Novel autoantibodies against tRNAs or tRNA-associated proteins were identified in 28 sera. These autoantibodies appear to be distinct from anti-aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase antibodies and are associated with SLE and SS. The presence of anti-Ro/SSA and/or anti-La/SSB along with anti-tRNA antibodies is more strongly associated with recurrent erythema than is the presence of anti-Ro/SSA or anti-La/SSB alone.

Loss of heterozygosity (LOH) at the deleted in colorectal carcinoma gene (DCC), a tumour suppressor gene that encodes a protein with high homology to the neural cell adhesion molecule, was investigated in 42 surgical specimens of primary breast carcinoma. LOH was analysed in breast carcinoma by amplifying the DNA, spanning a variable number of tandem repeats site and a restriction fragment length polymorphism site within DCC, using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Cell sorting was used to enrich carcinoma cells. The expression of the DCC gene was also investigated using a reverse transcription-PCR method followed by Southern blot hybridization. LOH at the DCC locus was detected in 15 (51.7%) of 29 informative cases and 10 of 13 cases having DCC-LOH showed distinct reduction or loss of DCC expression. The DCC-LOH was closely associated with certain histological phenotypes: DCC-LOH was more frequent in scirrhous carcinomas than in solid-tubular ones (P < 0.05), and was also more frequent in carcinomas with infiltration into fat tissue over the mammary gland than in those without infiltration (P < 0.05). DCC-LOH was detected in invasive lobular carcinomas (2/2), but in none of the noninvasive ductal carcinomas (0/2). These observations suggest that malignant histological phenotypes are associated with DCC-LOH.

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The numerical analysis of the demonstration fusion reactor Demo-CREST has been carried out; this analysis focuses on impurity seeding. Several design activities for DEMO have been carried out; however, its detailed divertor plasma analysis remains to be carried out. Therefore, in this study, we discuss the possibility of neon puffing in Demo-CREST to decrease the power load to the divertor plate by using the B2-EIRENE code. It has been shown that the radiation power loss by neon increases with upstream plasma density and that the peak power load to the divertor plate comes close to the allowable level by using the preliminary divertor configuration.

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