Larry Mimms – 1 March 1995 – Hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA was extracted from sera of six carriers with hepatitis B e antigen as well as antibody to hepatitis B surface antigen and sequenced within the pre‐S regions and the S gene. HBV DNA clones from five of these carriers had point mutations in the S gene, resulting in conversion from IIe‐126 or Thr‐126 of the wild‐type virus to Ser‐126 or Asn‐126 in three carriers and conversion from Gly‐145 to Arg‐145 in three of them; clones with Asn‐126 or Arg‐145 were found in one carrier.

Bing Lu, Sanjeev Gupta, Howard Federoff – 1 March 1995 – A defective amplicon herpes simplex virus‐1 (HSV‐1) vector, HSVlac, was used to transfer an E. coli lacZ reporter gene into primary hepatocytes. The lacZ gene was driven by the HSV immediate early (IE) 4/5 promoter. Use of the HSVlac vector resulted in highly efficient gene transfer. Because difficulties in culturing primary hepatocytes impose limitations in ex vivo gene therapy, we sought to determine whether use of the HSVlac vector could simplify gene transfer.

Giorgio Ballardini, Paolo Groff, Fabrizio Giostra, Raffaella Francesconi, Rita Miniero, Sabrina Ghetti, Daniela Zauli, Francesco B. Bianchi – 1 March 1995 – Hepatitis C virus (HCV) antigens in liver biopsy have been detected by immunohistochemistry using both spontaneous human IgG and murine monoclonal or rabbit polyclonal monospecific reagents. Conflicting results have been obtained in different studies. This was probably because of the incapacity of single experimental antibodies, raised against synthetic or recombinant peptides, to recognize native tissue antigens.

Florence Wong, Alexander Logan, Laurence Blendis – 1 March 1995 – The aim of this study was to assess baroreceptor function in well‐compensated cirrhosis by determining the forearm vascular, renal, and humoral responses to sustained baroreceptor deactivation. The effect of sodium status on baroreceptor function was also assessed. Eight cirrhotic patients and 10 age‐ and sex‐matched controls were studied twice after a 20 mmol and 200 mmol of sodium/d diet for 7 days.

Bertrand Dousset, Didier Houssin, Olivier Soubrane, Olivier Boillot, François Baudin, Yves Chapuis – 1 March 1995 – The authors describe their experience with liver transplantation (OLT) for metastatic endocrine tumors (MET) in order to determine reasonable indications for OLT in patients with this disease. Removal of the primary lesion and subsequent liver transplantation were performed in two separate procedures in all patients except one.

Hikaru Fujioka, Donald V. Cramer, Chikao Yasunaga, Phillip J. Tuso, Guo‐Du Wu, Yvette Middleton, Albert D. Moscioni, Jacek Rozga, Achilles A. Demetriou, Leonard Makowka – 1 March 1995 – We have recently conducted a series of experiments to characterize the pattern of reaction of human natural antibodies (NA) with individual pig liver cells.

1 March 1995

William W. Chin – 1 March 1995

John R. Lake, Norman L. Sussman – 1 March 1995

Mark A. Kay, Frank Graham, Frances Leland, Savio L. C. Woo – 1 March 1995 – Alpha‐1‐antitrypsin is a relatively common genetic deficiency that results in early emphysema. The liver as the natural source of most alpha‐1‐antitrypsin synthesis was the target organ selected for gene replacement therapy studies. Previous work used recombinant retroviral vectors that encode the human alpha‐1‐antitrypsin cDNA for ex vivo and direct in vivo transduction of hepatocytes in dogs and rodents. This approach led to low levels of the human protein in the serum of recipients.