OBJECTIVE To establish and verify the utility of plugging biopsy tracts, using a combination of Gelfoam slurry and torpedo in the prevention of post-biopsy bleeding in patients at high risk of post-procedure haemorrhage following ultrasound-guided percutaneous biopsy of solid organs. DESIGN Case series. SETTING Radiology Department of a regional hospital in Hong Kong. PATIENTS In our unit...

To achieve large-scale low-cost ex vitro acclimatization of Siberian ginseng plants, heart- and torpedo-shaped secondary somatic embryos (SEs) induced from germinated SEs on agar medium were collected and then inoculated to 10-l bubble column bioreactor, respectively. For plantlet conversion, inoculation of torpedo-shaped secondary SEs was more effective than heart-shaped SEs. TS2 (culture of t...

We previously showed that trehalose-6-phosphate synthase 1 (TPS1), which catalyses the first step in trehalose synthesis, is essential for embryo maturation in Arabidopsis. The tps1 mutant embryos develop more slowly than wild type. Patterning in the tps1 embryos appears normal but they do not progress past the torpedo stage to cotyledon stage, which is when storage reserves start to accumulate...

The use of powerful numerical tools based on the finite-element method has been improving the prediction of the holding capacity of fixed anchors employed by the offshore oil industry. One of the main achievements of these tools is the reduction of the uncertainty related to the holding capacity calculation of these anchors. Therefore, it is also possible to reduce the values of the associated ...

Intact acetylcholine receptors have been purified on a novel affinity resin from three electric fish endemic to Australian waters. Their binding properties and morphology are compared with those of their northern hemisphere homolog, Torpedo marmorata. All four exhibit apparent dissociation constants, Kd, in the nanomolar range for the snake neurotoxin alpha-bungarotoxin and have a distinctive r...

AIM To construct synthetic antigens using the epitope of human brain acetylcholinesterase (hbAChE) for induction and detection of the specific antibody against the epitope, and to analyse the immunogenicity of the antibody. METHODS The epitope (RTVLVSMNYR, amino acids 143-152) of hbAChE was chemically synthesized, coupled with the carrier protein keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH) to construct a...