Epigenomic regulation of human T-cell leukemia virus by chromatin-insulator CTCF

Human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is a retrovirus that causes an aggressive T-cell malignancy and a variety of inflammatory conditions. The integrated provirus includes a single binding site for the epigenomic insulator, CCCTC-binding protein (CTCF), but its function remains unclear. In the current study, a mutant virus was examined that eliminates the CTCF-binding site. The mutation did not disrupt the kinetics and levels of virus gene expression, or establishment of or reactivation from latency. However, the mutation disrupted the epigenetic barrier function, resulting in enhanced DNA CpG methylation downstream of the CTCF binding site on both strands of the integrated provirus and H3K4Me3, H3K36Me3, and H3K27Me3 chromatin modifications both up- and downstream of the site. A majority of clonal cell lines infected with wild type HTLV-1 exhibited increased plus strand gene expression with CTCF knockdown, while expression in mutant HTLV-1 clonal lines was unaffected. These findings indicate that CTCF binding regulates HTLV-1 gene expression, DNA and histone methylation in an integration site dependent fashion

Interfacial Charge-Transfer Transitions for Direct Charge-Separation Photovoltaics

Photoinduced charge separation (PCS) plays an essential role in various solar energy conversions such as photovoltaic conversion in solar cells. Usually, PCS in solar cells occurs stepwise via solar energy absorption by light absorbers (dyes, inorganic semiconductors, etc.) and the subsequent charge transfer at heterogeneous interfaces. Unfortunately, this two-step PCS occurs with a relatively large amount of the energy loss (at least ca. 0.3 eV). Hence, the exploration of a new PCS mechanism to minimize the energy loss is a high-priority subject to realize efficient solar energy conversion. Interfacial charge-transfer transitions (ICTTs) enable direct PCS at heterogeneous interfaces without energy loss, in principle. Recently, several progresses have been reported for ICTT at organic-inorganic semiconductor interfaces by our group. First of all, new organic-metal oxide complexes have been developed with various organic and metal-oxide semiconductors for ICTT. Through the vigorous material development and fundamental research of ICTT, we successfully demonstrated efficient photovoltaic conversion due to ICTT for the first time. In addition, we revealed that the efficient photoelectric conversion results from the suppression of charge recombination, providing a theoretical guiding principle to control the charge recombination rate in the ICTT system. These results open up a way to the development of ICTT-based photovoltaic cells. Moreover, we showed the important role of ICTT in the reported efficient dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) with carboxy-anchor dyes, particularly, in the solar energy absorption in the near IR region. This result indicates that the combination of dye sensitization and ICTT would lead to the further enhancement of the power conversion efficiency of DSSC. In this feature article, we review the recent progresses of ICTT and its application in solar cells

Critical effect of spin-dependent transport in a tunnel barrier on enhanced Hanle-type signals observed in three-terminal geometry

The MgO thickness dependence of Hanle signals in Co50Fe50/MgO/n-Si tunnel junctions was investigated using a three-terminal geometry. The observed Hanle signal is several orders of magnitude stronger than the predicted value by conventional theory as reported in many literatures. Furthermore, the magnitude of the spin signal depends on the junction resistance rather than the channel resistance, implying that the largest part of the observed Hanle signal is not caused by spin accumulation in the semiconductor region. A possible origin of the observed strong Hanle signal is due to a modulation of the tunneling resistance by a magnetic field, which is induced by the spin precession in localized states formed in the vicinity of the Co50Fe50/MgO interface