The General's Goose

His admirers said he was a charismatic leader with a dazzling smile, a commoner following an ancient tradition of warrior service on behalf of an indigenous people who feared marginalisation at the hands of ungrateful immigrants. One tourist pleaded with him to stage a coup in her backyard; in private parties around the capital, Suva, infatuated women whispered ‘coup me baby’ in his presence. It was so easy to overlook the enormity of what he had done in planning and implementing Fiji’s first military coup, to be seduced by celebrity, captivated by the excitement of the moment, and plead its inevitability as the final eruption of long-simmering indigenous discontent. A generation would pass before the consequences of the actions of Fiji’s strongman of 1987, Sitiveni Rabuka, would be fully appreciated but, by then, the die had been well and truly cast. The major general did not live happily ever after. No nirvana followed the assertion of indigenous rights. If anything, misadventure became his country’s most enduring contemporary trait. This is Fiji’s very human story

Characterization of iPS-ML as macrophages.

<p><b>A.</b> A phase-contrast image of live iPS-ML in a culture plate (upper) and an image of iPS-ML stained with May-Giemsa on a slide glass (lower) are shown. <b>B.</b> Cell-surface expression of macrophage marker molecules CD11b, CD14, CD4, CD13, CD33, CD36, CD87, CD97, CD115, CD116, TLR2, and TLR4 on iPS-ML was analyzed by flow cytometry. The staining profiles of the specific mAb (thick lines) and an isotype-matched control mAb (grey area) are shown. <b>C.</b> iPS-ML in culture plates were added with FITC-labeled zymosan particles. Phase-contrast (upper) and fluorescence (lower) images after a 90-min incubation are shown. <b>D.</b> After a 40-min incubation in the presence or absence of zymosans, cells were harvested using trypsin/EDTA and then analyzed on a flow cytometer. Percentages of cells with high fluorescence intensity indicating intracellular zymosan are shown. <b>E.</b> Time course for phagocytosis is shown. Data shown are mean ± SD of duplicate assays.</p

Dynamic Transport and Cementation of Skeletal Elements Build Up the Pole-and-Beam Structured Skeleton of Sponges.

カイメン体内で微細な建築資材（ガラス質の骨片）を細胞が運び、立て、組み上げる全く新しい骨格形成機構を発見. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2015-09-24.Animal bodies are shaped by skeletons, which are built inside the body by biomineralization of condensed mesenchymal cells in vertebrates [1, 2] and echinoderms [3, 4], or outside the body by apical secretion of extracellular matrices by epidermal cell layers in arthropods [5]. In each case, the skeletons' shapes are a direct reflection of the pattern of skeleton-producing cells [6]. Here we report a newly discovered mode of skeleton formation: assembly of sponges' mineralized skeletal elements (spicules) in locations distant from where they were produced. Although it was known that internal skeletons of sponges consist of spicules assembled into large pole-and-beam structures with a variety of morphologies [7-10], the spicule assembly process (i.e., how spicules become held up and connected basically in staggered tandem) and what types of cells act in this process remained unexplored. Here we found that mature spicules are dynamically transported from where they were produced and then pierce through outer epithelia, and their basal ends become fixed to substrate or connected with such fixed spicules. Newly discovered "transport cells" mediate spicule movement and the "pierce" step, and collagen-secreting basal-epithelial cells fix spicules to the substratum,  suggesting that the processes of spiculous skeleton construction are mediated separately by specialized cells. Division of labor by manufacturer, transporter, and cementer cells, and iteration of the sequential mechanical reactions of "transport, " "pierce, " "raise up, " and "cementation, " allows construction of the spiculous skeleton spicule by spicule as a self-organized biological structure, with the great plasticity in size and shape required for indeterminate growth, and generating the great morphological diversity of individual sponges

Effect of iPS-ML/anti-HER2 expressing additional factors against NUGC-4 <b><i>in vitro</i></b><b>.</b>

<p>Luciferase-expressing NUGC-4 cells were cultured in a 96-well culture plate (5×10³ cells/well) with iPS-ML/anti-HER2 expressing IFN-α, IFN-β, IFN-γ, TNF-α, FAS-ligand, or TRAIL (2.5×10⁴ cells/well). The number of live NUGC-4 cells was measured by luminescence analysis after 3-day culture. The data are indicated as the mean + SD of triplicate assays.</p

Accumulation and infiltration of iPS-ML in pre-established tumor tissues in mouse peritoneal cavity.

<p><b>A.</b> GFP-expressing NUGC-4 cells (5 ×10⁶ cells/mouse) were injected into the peritoneal cavity of SCID mice. After 15 days, iPS-ML labeled with fluorescent PKH26 were injected i.p. into the mice (3×10⁶ cells/mouse). The mice were sacrificed the following day and subjected to fluorescence imaging analysis to determine the location of the NUGC-4-GFP tumors (excitation/emission: 475/520 nm) and PKH26-iPS-ML (excitation/emission: 550/600 nm). <b>B.</b> Tumor tissues in the greater omentum of the mice were isolated, and 20-µm thick frozen sections were made. The sections were analyzed on a fluorescence microscope, and a merged image with green fluorescence indicating NUGC-4/GFP cells and red fluorescence indicating PKH26-stained iPS-ML is shown. <b>C, D</b> Tissue sections were made by a similar procedure as for <b>B</b>, except that tPA was not used. A higher magnification view of the region surrounded by a dotted square in <b>C</b> is shown in <b>D</b>.</p

Effect of iPS-ML producing IFN-β with or without anti-HER2 treatment to inhibit the growth of peritoneally disseminated NUGC-4 cells.

<p>Luciferase–expressing NUGC-4 cells were injected i.p. into SCID mice (5×10⁶ cells/mouse). On day 4, the mice were subjected to the luminescence imaging analysis. Mice were injected on days 4, 6, 8, 11, 13, and 15 with iPS-ML/IFN-β or iPS-ML/IFN-β/anti-HER2 (2×10⁷ cells/mouse for each injection, n = 5 for each group). As a control, 8 mice were left untreated. All mice were subjected to bioluminescence analysis on days 10 and 17. A. The luminescence images are shown. B. For each mouse, the luminescence signal was calculated as a relative value, where the photon count on day 4 was defined as 1. The mean ± SD of fold-change from day 4 in control and treatment groups are shown.</p

Effect of iPS-ML/anti-HER2 against HER2-expressing NUGC-4 gastric cancer cells <i>in vitro</i>.

<p><b>A.</b> HER2/neu expression on NUGC-4 human gastric cancer cells was analyzed. The staining profiles of anti-HER2 mAb (thick line) and an isotype-matched control antibody (grey area) are shown. <b>B</b>. Cell-surface expression of anti-HER2 scFv on iPS-ML (iPS-ML/anti-HER2) was detected by staining with an anti-cMYC-tag antibody. <b>C.</b> Luciferase-expressing NUGC-4 cells (5×10³ cells/well) were cultured alone or co-cultured in a 96-well culture plate with iPS-ML (1×10⁴ cells/well) with or without anti-HER2 scFv expression. The number of live NUGC-4 cells was measured by luciferase activity after 3-day culture. The data are indicated as the mean + SD of duplicate assays.</p