Paleoenvironmental Analyses of the Buried Peat Deposit during the mid-Holocene at the Desaki Coast in Tamano City, Okayama Prefecture, Weatern Japan

The buried peat deposit was foud in the sand beach on the Desaki coast (Tamano City, Okayama Prefecture), the northeastern coast of Seto Inland Sea. In this study, we performed sulfur and diatom analyses of the deposit. The results were used along with 14C dates and the eruption age (7300 cal BP) of Kikai-Akahoya tephra (K-Ab) to derive sedimentary environments of the deposit. K-Ah was detected just below the peat deposit. At the culmination of the Jomon transgression, the peat deposit had been formed in brackish environments of salt marsh for about 300 years. In order to reconstruct local paleovegetation, we analyzed pollen, wood and plant fossils in the deposit. The results show vegetational transition from a deciduous broadleaved forest mainly of Ouercus subgen. Lepidobalanus to Pinus forest. In spite of the Holocene thermal optimum, the vegetation dominated by Ouercus subgen. Cyclobanopsis was not recognized at the Desaki site, as has been shown in many other regions of regions of western Japan. Ouercus sect. Prinus was replaced by Ouercus sect. Aegilops as the dominant section of Ouercus subgen. Lepidobalanus, suggesting early establishment of traditional rural vegetation of 'Satoyama' in Japan. However, no evidence for human agency has been obtained from the mid-Holocene archaeological sites around the Desaki site. Thus it is more likely that this vegetational transition resulted from the succession caused by natural forces such as ecological disturbance and climatic and/or endemic situations rather than by cultural deforestation

Monophyly of lampreys and hagfishes supported by nuclear DNA-coded genes

Abstract. The phylogenetic position of hagfishes in vertebrate evolution is currently controversial. The 18S and 28S rRNA trees support the monophyly of hagfishes and lampreys. In contrast, the mitochondrial DNAs suggest the close association of lampreys and gnathostomes. To clarify this controversial issue, we have conducted cloning and sequencing of the four nuclear DNA-coded single-copy genes encoding the triose phosphate isomerase, calreticulin, and the largest subunit of RNA polymerase II and III. Based on these proteins, together with the Mn superoxide dismutase for which hagfish and lamprey sequences are available in database, phylogenetic trees have been inferred by the maximum likelihood (ML) method of protein phylogeny. It was shown that all the five proteins prefer the monophyletic tree of cyclostomes, and the total log-likelihood of the five proteins significantly supports the cyclostome monophyly at the level of ±1 SE. The ML trees of aldolase family comprising three nonallelic isoforms and the complement component group comprising C3, C4, and C5, both of which diverged during vertebrate evolution by gene duplications, also suggest the cyclostome monophyly

Genome-Wide Detection of Gene Extinction in Early Mammalian Evolution

Detecting gene losses is a novel aspect of evolutionary genomics that has been made feasible by whole-genome sequencing. However, research to date has concentrated on elucidating evolutionary patterns of genomic components shared between species, rather than identifying disparities between genomes. In this study, we searched for gene losses in the lineage leading to eutherian mammals. First, as a pilot analysis, we selected five gene families (Wnt, Fgf, Tbx, TGFβ, and Frizzled) for molecular phylogenetic analyses, and identified mammalian lineage-specific losses of Wnt11b, Tbx6L/VegT/tbx16, Nodal-related, ADMP1, ADMP2, Sizzled, and Crescent. Second, automated genome-wide phylogenetic screening was implemented based on this pilot analysis. As a result, we detected 147 chicken genes without eutherian orthologs, which resulted from 141 gene loss events. Our inventory contained a group of regulatory genes governing early embryonic axis formation, such as Noggins, and multiple members of the opsin and prolactin-releasing hormone receptor (“PRLHR”) gene families. Our findings highlight the potential of genome-wide gene phylogeny (“phylome”) analysis in detecting possible rearrangement of gene networks and the importance of identifying losses of ancestral genomic components in analyzing the molecular basis underlying phenotypic evolution

Unresolved orthology and peculiar coding sequence properties of lamprey genes: the KCNA gene family as test case

Background:In understanding the evolutionary process of vertebrates, cyclostomes (hagfishes and lamprey) occupy crucial positions. Resolving molecular phylogenetic relationships of cyclostome genes with gnathostomes (jawed vertebrates) genes is indispensable in deciphering both the species tree and gene trees. However, molecular phylogenetic analyses, especially those including lamprey genes, have produced highly discordant results between gene families. To efficiently scrutinize this problem using partial genome assemblies of early vertebrates, we focused on the potassium voltage-gated channel, shaker-related (KCNA) family, whose members are mostly single-exon.Results:Seven sea lamprey KCNA genes as well as six elephant shark genes were identified, and their orthologies to bony vertebrate subgroups were assessed. In contrast to robustly supported orthology of the elephant shark genes to gnathostome subgroups, clear orthology of any sea lamprey gene could not be established. Notably, sea lamprey KCNA sequences displayed unique codon usage pattern and amino acid composition, probably associated with exceptionally high GC-content in their coding regions. This lamprey-specific property of coding sequences was also observed generally for genes outside this gene family.Conclusions:Our results suggest that secondary modifications of sequence properties unique to the lamprey lineage may be one of the factors preventing robust orthology assessments of lamprey genes, which deserves further genome-wide validation. The lamprey lineage-specific alteration of protein-coding sequence properties needs to be taken into consideration in tackling the key questions about early vertebrate evolution

