AINTEGUMENTA homolog expression in Gnetum (gymnosperms) and implications for the evolution of ovulate axes in seed plants

金沢大学理工研究域自然システム学系The expression of GpANTL1, a homolog of AINTEGUMENTA (ANT) found in the gymnosperm Gnetum parvifolium, was analyzed by RT-PCR and in situ hybridization. GpANTL1 was expressed in the leaf primordia, root tips, and young ovules. In the ovulate axis, expression was detected as four distinct rings around the outer, middle, and inner envelope primordia as well as around the nucellar tip. This pattern of expression is similar to that of ANT in Arabidopsis thaliana. A comparison of the expression of GpANTL1 with that of PtANTL1 in the conifer Pinus thunbergii suggests that the integrated expression of PtANTL1 may have been caused by congenital fusion of the integument, ovuliferous scale, and bract. © 2008 The Author(s)

Expression patterns of class I KNOX and YABBY genes in Ruscus aculeatus (Asparagaceae) with implications for phylloclade homology

金沢大学大学院自然科学研究科生物多様性動態学金沢大学理学部STM (RaSTM) and YAB2 (RaYAB2) homologues were isolated from Ruscus aculeatus (Asparagaceae, monocots), and their expressions were analyzed by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to assess hypotheses on the evolutionary origin of the phylloclade in the Asparagaceae. In young shoot buds, RaSTM is expressed in the shoot apex, while RaYAB2 is expressed in the scale leaf subtending the shoot bud. This expression pattern is shared by other angiosperms, suggesting that the expression patterns of RaSTM and RaYAB2 are useful as molecular markers to identify the shoot and leaf, respectively. RaSTM and RaYAB2 are expressed concomitantly in phylloclade primordia. These results suggest that the phylloclade is not homologous to either the shoot or leaf, but that it has a double organ identity. © Springer-Verlag 2007

Lansoprazole inhibits mitochondrial superoxide production and cellular lipid peroxidation induced by indomethacin in RGM1 cells

Lansoprazole is effective in healing non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs induced ulcers, and antioxidant properties have been thought to play a key role in healing ulcers. We hypothesize that lansoprazole exerts a cytoprotective effect by inhibiting reactive oxygen species leakage from mitochondria and lipid peroxidation. We pretreated gastric epithelial RGM1 cells with lansoprazole and then treated them with indomethacin in vitro. We found that the lansoprazole pretreatment significantly reduced cellular injury, maintained mitochondrial transmembrane potential, and decreased lipid peroxidation. Furthermore, the signal intensity of the electron spin resonance spectrum of the indomethacin-treated mitochondria which were pretreated with lansoprazole showed considerable reduction compared to those without the lansoprazole pretreatment. These results suggest that lansoprazole reduced superoxide production in the mitochondria of indomethacin treated cells, and subsequently inhibited lipid peroxide and cellular injury in gastric epithelial cells

Regulation of PD-L1 expression in non–small cell lung cancer by interleukin-1β

IntroductionProgrammed cell death–ligand 1 (PD-L1) is a biomarker for prediction of the clinical efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors in various cancer types. The role of cytokines in regulation of PD-L1 expression in tumor cells has not been fully characterized, however. Here we show that interleukin-1β (IL-1β) plays a key role in regulation of PD-L1 expression in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).MethodsWe performed comprehensive screening of cytokine gene expression in NSCLC tissue using available single-cell RNA-Sequence data. Then we examined the role of IL-1β in vitro to elucidate its induction of PD-L1 on NSCLC cells.ResultsThe IL-1β gene is highly expressed in the tumor microenvironment, particularly in macrophages. The combination of IL-1β and interferon-γ (IFN-γ) induced a synergistic increase in PD-L1 expression in NSCLC cell lines. IL-1β and IFN-γ also cooperatively activated mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling and promoted the binding of downstream transcription factors to the PD-L1 gene promoter. Furthermore, inhibitors of MAPK signaling blocked upregulation of PD-L1 by IL-1β and IFN-γ.DiscussionOur study reports high levels of IL-1β in the tumor microenvironment may cooperate with IFN-γ to induce maximal PD-L1 expression in tumor cells via activation of MAPK signaling, with the IL-1β–MAPK axis being a promising therapeutic target for attenuation of PD-L1–mediated suppression of antitumor immunity

A POS-based preordering approach for English-to-Arabic statistical machine translation

In this work, we present a POS-based preordering approach that tackles both long- and short-distance reordering phenomena. Syntactic unlexicalized reordering rules are automatically extracted from a parallel corpus using only word alignment and a source-side language tagging. The reordering rules are used in a deterministic manner; this prevents the decoding speed from being bottlenecked in the reordering procedure. A new approach for both rule filtering and rule application is used to ensure a fast and efficient reordering. The tests performed on the IWSLT2016 English-to-Arabic evaluation benchmark show a noticeable increase in the overall Blue Score for our system over the baseline PSMT system

眼球毒性の観察された農薬についての文献的考察

Pesticides evaluated previously by the Food Safety Commission of the Cabinet Office, Japan were in vestigated retrospectively for induction of ocular toxicity. A total of 339 assessment reports representing 345 compounds were investigated. Ocular toxicity was observed in 56 compounds. Target sites were pupils for 21 compounds, retinas for 21 compounds, lenses for 16 compounds, corneas for 15 compounds, conjunctiva for 3 compounds and whole eyeballs for 2 compounds. These ocular toxicities were not related to local irritation, but were due to systemic exposure after oral absorption. For many of these compounds, the mechanism (s) of ocular toxicities are unknown. Ocular toxicities were only induced at considerably higher doses of exposure compared to the acceptable daily intake (ADI) with sufficient safety margins for ocular toxicity. Although it is unlikely that ocular toxicities induced by these chemicals will occur in humans, it is though that future studies anticipating actual human exposure conditions and associated pharmacokinetic information will be important

女子大生の咀嚼の実態と心身の各種因子との関係について

咀嚼を含めた食行為が女子大生の心身に与える影響を把握するため、マシュマロとチャーハンにおける咀嚼回数の測定並びに、生活習慣および心理状況調査を実施した。また、咀嚼回数の測定と併せて口腔部のサイズや容量、1口の食物投入量、咀嚼数、咀嚼スピード、スプーンの移動回数を測定し、体重や体脂肪量などの各種身体情報の調査も行った。　咀嚼の状況と身体特性との関係性を相関分析により検討したところ、相関関係は確認できなかった。咀嚼の状況と生活習慣との関連の検討において、メタボリックシンドロームに対するリスクと有意な負の相関関係が見られた項目は、スプーン移動回数、チャーハン摂取量、1分あたりの摂取量であった。　以上のように咀嚼の状況と生活習慣および心理状況調査結果との関係については、関連性が示唆される傾向が見られた