AIMS Intestinal trefoil factor is a mucosa associated trefoil peptide expressed predominantly in the goblet cells of the small and large intestine. The aim of this work was to investigate the expression of the intestinal trefoil factor gene in human colorectal cancers. METHODS The expression of intestinal trefoil factor mRNA was examined by northern blot analysis in 27 cases of surgically res...

As part of a study to evaluate alternative forages for farmed deer, we compared forage yields and quality of birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) and forage chicory (Cichorium intybus) with that of alfalfa (Medicago sativa) in north central Alberta, Canada. Despite similar plant densities among the three species, the foliar cover of chicory averaged 76%, 20% greater than alfalfa and 50% great...

Healing of mucosal damage takes place in two phases: restitution of mucosal integrity and remodeling towards recreating the original glandular arrangements. These processes can be observed in several experimental rodent models: e.g., cryoprobe or NSAID-generated ulcers in the gastric or duodenal mucosa and following surgical resection of the small or large bowel. In some studies, it has been po...

Recent evidence from our studies indicates that solid tumor growth is not continuous but that it can be separated into two stages, avascular and vascular. In the avascular stage, tumors remain dormant at diameters of 1 to 2 mm. Further growth is possible only after new capillaries have been elicited from the host and have penetrated the tumor. This capillary proliferation is stimulated by a dif...

This article describes on-going work using an object-oriented database, P/FDM, to build 3D homology models of β-trefoil proteins such as Interleukin-1 (IL-1), by exploiting existing structural data from known structures of the same fold. The model-building procedure is based on the powerful querying capabilities of P/FDM that allows data access, navigation, and computation to be mixed freely an...

AIM To compare the optical outcomes of biaxial microincision cataract surgery (B-MICS) versus coaxial small-incision cataract surgery (C-SICS). METHODS Thirty patients (sixty eyes) with bilateral age-related cataract underwent B-MICS through a 1.7 mm clear corneal incision (CCI) in one eye and C-SICS through a 2.8-mm CCI in the other eye. Every eye was implanted with a micro-incision aspheric...

The shallow lateral recesses of the trefoil shape of the lumbar spinal canal have been implicated in the production of the spinal stenosis syndrome. In the present study, 485 skeletons of South African Blacks and Whites were examined in order to establish the incidence and possible genesis of the trefoil configuration. The overall incidence was 14 per cent, with little variation between the sex...