Racial Paradises Reconsidered : National and International Significance of Local Japanese American Values for Understanding the Process of Cultural Pluralism

Article人文科学論集 14: 87-92 (1980)departmental bulletin pape

A Minority Group in an Underdeveloped Nation : The Japanese Case in Brazil

Article人文科学論集 13: 67-84 (1979)departmental bulletin pape

Reconstruction of Type II Supergravities via O(d)×O(d)O(d) \times O(d) Duality Invariants

We reconstruct type II supergravities by using building blocks of $O(d) \times O(d)$ invariants.These invariants are obtained by explicitly analyzing $O(d) \times O(d)$ transformations of 10 dimensional massless fields. Similar constructions are done by employing double field theory or generalized geometry, but we completed the reconstruction within the framework of the supergravities.Comment: 16 pages. References and appreciation are adde

The cytotoxic and antiproliferative effects of gamavuton-0 in rat basophilic Leukemia cells

Gamavuton-0 (GVT-0), also named as 1,5-bis(4’-hydroxy-3’- methoxyphenyl)-1,4-pentadiene-3 one is a 1,5-diphenyl-1,4-pentadiene-3-one analog of curcumin by modifying the center site of curcumin leading to 1,4-pentadiene-3-ones to maintain the hydroxy moiety at aromatic rings which are responsible for its biological activities. Curcumin has been reported to have potent anticarcinogenic effects. Besides, curcumin was found to induce apoptosis in human Leukemia cells. In our study, we investigated the cytotoxic and antiproliferative effects of gamavuton-0 in rat basophilic leukemia cells. Cell viability was determined by WST-1 assay. In brief, tetrazolium salts were cleaved to formazan by cellular enzymes of viable cells, determined by colorimetric methods with a microplate (ELISA) reader at 450 nm.In the present study, we evaluated cytotoxic and proliferative effects of GVT-0 in rat basophilic leukemia cells. In the study, GVT-0 induced rat basophilic leukemia cells death in a dose dependent manner after overnight incubation. GVT-0 also impaired the content of histamine and b-hexoaminidase enzyme in cells. However, the cytotoxic effect of GVT-0 (IC50 : 43,67 mM) was less potent than this of curcumin (IC50 : 29,14 mM). GVT-0 (1 mM) also showed a significant inhibition of cell growth after 48 and 72 hr. Its fact indicates that GVT-0 could prolong the cells doubling time. These results provide useful information to guide the development of new synthetic compounds for the treatment of cancer diseases.Key words : gamavuton-0, curcumin, cancer, cytotoxic, antiproliferative

Comparison of Cytotoxic and Antiproliferative Effects of Benzylidenecyclopentanone Analogues of Curcumin on RBL-2H3 Cells

Curcumin is a natural yellow pigment isolated from the rhizomes of Curcuma longa L. (turmeric), and has several pharmacological effects and no toxicity in both in animal and human clinical study. However, the problem of curcumin is its stability because of its active methylene moiety. Modification of this moiety to cyclopentanone is expected to increase the stability. Previous study reported that benzylidenecyclopentanone analogues of curcumin showed inhibitory effect on histamine release from RBL-2H3 (rat basophilic leukemia) cells, a tumor analog of mast cells. One of them, the hydroxy-methoxy analog (PGV-O), showed more potent effect than that of curcumin. In the present study, some benzylidenecyclopentanone analogues of curcumin were evaluated for their effects on th~ viability and proliferation of RBL-2H3 cells. Viable cells were counted under a light microscope with a cells-counting chamber or using the cell viability reagent W5T-1. The results showed that mast cell viability and histamine content were not affected by curcumin and benzylidene cyclopentanone for 30 min incubation, however, impaired for overnight incubation. The hydroxy-dimethyl benzylidene analog (PGV-l) strongly decreased the mast cells viability for overnight incubation, and its effect was highest among the other analogues. In the proliferation study, this compound also strongly inhibited the proliferation of mast cells, whereas curcumin and hydroxy-methoxy benzylidene analog inhibited the proliferation slightly. There were no inhibitory effects on mast cells proliferation treated by dibenzylidenedihydroxybenzylideneand hydroxy -diethy lbenzy lidene cyclopentanone