Economic and environmental impacts of changes in culling parity of cows and diet composition in Japanese beef cow–calf production systems

The effects of changes in culling parity of cows and diet composition on economic and environmental outputs in Japanese beef cow–calf production systems were deterministically analyzed using a herd model simulation. The model simulated the annualized net revenue as an economic indicator and the overall environmental index derived from a life cycle assessment (LCA) as an environmental indicator. Biological factors (survivability, growth, reproduction, and feed requirements) and economic factors (returns from sales of live calves and cows’ carcasses and production costs) were included in the model. The model also included modified feed formulation methods, allowing us to analyze the effect of reductions in environmental loads caused by the change in diet compositions. The results of the present study indicated that later culling was economically and environmentally optimal under the current production system, which suggested that the selection of economically optimal culling parity of cows could result in environmentally optimization of the beef cow–calf production system. The difference in feed composition derived from the difference in feed formulation methods did not affect the determination of optimal culling parity, whereas the use of modified feed formulation methods could reduce environmental loads at a higher rate than that of economic benefits. However, the reduction rate of the environmental impact was much higher in the case of selection of the optimal culling parity than in the case of use of modified feed formulation methods, which stressed the importance of choosing the optimal culling parity of cows both from the economic and environmental points of view

Characterization of the gut microbiota of Kawasaki disease patients by metagenomic analysis

Kawasaki disease (KD) is an acute febrile illness of early childhood. Previous reports have suggested that genetic disease susceptibility factors, together with a triggering infectious agent, could be involved in KD pathogenesis; however, the precise etiology of this disease remains unknown. Additionally, previous culture-based studies have suggested a possible role of intestinal microbiota in KD pathogenesis. In this study, we performed metagenomic analysis to comprehensively assess the longitudinal variation in the intestinal microbiota of twenty-eight KD patients. Several notable bacterial genera were commonly extracted during the acute phase, whereas a relative increase in the number of Ruminococcus bacteria was observed during the non-acute phase of KD. The metagenomic analysis results based on bacterial species classification suggested that the number of sequencing reads with similarity to five Streptococcus spp. (S. pneumonia, pseudopneumoniae, oralis, gordonii, and sanguinis), in addition to patient-derived Streptococcus isolates, markedly increased during the acute phase in most patients. Streptococci include a variety of pathogenic bacteria and probiotic bacteria that promote human health; therefore, this further species discrimination could comprehensively illuminate the KD-associated microbiota. The findings of this study suggest that KD-related Streptococci might be involved in the pathogenesis of this disease

Dual-comb spectroscopy using free-running mechanical sharing dual-comb fiber lasers

We demonstrate balanced-detection dual-comb spectroscopy (DCS) using two free-running mechanical sharing dual-comb fiber lasers assisted by an all-computational digital phase correction algorithm. The mutual coherence between the combs allows us perform mode-resolved spectroscopy of gaseous hydrogen cyanide by digitally compensating residual timing and offset frequency fluctuations of the dual-comb signal. Setting the repetition rate difference between the combs to 500 Hz (1.5 kHz) yields more than 2000 resolved radio frequency comb lines after phase correction in a 3-dB bandwidth centered at 1560 nm of wavelength. Through coadding the corrected interferograms (IGMs), we obtain a single time-domain trace with a SNR of 6378 (13960) and 12.64 (13.77) bits of dynamic range in 1 second of averaging. The spectral SNR of the coadded trace reaches 529 (585), corresponding to a figure of merit of SNR of 1.3$\times$10$^6$ (1.4$\times$10$^6$). The measured absorption spectrum of hydrogen cyanide agrees well with the HITRAN database.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

RETRACTED: The Chromatin-Remodeling Complex WINAC Targets a Nuclear Receptor to Promoters and Is Impaired in Williams Syndrome

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy).This article has been retracted at the request of the Authors.Our paper reported that a chromatin-remodeling complex, WINAC, recruited the unliganded vitamin D receptor to promoters in cooperation with the transcription factor implicated in Williams syndrome, WSTF. The findings provided insights into the coordination between chromatin remodelers and sequence-specific transcription factors and pointed to a role of chromatin remodeling defects in Williams syndrome. We recently identified errors affecting several figure panels where original data were processed inappropriately such that the figure panels do not accurately report the original data. We believe that the most responsible course of action is to retract the paper. We sincerely apologize to the scientific community for any inconvenience that this might cause. The first author, H.K., declined to sign the retraction notice

