Background : We examined the prevalence of and risk factors for nocturia in Kurashiki city and the surrounding area, a rural area in Japan. Conclusions : Although population bias is an important limitation to this study, nocturia is associated with various factors suggesting that multiple approaches are needed to the treatment of patients with nocturia. Materials and Methods

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The prevalence of renal cysts increases with age and shows a remarkable difference in incidence by sex. Renal cysts progress in size and number, and appear to grow more rapidly in younger patients. The natural history of multiloculated cysts may be distinct from that of simple cysts and warrants further investigation.

The gene encoding an extracellular metalloproteinase from Serratia sp. E-15 has been cloned, and its complete nucleotide sequence determined. The amino acid sequence deduced from the nucleotide sequence reveals that the mature protein of the Serratia protease consists of 470 amino acids with a molecular weight of 50,632. The G+C content of the coding region for the mature protein is 58%; this high G+C content is due to a marked preference for G+C bases at the third position of the codons. The gene codes for a short pro-peptide preceding the mature protein. The Serratia protease gene was expressed in Escherichia coli and Serratia marcescens; the former produced the Serratia protease in the cells and the latter in the culture medium. Three zinc ligands and an active site of the Serratia protease were predicted by comparing the structure of the enzyme with those of thermolysin and Bacillus subtilis neutral protease.

Background: New methods for detection of bladder cancer are needed because cystoscopy is both invasive and expensive and urine cytology has low sensitivity. We screened proteins as tumor markers for bladder cancer by proteomic analysis of cancerous and healthy tissues and investigated the diagnostic accuracy of one such marker in urine. Methods: Three specimens of bladder cancer and healthy urothelium, respectively, were used for proteome differential display using narrow-pH-range twodimensional electrophoresis. To evaluate the presence of calreticulin (CRT) as detected by Western blotting, we obtained 22 cancerous and 10 noncancerous surgical specimens from transurethral resection or radical cystectomy. To evaluate urinary CRT, we collected 70 and 181 urine samples from patients with and without bladder cancer, respectively. Anti-CRT COOH-terminus antibody was used to detect CRT in tissue and urine. Results: Proteomic analysis revealed increased CRT (55 kDa; pI 4.3) in cancer tissue. Quantitative Western blot analysis showed that CRT was increased in cancer tissue (P ‫؍‬ 0.0003). Urinary CRT had a sensitivity of 73% (95% confidence interval, 62-83%) at a specificity of 86% (80 -91%) for bladder cancer in the samples tested. Conclusions: Proteomic analysis is useful in searching for candidate proteins as biomarkers and led to the