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The safe disposal of unused opioid drugs is an area of regulatory concern. While toilet flushing is recommended for some drugs to prevent accidental exposure, there is a need for data that can support a more consistent disposal policy based on an assessment of relative risk. For drugs acting at the Mu-opioid receptor (MOR), published measurements of binding affinity (K(i)) are incomplete and inconsistent due to differences in methodology and assay system, leading to a wide range of values for the same drug thus precluding a simple and meaningful relative ranking of drug potency. Experiments were conducted to obtain K(i)'s for 19 approved opioid drugs using a single binding assay in a cell membrane preparation expressing recombinant human MOR. The K(i) values obtained ranged from 0.1380 nM (sufentanil) to 12.486 μM (tramadol). The drugs were separated into three categories based upon their K(i) values: K(i)> 100 nM (tramadol, codeine, meperidine, propoxyphene and pentazocine), K(i)=1-100 nM (hydrocodone, oxycodone, diphenoxylate, alfentanil, methadone, nalbuphine, fentanyl and morphine) and K(i) < 1 nM (butorphanol, levorphanol, oxymorphone, hydromorphone, buprenorphine and sufentanil). These data add to the understanding of the pharmacology of opioid drugs and support the development of a more consistent labeling policies regarding safe disposal.

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Background Fixation of unstable ankle fractures, including fixation of posterior malleolus fracture fragments with the attached, intact posteroinferior tibiofibular ligament (PITFL), reportedly provides more stable fixation than transsyndesmotic screws. Questions/Purposes To confirm this observation we compared the Foot and Ankle Outcome Score (FAOS) and radiographic maintenance of fixation for fractures treated through direct posterior malleolar fixation versus syndesmotic screw fixation. Methods We prospectively followed 31 one patients with unstable ankle fractures treated with (1) open posterior malleolus fixation whenever the posterior malleolus was fractured, regardless of fragment size (PM group; n = 9); (2) locked syndesmotic screws in the absence of a posterior malleolar fracture (S group; n = 14); or (3) combined fixation in fracture-dislocations and more severe soft tissue injury (C group; n = 8). All patients had preoperative MRI confirming syndesmotic injury and an intact PITFL; postoperative and followup radiographs were evaluated for syndesmotic congruence. The minimum followup was 12 months (mean, 15 months; range, 12-31 months).

Proteomic analysis of any biological system by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) requires high resolution and high reproducibility. The results presented here demonstrate the reproducible and accurate separation of rice (Oryza sativa L.) proteins using improved procedures for high resolution 2-DE, which were adapted for the separation of rice lamina proteins. Validation of this system was achieved by measuring the effects of sample preparation and biological variation on the coefficient of variation (CV) for replicate spots. The majority of experimental variation was shown to be introduced by the 2-DE technique (CV 0.26). Analysis of biological variation indicated that approximately 93-95% of spots were within a CV of 0.7. This provided a threshold value from which valid differences in expression between experimental groups could be screened. This system was then utilized for the proteomic analysis of short- and long-term salt-stress-responsive proteins in the rice leaf lamina. Analysis resulted in the separation of approximately 2500 protein species of which 32 were observed to be significantly regulated by salinity; so far 11 of these proteins have been identified by tandem mass spectrometry. An increase in eight proteins, including RuBisCO activase and ferritin, occurred by 24 h of exposure to sodium chloride (50 mM) and continued to increase during the following 6 d. Only one protein, a putative phosphoglycerate kinase, was found to increase in expression within 24 h and did not increase over a longer period of exposure to salt. There were also proteins that showed no change 24 h after exposure to salt, but had increased (superoxide dismutase) or decreased (S-adenosyl-L-methionine synthetase) after 7 d salt treatment.