Clinical Significance of Reverse Redistribution Phenomenon for 201Tl Scintigraphy in Nonischemic Disease

The reverse redistribution phenomenon (RR) on 201Tl SPECT has been focused mainly on ischemic improvement regions after reperfusion therapy or vasospastic angina pectoris. However, RR analysis has not been used in the context of non-ischemic disease. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical role of RR on 201Tl SPECT in patients without a history of myocardial ischemia. We retrospectively enrolled 86 patients showing RR by myocardial perfusion SPECT and studied 75 other patients as a control group. For quantitative analysis, each 201Tl SPECT polar map was divided into 13 segments. Differences between the RR and control group were assessed with respect to patient characteristics and cardiac event-free survival using the Kaplan-Meier method. RR was detected frequently in the inferoposterior wall, septal portion of the anterior wall, and septum. The two groups showed signi_cant differences in rates of heart failure (P ＜ 0.01), hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (P ＜ 0.05), and wall motion abnormality (P ＜ 0.05), but not in the rate of event occurrence. The study demonstrated that RR on 201Tl SPECT could indicate the existence of myocardial damage ; however, it would not be a factor that determines the prognosis

Extreme deformability of insect cell membranes is governed by phospholipid scrambling

昆虫の細胞は柔らかい！ --細胞膜を柔らかくするタンパク質を発見--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-06-09.Organization of dynamic cellular structure is crucial for a variety of cellular functions. In this study, we report that Drosophila and Aedes have highly elastic cell membranes with extremely low membrane tension and high resistance to mechanical stress. In contrast to other eukaryotic cells, phospholipids are symmetrically distributed between the bilayer leaflets of the insect plasma membrane, where phospholipid scramblase (XKR) that disrupts the lipid asymmetry is constitutively active. We also demonstrate that XKR-facilitated phospholipid scrambling promotes the deformability of cell membranes by regulating both actin cortex dynamics and mechanical properties of the phospholipid bilayer. Moreover, XKR-mediated construction of elastic cell membranes is essential for hemocyte circulation in the Drosophila cardiovascular system. Deformation of mammalian cells is also enhanced by the expression of Aedes XKR, and thus phospholipid scrambling may contribute to formation of highly deformable cell membranes in a variety of living eukaryotic cells

Integrated genetic and clinical prognostic factors for aggressive adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma

成人T細胞白血病リンパ腫（ATL）におけるゲノム情報と臨床情報を統合したリスクモデルを確立 --ATLの個別化医療を推進--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2023-04-10.The prognosis of aggressive adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) is poor, and allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) is a curative treatment. To identify favorable prognostic patients after intensive chemotherapy, and who therefore might not require upfront allo-HSCT, we aimed to improve risk stratification of aggressive ATL patients aged <70 years. The clinical risk factors and genetic mutations were incorporated into risk modeling for overall survival (OS). We generated the m7-ATLPI, a clinicogenetic risk model for OS, that included the ATL prognostic index (PI) (ATL-PI) risk category, and non-silent mutations in seven genes, namely TP53, IRF4, RHOA, PRKCB, CARD11, CCR7, and GATA3. In the training cohort of 99 patients, the m7-ATLPI identified a low-, intermediate-, and high-risk group with 2-year OS of 100%, 43%, and 19%, respectively (hazard ratio [HR] 5.46, p < 0.0001). The m7-ATLPI achieved superior risk stratification compared to the current ATL-PI (C-index 0.92 vs. 0.85, respectively). In the validation cohort of 84 patients, the m7-ATLPI defined low-, intermediate-, and high-risk groups with a 2-year OS of 81%, 30%, and 0%, respectively (HR 2.33, p = 0.0094), and the model again outperformed the ATL-PI (C-index 0.72 vs. 0.70, respectively). The simplified m7-ATLPI, which is easier to use in clinical practice, achieved superior risk stratification compared to the ATL-PI, as did the original m7-ATLPI; the simplified version was calculated by summing the following: high-risk ATL-PI category (+10), low-risk ATL-PI category (−4), and non-silent mutations in TP53 (+4), IRF4 (+3), RHOA (+1), PRKCB (+1), CARD11 (+0.5), CCR7 (−2), and GATA3 (−3)