Cystadenocarcinoma of the pancreas manifested as a splenic cyst

The case of a 69-year-old man with a multicystic splenic tumor was reported. The tumor occupied about half of the spleen. It was composed of multiple cysts and histologically confirmed as a cystadenocarcinoma. Invasion was observed in the splenic flexure of the colon. A small portion of the pancreatic tail was also involved in the tumor. As to the histogenesis of this "splenic cystic tumor", two possible viewpoints, that is, a growth as a secondary metastasis of a cystadenocarcinoma of the pancreatic tail, and a development on the basis of an aberrant pancreatic tissue in the spleen, were proposed. Regardless of its histogenetical aspects, such a splenic lesion as the present case seems to occur extremely rarely, and only one instance similar to our case could be found in the literature.

[Studies on immunoreactive ACTH from human term placenta. (I) Detection of a high molecular weight-immunoreactive ACTH in term placenta (author's transl)]

Extracts of human term placenta were fractionated by Sephadex G-75 gel filtration and assayed for immunoreactive ACTH. Both high and low molecular weight protein fractions were detected to be immunologically reactive toward anti-human ACTH (1--39 alpha) antibody. For the extraction of low molecular weight ACTH from human term placenta (pl. -ACTH), a glacial acetic acid-acetone mixture was employed, while a pH 3.0-HCl solution was used for high molecular weight immunoreactive ACTH. The high molecular weight immunoreactive ACTH fraction (F-I), co-eluted with horse hemoglobin from a Sephadex G-75.column in 0.1M acetic acid, was essentially devoid of low molecular weight materials as revealed by polyacrylamide gel disc electrophoresis at pHs 9.5 and 4.3. Tryptic digestion of F-1 at pH 8.1 and 37 degrees C for 4 hr with E/S of 1/100, followed by fractionation with a Sephadex G-75, resulted in the formation of lower molecular weight fragments. One fragment was eluted at the same position as that of porcine ACTH with a recovery of 86% of immunoreactivity of F-I. Another fragment which was eluted last exhibited positive beta-endorphin receptor binding activity. These results suggest the presence of a common precursor protein to ACTH and beta-endorphin in human term placenta.

Delayed-type hypersensitivity as revealed on the footpads of mice to azobenzenearsonate-acetyl bovine serum albumin

A strong delayed-type footpad reaction was established in mice using azobenzenearsonate-acetyl bovine serum albumin (ABA-AcBSA) as an antigen. Male ddY/S mice were sensitized by subcutaneous injection of 100 microliter of Freund's complete adjuvant - saline (1:1) emulsion containing 100 microgram of the antigen and challenged by subcutaneous injection of 2.5 microliter of Freund's incomplete adjuvant - saline (1:1) emulsion with 2.5 microgram antigen in the footpad on the 10th day after the sensitization. The analysis of the system which fulfilled criteria for delayed-type hypersensitivity with regard to kinetics, passive transfer and histology of the footpad reaction, and the effect of dexamethasone, indomethacin and quinacrine on the footpad reaction were described.

A third allele at the phosphoglucose isomerase locus of the Japanese quail

Phosphoglucose isomerase electrophoretic patterns of the Japanese quail were found to be controlled by three alleles at an autosomal locus. In the laboratory quail population, the frequency of the alleles PGIF, PGIS1 and PGIS2 was 0.175, 0.465 and 0.360, respectively.

Enzyme immunoassay of human chorionic gonadotropin employing beta-galactosidase as label

An enzyme-linked immunoassay was applied to the determination of hCG, a glycoprotein hormone usually assayed by RIA. For this purpose, an enzyme hormone conjugate was prepared by reacting hCG with beta-D-galactosidase (beta-Gal.) of E. coli in the presence of N-(m-maleimidobenzoyloxy) succinimide (MBS) as coupling reagent. The conjugate, after purification by affinity and gel chromatographies, was shown to exhibit sufficient enzyme activity and immunoactivity. The immunoassay of hCG was performed by the double antibody method and, using this assay, 0.4-250 mIU/ml hCG were detectable. This was about 10 times as sensitive as the RIA. Difficulty was experienced when this method was utilized for the determination of hCG in plasma samples from patients. Since the presence of the plasma may have affected this assay method, the following improvements were made: 1) the same volume of hormone-free plasma was added to the standard solutions of hCG, and 2) the volume of plasma sample was 10 microliter. The performance and validity of this assay were comparable to the RIA using [125I]hCG as tracer. The dose-response curves of both assay have the same slope and there was no significant difference between the values (correlation coefficient, Y = 0.96X + 1.53).

Chronic intestinal bleeding due to arteriovenous malformation of the colon

A case of chronic intestinal bleeding due to arteriovenous malformation of the ascending colon was reported. Vascular abnormalities of the bowel represent the most common cause of gastrointestinal bleeding, the source of which could not be dislosed by conventional diagnostic procedures; selective abdominal angiography is the only most reliable technique in such cases. An acquaintance with these conditions may be of importance in the search for the cause of intestinal hemorrhages of otherwise obscure origin, and more attention should be paid to the clinicopathologic features of this entity.