Application of CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing system for molecular breeding of orchids

Orchid is an important ornamental plant in Indonesia due to their natural beauty of flowers. In the tropical forest, orchids are being acquired for trading and commercial market. Thus, the effort is required to proliferate orchid in large quantities for conservation and improve the floral variation for plant breeding. The purpose of this study is to develop a firmed methodology of molecular breeding of orchids using CRISPR/Cas9 KO system. The plant material used was Phalaenopsis amabilis protocorms growth on NP medium+pepton (2 g/L). Protocorm were submerged in the culture of Agrobacterium tumefaciens that Ti‐plasmid had been filled with a T‐DNA construct of a pRGEB32 vector harboring sgRNA with PDS3 sequence. Detection for transformants was confirmed by PCR using HPT primers (545 bp), Cas9 primers (402 bp), PDS primers (280 bp) and trnL‐F (1200 bp) as an internal control. The results showed that 0.96% PDS transformants were obtained from PDS3T2 lines. Several transformant showed pale leaf color compared to non‐transformant plants. This study suggests that the target gene has successfully edited by CRISPR/Cas9 system and could be applied for that functional gene editing in orchids

センダイシ オヨビ ナトリシ デ シハンサレル トリ ヒキニク カラノ サルモネラ ノ ケンシュツ ホウコク

本研究では、宮城県で調査報告の少ない鳥ひき肉におけるサルモネラの汚染状況を調査した。その結果、市販される鶏ひき肉55.2％にサルモネラの汚染が確認された。この汚染レベルは、全国レベルに匹敵し、鶏の育成場所や鳥肉処理場、ミンチ加工処理、包装などが違えども、同程度の汚染がみられた。またムネ肉とモモ肉では、汚染には差が認められなかった。販売店舗としては調査した11店舗中10店舗の鳥ひき肉でサルモネラ汚染は認められたが、直接培養で検出されないなど、その汚染菌数は少ない。さらに冷蔵や加熱などの食品に認められる損傷菌に関しても、今回分離したサルモネラの37.5％が損傷菌である可能性がある。ここ宮城県仙台市および名取市で市販される鳥ひき肉からもサルモネラ菌の汚染が示されたことから、鳥ひき肉の調理や取り扱いにも十分注意することを強調したい

The whole blood transcriptional regulation landscape in 465 COVID-19 infected samples from Japan COVID-19 Task Force

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19患者由来の血液細胞における遺伝子発現の網羅的解析 --重症度に応じた遺伝子発現の変化には、ヒトゲノム配列の個人差が影響する--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-23.Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a recently-emerged infectious disease that has caused millions of deaths, where comprehensive understanding of disease mechanisms is still unestablished. In particular, studies of gene expression dynamics and regulation landscape in COVID-19 infected individuals are limited. Here, we report on a thorough analysis of whole blood RNA-seq data from 465 genotyped samples from the Japan COVID-19 Task Force, including 359 severe and 106 non-severe COVID-19 cases. We discover 1169 putative causal expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) including 34 possible colocalizations with biobank fine-mapping results of hematopoietic traits in a Japanese population, 1549 putative causal splice QTLs (sQTLs; e.g. two independent sQTLs at TOR1AIP1), as well as biologically interpretable trans-eQTL examples (e.g., REST and STING1), all fine-mapped at single variant resolution. We perform differential gene expression analysis to elucidate 198 genes with increased expression in severe COVID-19 cases and enriched for innate immune-related functions. Finally, we evaluate the limited but non-zero effect of COVID-19 phenotype on eQTL discovery, and highlight the presence of COVID-19 severity-interaction eQTLs (ieQTLs; e.g., CLEC4C and MYBL2). Our study provides a comprehensive catalog of whole blood regulatory variants in Japanese, as well as a reference for transcriptional landscapes in response to COVID-19 infection

Enantioselective bromination of axially chiral cyanoarenes in the presence of bifunctional organocatalysts

Enantioselective bromination of axially chiral cyanoarenes bearing high intrinsic rotational barriers via dynamic kinetic resolution using bifunctional organocatalysts is reported. Sequential addition of a brominating reagent in several portions at an optimized temperature was effective in accomplishing high enantioselectivities

Bifunctional organocatalysts for the asymmetric synthesis of axially chiral benzamides

Bifunctional organocatalysts bearing amino and urea functional groups in a chiral molecular skeleton were applied to the enantioselective synthesis of axially chiral benzamides via aromatic electrophilic bromination. The results demonstrate the versatility of bifunctional organocatalysts for the enantioselective construction of axially chiral compounds. Moderate to good enantioselectivities were afforded with a range of benzamide substrates. Mechanistic investigations were also carried out