AMS-^<14>C Dates of Late Quaternary Tephra Layers Erupted from the Shikotsu and Kuttara Volcanoes

北海道南西部の支笏・クッタラ両火山から後期更新世に噴出した数多くのテフラの中で, Kt-1, Kt-TkおよびSsfa・Ssflの3つのテフラに関して, 3点の加速器質量分析(Accelerator Mass Spectrpmeter, AMS)法による14C年代値を得た. これらの年代値と, これまでに得られたAMS法による14C年代値を整理し, 両火山を起源とするテフラの噴出年代を, Kt-1が約4万年前, Kt-Tkが4.4～4.8万年前, Kt-3が4.7～5.1万年前, Ssfa・Ssflが4.7～5.3万年前であると推定した. また, Kt-1直上に層位するSpfa1の噴出年代は3.8～3.9万年前と, Kt-1とKt-Tkの中間に層位するZ-M(山縣ほか, 1989)の噴出年代は4.2～4.4万年前と, それぞれ推定された.The Shikotsu and Kuttara volcanoes in southern Hokkaido often erupted violently during the Late Pleistocene and provided many time-marker tephra layers which are widely distributed to the east of them. These layers are important for the Quaternary tephrochronological studies in the Ishikari Lowland, Hidaka District, and Tokachi Plain. The nomenclature of the tephra layers here are based on Yamagata (1994). We obtain there new radiocarbon dates by accelerated mass spectorometry (AMS-14C dates) : 39,290±970, 45,500±2,000, and 49,800±3,100 yrs BP for Kt-1, Kt-Tk, and Ssfa • Ssfl, respectively. By correlating these and other AMS-14C dates in previous studies, we estimate the eruption ages of tephra layers from the two volcanoes as follows : ca.40 ka for Kt-1, 44 - 48 ka for Kt-Tk, 47 - 51 ka for Kt-3, and 47 - 53 ka for Ssfa • Ssfl. In addition, the dates of Spfa 1 and Z-M are estimated 38 - 39 ka and 42 - 44 ka based on their stratigraphical relationships with the above tephra layers

Fad104, a positive regulator of adipocyte differentiation, suppresses invasion and metastasis of melanoma cells by inhibition of STAT3 activity.

Metastasis is the main cause of death in patients with cancer, and understanding the mechanisms of metastatic processes is essential for the development of cancer therapy. Although the role of several cell adhesion, migration or proliferation molecules in metastasis is established, a novel target for cancer therapy remains to be discovered. Previously, we reported that fad104 (factor for adipocyte differentiation 104), a regulatory factor of adipogenesis, regulates cell adhesion and migration. In this report, we clarify the role of fad104 in the invasion and metastasis of cancer cells. The expression level of fad104 in highly metastatic melanoma A375SM cells was lower than that in poorly metastatic melanoma A375C6 cells. Reduction of fad104 expression enhanced the migration and invasion of melanoma cells, while over-expression of FAD104 inhibited migration and invasion. In addition, melanoma cells stably expressing FAD104 showed a reduction in formation of lung colonization compared with control cells. FAD104 interacted with STAT3 and down-regulated the phosphorylation level of STAT3 in melanoma cells. These findings together demonstrate that fad104 suppressed the invasion and metastasis of melanoma cells by inhibiting activation of the STAT3 signaling pathway. These findings will aid a comprehensive description of the mechanism that controls the invasion and metastasis of cancer cells

A centennial-resolution terrestrial climatostratigraphy and Matuyama–Brunhes transition record from a loess sequence in China

Terrestrial records of the last geomagnetic reversal often have few age constraints. Chronostratigraphy using suborbital-scale paleoceanic events during marine isotope stage 19 may contribute to solving this problem. We applied the method to an 8 m long, high-resolution paleomagnetic record from a loess sequence in China and revealed millennial-to-sub-centennial scale features of the Matuyama–Brunhes (MB) transition. All samples were subjected to progressive thermal demagnetization with 14–15 steps up to 650–680 °C. As a result, 96% of the samples yielded a high-quality remanent magnetization. The MB transition terminated with a 75 cm thick zone with nine polarity flips. The polarity flip zone, dated at about 779–777 ka, began between the warm events “I” and “J” and terminated at the end of the cooling event coincident with the lowest axial-dipole strength interval. Most polarity flips occurred within 70 years. The virtual geomagnetic poles (VGPs) in the upper polarity flip zone clustered in the SW Pacific region, where the MB transitional VGPs from lavas of the Hawaiian and Canary Islands and lacustrine deposits of Java also clustered. These sites were probably dominated by dipolar fields. The absence of transitional fields across polarity flips implies a short time span for averaging fields due to a thin loess-magnetization lock-in zone. The reverse-to-normal polarity reversal dated at about 778 ka in Lingtai occurred at the end of the SW Pacific VGP zone, an important key bed for MB transition stratigraphy. The reversal is a good candidate for the main MB boundary. We found an excursion at about 766 ka spanning about 1 ka