40 research outputs found
Prolonged maturation of prefrontal white matter in chimpanzees
Delayed maturation in the prefrontal cortex, a brain region associated with complex cognitive processing, has been proposed to be specific to humans. However, we found, using a longitudinal design, that prefrontal white matter volume in chimpanzees increased gradually with age, and the increase appears to continue beyond the onset of puberty, as in humans. This provides the first evidence for a prolonged period of prefrontal connection elaboration in great apes
Natural ligand-nonmimetic inhibitors of the lipid-transfer protein CERT
Lipid transfer proteins mediate inter-organelle transport of membrane lipids at organelle contact sites in cells, playing fundamental roles in the lipidome and membrane biogenesis in eukaryotes. We previously developed a ceramide-mimetic compound as a potent inhibitor of the ceramide transport protein CERT. Here we develop CERT inhibitors with structures unrelated to ceramide. To this aim, we identify a seed compound with no ceramide-like structure but with the capability of forming a hydrogen-bonding network in the ceramide-binding START domain, by virtual screening of ~3 × 106 compounds. We also establish a surface plasmon resonance-based system to directly determine the affinity of compounds for the START domain. Then, we subject the seed compound to a series of in silico docking simulations, efficient chemical synthesis, affinity analysis, protein-ligand co-crystallography, and various in vivo assays. This strategy allows us to obtain ceramide-unrelated compounds that potently inhibited the function of CERT in human cultured cells
Astrometric VLBI observations of HO masers in an extreme OH/IR star candidate NSV17351
Results of astrometric very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations
towards an extreme OH/IR star candidate NSV17351 are presented. We used the
VERA (VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry) VLBI array to observe 22\,GHz
HO masers of NSV17351. We derived an annual parallax of 0.2470.035 mas
which corresponds to a distance of 4.050.59 kpc. By averaging the proper
motions of 15 maser spots, we obtained the systemic proper motion of NSV17351
to be () (1.19
0.11, 1.30 0.19) mas\,yr. The maser spots spread out over a
region of 20 mas 30 mas, which can be converted to a spatial
distribution of 80 au 120 au at the source distance.
Internal motions of the maser spots suggest an outward moving maser region with
respect to the estimated position of the central star. From single dish
monitoring of the HO maser emission, we estimate the pulsation period of
NSV17351 to be 112224 days. This is the first report of the periodic
activity of NSV17351, indicating that NSV17351 could have a mass of
4\,M. We confirmed that the time variation of HO masers can
be used as a period estimator of variable OH/IR stars. Furthermore, by
inspecting dozens of double-peaked HO maser spectra from the last 40 years,
we detected a long-term acceleration in the radial velocity of the
circumstellar matter to be km\,s\,yr Finally, we
determined the position and kinematics of NSV17351 in the Milky Way Galaxy and
found that NSV17351 is located in an interarm region between the Outer and
Perseus arms. We note that astrometric VLBI observations towards extreme OH/IR
stars are useful samples for studies of the Galactic dynamics.Comment: Published in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japa
Astrometry of HO Masers in Nearby Star-Forming Regions with VERA. III. IRAS 22198+6336 in L1204G
We present results of multi-epoch VLBI observations with VERA (VLBI
Exploration of Radio Astrometry) of the 22 GHz HO masers associated with
a young stellar object (YSO) IRAS 22198+6336 in a dark cloud L1204G. Based on
the phase-referencing VLBI astrometry, we derive an annual parallax of IRAS
22198+6336 to be 1.3090.047 mas, corresponding to the distance of
76427 pc from the Sun. Although the most principal error source of our
astrometry is attributed to the internal structure of the maser spots, we
successfully reduce the errors in the derived annual parallax by employing the
position measurements for all of the 26 detected maser spots. Based on this
result, we reanalyze the spectral energy distribution (SED) of IRAS 22198+6336
and find that the bolometric luminosity and total mass of IRAS 22198+6336 are
450 and 7, respectively. These values are consistent with
an intermediate-mass YSO deeply embedded in the dense dust core, which has been
proposed to be an intermediate-mass counterpart of a low-mass Class 0 source.
In addition, we obtain absolute proper motions of the HO masers for the
most blue-shifted components. We propose that the collimated jets aligned along
the east-west direction are the most plausible explanation for the origin of
the detected maser features.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in PASJ (Vol.60, No.5,
October 25, VERA special issue
A Report on Overseas Teaching Practicum by Graduate Students in Elementary/Secondary Schools in the United States (Ⅶ)
The present reports is on the 7th overseas teaching practicum in the United States by 15 graduate students of Hiroshima University, Japan, partly organized by Hiroshima University Global Partnership School Center since 2007. The group was comprised of 13 elementary school and 2 secondary school education major graduate students. They planned and conducted lessons in English in three local public schools in North Carolina. The expected outcomes of this project were: 1) to self-develop practical instructional competence by teaching pupils with diverse backgrounds in the U.S.; 2) to enhance the abilities in developing teaching materials through hands-on teaching experiences in English; and 3) to acquire the abilities to design, implement and evaluate programs for promoting global partnership. In addition, the teaching experience was followed by cross-cultural study visits to Raleigh, NC and Washington, D.C. It helped to boost our group motivation that the local media, newspaper and TV, and the city Board of Education covered our visit. It is hoped that this project will enhance the students’ teaching competence in designing quality materials/lessons and classroom communication skills in English
Yeast nitrogen utilization in the phyllosphere during plant lifespan under regulation of autophagy.
Recently, microbe-plant interactions at the above-ground parts have attracted great attention. Here we describe nitrogen metabolism and regulation of autophagy in the methylotrophic yeast Candida boidinii, proliferating and surviving on the leaves of Arabidopsis thaliana. After quantitative analyses of yeast growth on the leaves of A. thaliana with the wild-type and several mutant yeast strains, we showed that on young leaves, nitrate reductase (Ynr1) was necessary for yeast proliferation, and the yeast utilized nitrate as nitrogen source. On the other hand, a newly developed methylamine sensor revealed appearance of methylamine on older leaves, and methylamine metabolism was induced in C. boidinii, and Ynr1 was subjected to degradation. Biochemical and microscopic analysis of Ynr1 in vitro during a shift of nitrogen source from nitrate to methylamine revealed that Ynr1 was transported to the vacuole being the cargo for biosynthetic cytoplasm-to-vacuole targeting (Cvt) pathway, and degraded. Our results reveal changes in the nitrogen source composition for phyllospheric yeasts during plant aging, and subsequent adaptation of the yeasts to this environmental change mediated by regulation of autophagy