Mass Measurement of the Decaying Bino at the LHC

In some class of supersymmetric (SUSY) models, the neutral Wino becomes the lightest superparticle and the Bino decays into the Wino and standard-model particles. In such models, we show that the measurement of the Bino mass is possible if the short charged tracks (with the length of O(10 cm)) can be identified as a signal of the charged-Wino production. We pay particular attention to the anomaly-mediated SUSY-breaking (AMSB) model with a generic form of K\"ahler potential, in which only the gauginos are kinematically accessible superparticles to the LHC, and discuss the implication of the Bino mass measurement for the test of the AMSB model.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Effects of hydrogen-rich water on aging periodontal tissues in rats

Oxidative damage is involved in age-related inflammatory reactions. The anti-oxidative effects of hydrogen-rich water suppress oxidative damage, which may aid in inhibiting age-related inflammatory reactions. We investigated the effects of drinking hydrogen-rich water on aging periodontal tissues in healthy rats. Four-month-old male Fischer 344 rats (n = 12) were divided into two groups: the experimental group (hydrogen-rich water treatment) and the control group (distilled water treatment). The rats consumed hydrogen-rich water or distilled water until 16 months of age. The experimental group exhibited lower periodontal oxidative damage at 16 months of age than the control group. Although protein expression of interleukin-1 beta did not differ, gene expression of Nod-like receptor protein 3 inflammasomes was activated in periodontal tissues from the experimental group as compared with the control group. Drinking hydrogen-rich water is proposed to have anti-aging effects on periodontal oxidative damage, but not on inflammatory reactions in healthy rats

ガン チリョウヤク ト フクサヨウ

In Japan, about one-half of population suffers from cancer in their lives, and one-third will die of it. Currently, we have three strategies in the treatment of cancer, i.e., surgical treatment, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy（drug therapy）. Most conventional chemotherapeutic drugs work by impairing cell division, resulting in apototic cell death. However, these drugs have potent side-effects including nausea and vomiting, diarrhea and constipation, anemia, hair loss, hemorrhage, immunosupression and myelosuppression, and secondary neoplasms due to disrupt normal cell growth. Some specific anti-cancer drugs are associated with organ-specific toxicities including cardiovascular disease（e.g., doxorubicin）and lung disease（e.g., bleomycin）. In addition, anti-cancer drugs are applied to patients with maximum tolerated dose（MTD）, side-effects are intolerable to the patients in most cases. In order to improve these unpleasant symptoms, some drugs are approved to cope with the side-effects of chemotherapy（synthetic G-CSF for neutropenia, ５-HT３ inhibitors to block one or more of the signals that cause nausea and vomiting）though, medical staffs should pay attention to these sign of side effects. By the way, recent advances in molecular biology have identified numerous genes and proteins involved in malignant transformation as targets of anticancer therapy. Many moleculartargeted agents are now applied at the bedside. Successful developments of trastuzumab in treating breast cancer, imatinib in chronic myeloid leukemia（CML）and gastrointestinal stromal tumors（ GISTs）, gefitinib and erlotinib in non-small cell lung cancer, sunitinib in GISTs and renal cell carcinoma（RCC）, sorafenib in RCC, and bevacizumab in colorectal cancer, have validated the concept of molecular targeting and raised expectations of patients and oncologists alike. These drugs have high selectivity for tumor cells, provide effective treatment, and produce fewer side effects than are seen with conventional anticancer agents. However, unexpected untoward results may occur during treatment. Special attention will be required

Stau Kinks at the LHC

The kink signature of charged tracks is predicted in some SUSY models, and it is very characteristic signal at collider experiments. We study the kink signature at LHC using two models, SUSY models with a gravitino LSP and a stau NLSP, and R-parity violating SUSY models with a stau (N)LSP. We find that a large number of kink events can be discovered in a wide range of the SUSY parameters, when the decay length is O(10-10^5)mm. Model discrimination by identifying the daughter particles of the kink tracks is also discussed.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures; Version published in JHEP; abstract refined, reference added and several minor corrections in tex

