The purpose of this study was the development and testing of a method for unsupervised, automated brain segmentation. Two spin-echo sequences were used to obtain relaxation rates and proton-density maps from 1.5 T MR studies, with two axial data sets including the entire brain. Fifty normal subjects (age range, 16 to 76 years) were studied. A Three-dimensional (3D) spectrum of the tissue voxels was used for automatic segmentation of gray matter (GM), white matter (WM), and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and for calculation of their volumes. Accuracy and reproducibility were tested with a three-compartment phantom simulating GM, WM, and CSF. In the normal subjects, a significant decrease of GM fractional volume and increased CSF volume with age were observed (P < 0.0001), with no significant changes in WM. This multispectral segmentation method permits reproducible, operator-independent volumetric measurements.

BackgroundFood allergy is increasingly common worldwide. Tools for allergy diagnosis measuring IgE improved much since allergenic molecules and microarrays started to be used. IgE response toward allergens belonging to the same group of molecules has not been comprehensively explored using such approach yet.ObjectiveUsing the model of lipid transfer proteins (LTPs) from plants as allergens, including two new structures, we sought to define how heterogeneous is the behavior of homologous proteins.MethodsTwo new allergenic LTPs, Act d 10 and Act c 10, have been identified in green (Actinidia deliciosa) and gold (Actinidia chinensis) kiwifruit (KF), respectively, using clinically characterized allergic patients, and their biochemical features comparatively evaluated by means of amino acid sequence alignments. Along with other five LTPs from peach, mulberry, hazelnut, peanut, mugwort, KF LTPs, preliminary tested positive for IgE, have been immobilized on a microarray, used for IgE testing 1,003 allergic subjects. Comparative analysis has been carried out.ResultsAlignment of Act d 10 primary structure with the other allergenic LTPs shows amino acid identities to be in a narrow range between 40 and 55%, with a number of substitutions making the sequences quite different from each other. Although peach LTP dominates the IgE immune response in terms of prevalence, epitope recognition driven by sequence heterogeneity has been recorded to be distributed in a wide range of behaviors. KF LTPs IgE positive results were obtained in a patient subset IgE positive for the peach LTP. Anyhow, the negative results on homologous molecules allowed us to reintroduce KF in patients' diet.ConclusionThe biochemical nature of allergenic molecule belonging to a group of homologous ones should not be taken as proof of immunological recognition as well. The availability of panels of homologous molecules to be tested using microarrays is valuable to address the therapeutic intervention.

Purpose: To test whether a novel bifunctional chimeric peptide comprising a cyclic ArgGly-Asp pentapeptide covalently bound to an echistatin domain can discriminate α v β 3 from α v β 5 integrin, thus allowing the in vivo selective visualization of α v β 3 expression by single-photon and positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. Experimental Design: The chimeric peptide was preliminarily tested for inhibition of α v β 3 -dependent cell adhesion and competition of 125