Negative Correlation between the Diffusion Coefficient and Transcriptional Activity of the Glucocorticoid Receptor

The glucocorticoid receptor (GR) is a transcription factor, which interacts with DNA and other cofactors to regulate gene transcription. Binding to other partners in the cell nucleus alters the diffusion properties of GR. Raster image correlation spectroscopy (RICS) was applied to quantitatively characterize the diffusion properties of EGFP labeled human GR (EGFP-hGR) and its mutants in the cell nucleus. RICS is an image correlation technique that evaluates the spatial distribution of the diffusion coefficient as a diffusion map. Interestingly, we observed that the averaged diffusion coefficient of EGFP-hGR strongly and negatively correlated with its transcriptional activities in comparison to that of EGFP-hGR wild type and mutants with various transcriptional activities. This result suggests that the decreasing of the diffusion coefficient of hGR was reflected in the high-affinity binding to DNA. Moreover, the hyper-phosphorylation of hGR can enhance the transcriptional activity by reduction of the interaction between the hGR and the nuclear corepressors

A novel one-dimensional electronic state at IrTe2 Surface

Highly one-dimensional (1D) Fermi sheets are realized at the surface of a layered Ir telluride IrTe2 which exhibits a stripe-type charge and orbital order below ∼280 K. The 1D Fermi sheets appear in the low temperature range where the stripe order is well established. The 1D Fermi sheets are truncated by the bulk Fermi surfaces, and the spectral weight suppression at the Fermi level deviates from the typical Tomonaga–Luttinger behavior. The 1D band runs along the stripe and is accompanied by several branches which can be derived from the quantization in the perpendicular direction

Characteristics of physical activity during beginner-level group tennis lessons and the effect daily activity

Kawakami R., Yamakawa S., Konda S., et al. Characteristics of physical activity during beginner-level group tennis lessons and the effect daily activity. Scientific Reports 14, 249 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-46843-0.Tennis is a popular leisure sport, and studies have indicated that playing tennis regularly provides many health benefits. We aimed to clarify the characteristics of physical activity during beginner-level group tennis lessons and daily physical activity of the participants. Physical activity was measured using an accelerometer sensor device for four weeks, including the 80-min duration tennis lessons held twice a week. Valid data were categorized for tennis and non-tennis days. The mean physical activity intensity during the tennis lesson was 3.37 METs. The mean ratio of short-bout rest periods to the tennis lesson time in 90 and 120 s was 7% and 4%, respectively. The mean physical activity intensity was significantly higher (p < 0.0001) and the duration of vigorous-intensity physical activity (VPA) was increased in 76% of participants on days with tennis lessons compared to without tennis lessons. Beginner-level tennis lesson has characteristics of less short-bout rest physical activity than previously reported competitive tennis match and increased the duration of VPA in daily activity compared to without tennis lessons, suggesting that beginner-level tennis lessons contribute physical activity of health benefits

EB1 promotes microtubule dynamics by recruiting Sentin in Drosophila cells

The microtubule plus end regulator EB1 brings Sentin and possibly a microtubule polymerase to microtubule plus ends to promote microtubule dynamics

Anisotropic mobility model for polymers under shear and its linear response functions

We propose a simple dynamic model of polymers under shear with an anisotropic mobility tensor. We calculate the shear viscosity, the rheo-dielectric response function, and the parallel relaxation modulus under shear flow deduced from our model. We utilize recently developed linear response theories for nonequilibrium systems to calculate linear response functions. Our results are qualitatively consistent with experimental results. We show that our anisotropic mobility model can reproduce essential dynamical nature of polymers under shear qualitatively. We compare our model with other models or theories such as the convective constraint release model or nonequilibrium linear response theories