DOCK2 is involved in the host genetics and biology of severe COVID-19

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19疾患感受性遺伝子DOCK2の重症化機序を解明 --アジア最大のバイオレポジトリーでCOVID-19の治療標的を発見--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-10.Identifying the host genetic factors underlying severe COVID-19 is an emerging challenge. Here we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) involving 2, 393 cases of COVID-19 in a cohort of Japanese individuals collected during the initial waves of the pandemic, with 3, 289 unaffected controls. We identified a variant on chromosome 5 at 5q35 (rs60200309-A), close to the dedicator of cytokinesis 2 gene (DOCK2), which was associated with severe COVID-19 in patients less than 65 years of age. This risk allele was prevalent in East Asian individuals but rare in Europeans, highlighting the value of genome-wide association studies in non-European populations. RNA-sequencing analysis of 473 bulk peripheral blood samples identified decreased expression of DOCK2 associated with the risk allele in these younger patients. DOCK2 expression was suppressed in patients with severe cases of COVID-19. Single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis (n = 61 individuals) identified cell-type-specific downregulation of DOCK2 and a COVID-19-specific decreasing effect of the risk allele on DOCK2 expression in non-classical monocytes. Immunohistochemistry of lung specimens from patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia showed suppressed DOCK2 expression. Moreover, inhibition of DOCK2 function with CPYPP increased the severity of pneumonia in a Syrian hamster model of SARS-CoV-2 infection, characterized by weight loss, lung oedema, enhanced viral loads, impaired macrophage recruitment and dysregulated type I interferon responses. We conclude that DOCK2 has an important role in the host immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and the development of severe COVID-19, and could be further explored as a potential biomarker and/or therapeutic target

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

Search for Long-lived Chargino with Anomaly-Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking Scenarios in pp Collisions at s\sqrt s = 7 TeV

A search for long-lived charginos in anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking (AMSB) mod- els is performed using 4.7 fb 1 data of pp collisions at p s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector. In the AMSB models, the wino is the lightest gaugino and the lightest chargino and neutralino (as the lightest supersymmetric particle) are dominantly composed of the charged and neutral winos, respectively. Furthermore, the masses of the charged and neutral winos are highly de- generate, which results in a significant lifetime of the chargino. The lightest chargino decays into a neutralino and a soft charged pion. Due to the mass degeneracy, the momentum of the pion originating from the chargino decay is too soft to be reconstructed in collider experiments. The neutralino escapes detection, therefore, the decaying chargino could be identified as a high- momentum track breaking up in the tracking volume ( disappearing track ). In this dissertation, a method for detecting such chargino tracks is newly developed. The tran- sition radiation tracker (TRT) employed as one of the ATLAS inner detectors, consisting of a lot of drift tubes, is used for the identification of the disappearing track. A large number of associated hits in the TRT detector for the stable charged particles while a smaller number is expected for decaying charginos. By requiring a small number of TRT hits along a track, the chargino track is discriminated to the track of the SM particles. After the application of selection requirements, three hundred and four candidate tracks remain. The background and signal yields are determined by an unbinned maximum likelihood fit on the pt of the tracks. The p T spectrum of the candidate tracks is consistent with the background-only hypothesis and no excess of data is found. New constraints on the chargino properties and the AMSB model parameters are then set. A chargino having a lifetime ̃ 1 = 1 ns is excluded up to m ̃ 1 120 GeV in the region m 3 2 > 2000 GeV at 95% Confidence Level (CL). For a chargino having a lifetime ̃ 1 = 0 : 3 ns, a constraint of m ̃ 1 > 100 GeV in the region m 3 2 > 2000 GeV is set at 95% C

HDL シンセイ ニ カカワル ABCA1 ノ サイボウナイ ドウタイ ト ブンカイ キコウ ノ カイセキ

京都大学0048新制・課程博士博士(農学)甲第14841号農博第1781号新制||農||974(附属図書館)学位論文||H21||N4481(農学部図書室)27247UT51-2009-F483京都大学大学院農学研究科応用生命科学専攻(主査)教授 植田 和光, 教授 阪井 康能, 教授 三芳 秀人学位規則第4条第1項該当Doctor of Agricultural ScienceKyoto UniversityDA

