APC/C Ubiquitin Ligase: Coupling Cellular Differentiation to G1/G0 Phase in Multicellular Systems

The anaphase-promoting complex/cyclosome (APC/C) is an evolutionarily conserved ubiquitin ligase that controls cell cycle progression through spatiotemporally regulated proteolysis. Although recent studies revealed its postmitotic function, our knowledge of the role of APC/C beyond cell cycle regulation in the biology of multicellular organisms is far from complete. Here, I review recent advances in the function of APC/C in animal development, specifically focusing on its emerging role in regulating cell differentiation. I describe how APC/C regulates distinct processes during the course of differentiation by deploying diverse molecular machineries in a variety of developmental contexts. Also, I discuss the significance and clinical relevance of the unique capacity of APC/C and other cell cycle regulators to couple distinct cellular processes with cell proliferation control.This work is supported by the start-up funding from ShanghaiTech University (2018F0202-000-06) and Cancer Research UK (CRUK-A12874) to Y.K

Ten years since 2004 Sumatera earthquake and three years since 2011 2011 Tohoku earthquake: Early-warning system alone cannot save everyone

Much  Japanese watched the tsunami video attacking  Banda Aceh on the 2004 Sumatra, and they have a lot of tsunami disaster memories, and early tsunami warming system. However,  we lost about  20,000 people by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake tsunami.  It makes clear that we never rescue the people from the tsunami only by an early warming syste. In February 2004, a research team of Nagoya University was coming to Banda Aceh to investigate the disaster on th 2004 Sumatra earthquake tsunami (I was a research member of Nagoya University  at the 2004 Sumatra earthquake, and joint the research team  since the first field survey in 2012). Not only the natural scientists but also the humanities’ scientists, including Indonesians join the research team, and field researches in Aceh have been continued every year until now. As results of the research, eight annual reports totally to 1,000 pages and four books, including writings in Indonesia are published. Through the first interviews in Banda Aceh, we understand that not so many peo- ple remained the tsunami coming after the earthquake felt, and when they watched the tsunami they never shouted ”Tsunami!”. They shouted out,”Sea is ascending”. As re- sults, there are many fatalities by the tsunami along the coastlines.They had no time to evacuate from the tsunami, because they started the evacuation after they watched the attacking tsunami. In one village, only the people going out the village to the down-town were saving their lives

Telework as a Means of Organizational Identity Change: Investigating Japanese Collectivist Culture in an ICT Company

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous companies have implemented telework to balance business continuity with employees’ safety. However, telework was not a widespread phenomenon in Japan until recently. Why is a geographically decentralized workstyle not as widespread in Japan as in other nations? In a previous study, based on collected samples from 529 Japanese companies, we used statistical analyses and clarified that the communication style aligned with Japanese collectivism seriously hinders telework. The present study used qualitative analysis to investigate how the communication style associated with Japanese collectivist culture hinders the introduction of telework. Finally, we concluded that if a non-Western cultural company introduces telework, it should remove the negative aspects of the communication style associated with collectivist culture to bring about organizational change that leads to a new organizational identity

Comparison of the Stochastic Models for Double-Differenced GPS Measurements

Double-differenced GPS carrier phase measurements are commonly used in GPS precise positioning applications and processed with algorithms based on the least-squares (LS) principle. In order to apply the LS principle, one needs to define properly both the functional and stochastic models. Whilst the functional model for precise GPS positioning is sufficiently well known, realistic stochastic modeling is still a difficult task to accomplish in practice. Incorrect stochastic models for double-differenced GPS measurements will lead to unreliable estimates for ambiguity resolution and, eventually, it will bias positioning results. The common assumption when we construct the stochastic model is that all raw GPS measurements are independent and have the same variances. In fact, this is not realistic, since due to varying noise levels measurements obtained from different GPS satellites cannot have the same accuracy. A realistic stochastic modeling should be able to capture the ordinary noises in the observables.In order to specify a realistic stochastic model for precise relative GPS positioning applications, in this paper the performance of three stochastic models namely the commonly used model or the standard model, the outer product of residual data vector model and Minimum Norm Quadratic Unbiased Estimation (MINQUE) are examined and effects of each the proposed model on statistic for ambiguity search and positioning accuracy are compared. The results indicate that the MINQUE model tends to perform better than the other models. Using the MINQUE model, the reliability of the ambiguity resolution and the statistics of the baseline components can be improved. It may suggest that the MINQUE model, which is based on modern statistical theory, is capable of capturing the ordinary noises

A role for BiP as an adjustor for the endoplasmic reticulum stress-sensing protein Ire1

In the unfolded protein response, the type I transmembrane protein Ire1 transmits an endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress signal to the cytoplasm. We previously reported that under nonstressed conditions, the ER chaperone BiP binds and represses Ire1. It is still unclear how this event contributes to the overall regulation of Ire1. The present Ire1 mutation study shows that the luminal domain possesses two subregions that seem indispensable for activity. The BiP-binding site was assigned not to these subregions, but to a region neighboring the transmembrane domain. Phenotypic comparison of several Ire1 mutants carrying deletions in the indispensable subregions suggests these subregions are responsible for multiple events that are prerequisites for activation of the overall Ire1 proteins. Unexpectedly, deletion of the BiP-binding site rendered Ire1 unaltered in ER stress inducibility, but hypersensitive to ethanol and high temperature. We conclude that in the ER stress-sensory system BiP is not the principal determinant of Ire1 activity, but an adjustor for sensitivity to various stresses