Myotonic dystrophy (DM), an autosomal dominant neuromuscular disease, is associated with expansion of a polymorphic (CTG)n repeat in the 3'-untranslated region of the DM protein kinase (DMPK) gene. The repeat expansion results in decreased levels of DMPK mRNA and protein, but the mechanism for this decreased expression is unknown. Loss of a nuclease-hypersensitive site in the region of the repeat expansion has been observed in muscle and skin fibroblasts from DM patients, indicating a change in local chromatin structure. This change in chromatin structure has been proposed as a mechanism whereby the expression of DMPK and neighboring genes, sine oculis homeobox (Drosophila) homolog 5 (SIX5) and dystrophia myotonica-containing WD repeat motif (DMWD), might be affected. We have developed a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based method to assay the chromatin sensitivity of the region adjacent to the repeat expansion in somatic cell hybrids carrying either normal or affected DMPK alleles and show that hybrids carrying expanded alleles exhibit decreased sensitivity to PvuII digestion in this region. Semiquantitative multiplex reverse transcriptase PCR (RT/PCR) assays of gene expression from the chromosomes carrying the expanded alleles showed marked reduction of DMPK mRNA, partial inhibition of SIX5 expression from a congenital DM chromosome, and no reduction of DMWD mRNA. Nested RT/PCR analysis of DMPK mRNA from somatic cell hybrids carrying the repeat expansions revealed that most of the DMPK transcripts expressed from the expanded alleles lacked exons 13 and 14, whereas full-length transcripts were expressed predominantly from the normal alleles. These results suggest that the CTG repeat expansion leads to a decrease in DMPK mRNA levels by affecting splicing at the 3' end of the DMPK pre-mRNA transcript.

Cells, Cultured↗