Synthesis and Structure of Vacancy-Ordered Perovskite Ba6Ta2Na2X2O17 (X = P, V): Significance of Structural Model Selection on Discovered Compounds

Ba6Ru2Na2X2O17 (X = P, V) with vacancy-ordered 12H-type hexagonal perovskite with a (c’cchcc)2 stacking sequence of [BaO3]c, [BaO3]h and [BaO2]c’ layers, where c and h represent a cubic and hexagonal stacking sequence, were previously reported by Quarez et al. in 2003. They also synthesized Ba6Ta2Na2V2O17, but the structural refinement was absent. Very recently, Szymanski et al. reported 41 new compounds, including 12H-type Ba6Ta2Na2V2O17, using large-scale ab initio phase-stability data from the Materials Project and Google DeepMind. But their structural refinement was very poor. Here, we report synthesis and structure of Ba6Ta2Na2V2O17, which does not have 12H-type structure, but has a vacancy-ordered 6C-type hexagonal perovskite with a (c’ccccc) stacking sequence of [BaO3]c and [BaO2]c’ layers. We also report the phosphite analog Ba6Ta2Na2P2O17 as a new compound. We claim an importance of careful structural characterization on newly discovered compounds; otherwise, the database constructed will lose credibility

On-Chip Free-Flow Measurement Revealed Possible Depletion of Macrophages by Indigestible PM2.5 within a Few Hours by the Fastest Intervals of Serial Phagocytosis

To understand the influence of indigestible particles like particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) on macrophages, we examined the time course of the series phagocytosis of indigestible 2 μm polystyrene spheres (PS). Five kinds of antigens were used as samples for phagocytosis; Zymosan, non-coated 2 μm PS, bovine serum albumin (BSA)-coated PS (BSA-PS), IgG-coated PS (IgG-PS), and IgG-BSA-coated PS (IgG/BSA-PS). To keep the surrounding concentration of antigens against single macrophages constant, antigens flowed at a continuous rate of 0.55 μm/s within a culture dish as a free-flow measurement assay (on-chip free-flow method). The interval of series phagocytosis for IgG/BSA-PS was the shortest among five samples; it was six times faster than Zymosan in terms of engulfment frequency, and up to 50 particles were engulfed within two hours, maintaining constant intervals until reaching the maximum number. The rate of increase in the total number of phagocytozed IgG/BSA-PS over time was constant, at 1.5 particles/min, in series phagocytosis with a 33-cell population, indicating that the phagocytosis rate constant remained constant independent of the number of phagocytoses. Reaction model fitting of the results showed that IgG/BSA-PS had the highest efficiency in terms of the phagocytosis rate constant, 2.3 × 10−2 particles/min, whereas those of IgG-PS, BSA-PS, PS, and Zymosan were 1.4 × 10−2, 1.1 × 10−2, 4.2 × 10−3, and 3.6 × 10−3 particles/min, respectively. One-by-one feeding of IgG/BSA-PS with optical tweezers was examined to confirm the phagocytosis intervals, and we found that the intervals remained constant until several times before the maximum number of antigens for engulfment, also indicating no change in the phagocytosis rate constant regardless of the history of former phagocytosis and phagocytosis number. Simultaneous phagocytosis of two IgG-BSA-decorated microneedle engulfments also showed that the initiation and progress of two simultaneous engulfments on the two different places on a cell were independent and had the same elongation velocity. Therefore, each phagocytosis of indigestible antigens does not affect both in series or in simultaneous subsequent phagocytosis until reaching the maximum capacity of the phagocytosis number. The results suggest (1) no change in the phagocytosis rate constant regardless of the history of phagocytosis numbers and attachment timing and positions, and (2) IgG-BSA decoration of indigestible microparticles in blood accelerates their engulfment faster, resulting in a severe shortage of macrophages within the shortest time