Textile Relics Conservation and Effective Cleaning Methods - Conservation of the Korean Youth Baseball Tournament Championship Flag

This study analyzes the effectiveness of the cleaning methods applied to the Korean Youth Baseball Tournament championship flag, Korean cultural asset no. 498, which is currently owned by the Korean Sports Council. This championship flag was first given to the winning baseball team during the Chosun National Athletic Meet in July, 1920 and therefore carries importance in Korean sports history. The conservation process began with the following goals: to understand the current condition of the relic, to reduce the soils, to repair and reinforce the deteriorated areas, and to prevent further major damages to the relic

Integrative Genomics Reveals the Genetics and Evolution of the Honey Bee’s Social Immune System

Social organisms combat pathogens through individual innate immune responses or through social immunity—behaviors among individuals that limit pathogen transmission within groups. Although we have a relatively detailed understanding of the genetics and evolution of the innate immune system of animals, we know little about social immunity. Addressing this knowledge gap is crucial for understanding how life-history traits influence immunity, and identifying if trade-offs exist between innate and social immunity. Hygienic behavior in the Western honey bee, Apis mellifera, provides an excellent model for investigating the genetics and evolution of social immunity in animals. This heritable, colony-level behavior is performed by nurse bees when they detect and remove infected or dead brood from the colony. We sequenced 125 haploid genomes from two artificially selected highly hygienic populations and a baseline unselected population. Genomic contrasts allowed us to identify a minimum of 73 genes tentatively associated with hygienic behavior. Many genes were within previously discovered QTLs associated with hygienic behavior and were predictive of hygienic behavior within the unselected population. These genes were often involved in neuronal development and sensory perception in solitary insects. We found that genes associated with hygienic behavior have evidence of positive selection within honey bees (Apis), supporting the hypothesis that social immunity contributes to fitness. Our results indicate that genes influencing developmental neurobiology and behavior in solitary insects may have been co-opted to give rise to a novel and adaptive social immune phenotype in honey bees.York University Librarie

Divergent Protein Motifs Direct EF-P Mediated Translational Regulation in \u3cem\u3eSalmonella\u3c/em\u3e and \u3cem\u3eEscherichia coli\u3c/em\u3e

Elongation factor P (EF-P) is a universally conserved bacterial translation factor homologous to eukaryotic/archaeal initiation factor 5A. In Salmonella, deletion of the efp gene results in pleiotropic phenotypes, including increased susceptibility to numerous cellular stressors. Only a limited number of proteins are affected by the loss of EF-P, and it has recently been determined that EF-P plays a critical role in rescuing ribosomes stalled at PPP and PPG peptide sequences. Here we present an unbiased in vivo investigation of the specific targets of EF-P by employing stable isotope labeling of amino acids in cell culture (SILAC) to compare the proteomes of wild-type and efp mutant Salmonella. We found that metabolic and motility genes are prominent among the subset of proteins with decreased production in the Δefp mutant. Furthermore, particular tripeptide motifs are statistically overrepresented among the proteins downregulated in efp mutant strains. These include both PPP and PPG but also additional motifs, such as APP and YIRYIR, which were confirmed to induce EF-P dependence by a translational fusion assay. Notably, we found that many proteins containing polyproline motifs are not misregulated in an EF-P-deficient background, suggesting that the factors that govern EF-P-mediated regulation are complex. Finally, we analyzed the specific region of the PoxB protein that is modulated by EF-P and found that mutation of any residue within a specific GSCGPG sequence eliminates the requirement for EF-P. This work expands the known repertoire of EF-P target motifs and implicates factors beyond polyproline motifs that are required for EF-P-mediated regulation

Japanese Spotted Fever, South Korea

We describe the first case of Japanese spotted fever and the first isolate of spotted fever group rickettsia from a patient in South Korea. The isolated rickettsia from the patient was identified as Rickettsia japonica by analysis of the nucleotide sequences of 16S rRNA, gltA, ompA, ompB, and sca4 genes

Attenuation of Rheumatoid Inflammation by Sodium Butyrate Through Reciprocal Targeting of HDAC2 in Osteoclasts and HDAC8 in T Cells

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic autoimmune disease caused by both genetic and environmental factors. Recently, investigators have focused on the gut microbiota, which is thought to be an environmental factor that affects the development of RA. Metabolites secreted by the gut microbiota maintain homeostasis in the gut through various mechanisms [e.g., butyrate, which is one of the major metabolites of gut microbiota, exerts an anti-inflammatory effect by activating G-protein-coupled receptors and inhibiting histone deacetylases (HDACs)]. Here, we focused on the inhibition of the HDACs by butyrate in RA. To this end, we evaluated the therapeutic effects of butyrate in an animal model of autoimmune arthritis. The arthritis score and incidence were lower in the butyrate-treated group compared to the control group. Also, butyrate inhibited HDAC2 in osteoclasts and HDAC8 in T cells, leading to the acetylation of glucocorticoid receptors and estrogen-related receptors α, respectively. Additionally, control of the TH17/Treg cell balance and inhibition of osteoclastogenesis were confirmed by the changes in target gene expression. Interleukin-10 (IL-10) produced by butyrate-induced expanded Treg cells was critical, as treatment with butyrate did not affect inflammatory arthritis in IL-10-knockout mice. This immune-cell regulation of butyrate was also detected in humans. These findings suggest that butyrate is a candidate agent for the treatment of RA

Exendin-4 Protects Oxidative Stress-Induced β-Cell Apoptosis through Reduced JNK and GSK3β Activity

Oxidative stress induced by chronic hyperglycemia in type 2 diabetes plays a crucial role in progressive loss of β-cell mass through β-cell apoptosis. Glucagon like peptide-1 (GLP-1) has effects on preservation of β-cell mass and its insulin secretory function. GLP-1 possibly increases islet cell mass through stimulated proliferation from β-cell and differentiation to β-cell from progenitor cells. Also, it probably has an antiapoptotic effect on β-cell, but detailed mechanisms are not proven. Therefore, we examined the protective mechanism of GLP-1 in β-cell after induction of oxidative stress. The cell apoptosis decreased to ~50% when cells were treated with 100 µM H2O2 for up to 2 hr. After pretreatment of Ex-4, GLP-1 receptor agonist, flow cytometric analysis shows 41.7% reduction of β-cell apoptosis. This data suggested that pretreatment of Ex-4 protect from oxidative stress-induced apoptosis. Also, Ex-4 treatment decreased GSK3β activation, JNK phosphorylation and caspase-9, -3 activation and recovered the expression of insulin2 mRNA in β-cell lines and secretion of insulin in human islet. These results suggest that Ex-4 may protect β-cell apoptosis by blocking the JNK and GSK3β mediated apoptotic pathway