Prospects for determination of thermal history after inflation with future gravitational wave detectors

Thermal history of the Universe between inflation and big-bang nucleosynthesis has not yet been revealed observationally. It will be probed by the detection of primordial gravitational waves generated during inflation, which contain information on the reheating temperature as well as the equation of state of the Universe after inflation. Based on Fisher information formalism, we examine how accurately the tensor-to-scalar ratio and reheating temperature after inflation can be simultaneously determined with space-based gravitational wave detectors such as the DECI-hertz Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (DECIGO) and the Big-Bang Observer (BBO). We show that the reheating temperature is best determined if it is around 10^7 GeV for tensor-to-scalar ratio of around 0.1, and explore the detectable parameter space. We also find that equation of state of the early Universe can be also determined accurately enough to distinguish different equation-of-state parameters if the inflationary gravitational waves are successfully detected. Thus future gravitational wave detectors provide a unique and promising opportunity to reveal the thermal history of the Universe around 10^7 GeV.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figure

Higher Order Corrections to the Primordial Gravitational Wave Spectrum and its Impact on Parameter Estimates for Inflation

We study the impact of the use of the power series expression for the primordial tensor spectrum on parameter estimation from future direct detection gravitational wave experiments. The spectrum approximated by the power series expansion may give large deviation from the true (fiducial) value when it is normalized at CMB scale because of the large separation between CMB and direct detection scales. We derive the coefficients of the higher order terms of the expansion up to the sixth order within the framework of the slow-roll approximation and investigate how well the inclusion of higher order terms improves the analytic prediction of the spectrum amplitude by comparing with numerical results. Using the power series expression, we consider future constraints on inflationary parameters expected from direct detection experiments of the inflationary gravitational wave background and show that the truncation of the higher order terms can lead to incorrect evaluation of the parameters. We present two example models; a quadratic chaotic inflation model and mixed inflaton and curvaton model with a quartic inflaton potential.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures, revised version accepted by JCA

Population genomics of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe.

The fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe has been widely used as a model eukaryote to study a diverse range of biological processes. However, population genetic studies of this species have been limited to date, and we know very little about the evolutionary processes and selective pressures that are shaping its genome. Here, we sequenced the genomes of 32 worldwide S. pombe strains and examined the pattern of polymorphisms across their genomes. In addition to introns and untranslated regions (UTRs), intergenic regions also exhibited lower levels of nucleotide diversity than synonymous sites, suggesting that a considerable amount of noncoding DNA is under selective constraint and thus likely to be functional. A number of genomic regions showed a reduction of nucleotide diversity probably caused by selective sweeps. We also identified a region close to the end of chromosome 3 where an extremely high level of divergence was observed between 5 of the 32 strains and the remain 27, possibly due to introgression, strong positive selection, or that region being responsible for reproductive isolation. Our study should serve as an important starting point in using a population genomics approach to further elucidate the biology of this important model organism

Characterization of the Soybean Genome Using EST-derived Microsatellite Markers

We generated a high-density genetic linkage map of soybean using expressed sequence tag (EST)-derived microsatellite markers. A total of 6920 primer pairs (10.9%) were designed to amplify simple sequence repeats (SSRs) from 63 676 publicly available non-redundant soybean ESTs. The polymorphism of two parent plants, the Japanese cultivar ‘Misuzudaizu’ and the Chinese line ‘Moshidou Gong 503’, were examined using 10% polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Primer pairs showing polymorphism were then used for genotyping 94 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from a cross between the parents. In addition to previously reported markers, 680 EST-derived microsatellite markers were selected and subjected to linkage analysis. As a result, 935 marker loci were mapped successfully onto 20 linkage groups, which totaled 2700.3 cM in length; 693 loci were detected using the 668 EST-derived microsatellite markers developed in this study, the other 242 loci were detected with 105 RFLP markers, 136 genome-derived microsatellite markers, and one phenotypic marker. We examined allelic variation among 23 soybean cultivars/lines and a wild soybean line using 668 mapped EST-derived microsatellite markers (corresponding to 686 marker loci), in order to determine the transferability of the markers among soybean germplasms. A limited degree of macrosynteny was observed at the segmental level between the genomes of soybean and the model legume Lotus japonicus, which suggests that considerable genome shuffling occurred after separation of the species and during establishment of the paleopolyploid soybean genome

A Comprehensive Peptidome Profiling Technology for the Identification of Early Detection Biomarkers for Lung Adenocarcinoma

The mass spectrometry-based peptidomics approaches have proven its usefulness in several areas such as the discovery of physiologically active peptides or biomarker candidates derived from various biological fluids including blood and cerebrospinal fluid. However, to identify biomarkers that are reproducible and clinically applicable, development of a novel technology, which enables rapid, sensitive, and quantitative analysis using hundreds of clinical specimens, has been eagerly awaited. Here we report an integrative peptidomic approach for identification of lung cancer-specific serum peptide biomarkers. It is based on the one-step effective enrichment of peptidome fractions (molecular weight of 1,000–5,000) with size exclusion chromatography in combination with the precise label-free quantification analysis of nano-LC/MS/MS data set using Expressionist proteome server platform. We applied this method to 92 serum samples well-managed with our SOP (standard operating procedure) (30 healthy controls and 62 lung adenocarcinoma patients), and quantitatively assessed the detected 3,537 peptide signals. Among them, 118 peptides showed significantly altered serum levels between the control and lung cancer groups (p<0.01 and fold change >5.0). Subsequently we identified peptide sequences by MS/MS analysis and further assessed the reproducibility of Expressionist-based quantification results and their diagnostic powers by MRM-based relative-quantification analysis for 96 independently prepared serum samples and found that APOA4 273–283, FIBA 5–16, and LBN 306–313 should be clinically useful biomarkers for both early detection and tumor staging of lung cancer. Our peptidome profiling technology can provide simple, high-throughput, and reliable quantification of a large number of clinical samples, which is applicable for diverse peptidome-targeting biomarker discoveries using any types of biological specimens

ニンシン オ ケイキ ニ ジョウミャク ケッセンショウ オ ハッショウシ センテンセイ アンチトロンビンIII ケッソンショウ ト シンダン サレタ イチレイ

Congenital antithrombin III (AT III) deficiency is an inherited autosomal dominant disorder. Patients often suffer from recurrent venous thromboses that are triggered by several occasions (operation, gestation, trauma, oral contraceptive drug etc.). Moreover, 60% of them are said to be associated with pulmonary embolism. The patient of this report is 27-year-old pregnant woman in the first trimester. She felt pain in the back of her head and left auricle and presented with dyslexia and aphasia in late of March, 20XX. Getting CT brain scan, MRI brain scan, and blood sampling at the nearby hospital, she was suspected of having thrombosis of left sigmoid and transverse sinus due to AT III deficiency. Because she wanted to give birth to her first child without termination, she was referred to our hospital. We used heparin as the anticoagulant therapy because warfarin had the risk of teratogenesis. But in condition of low serum level of AT III activity, it didn’t work effectively. So we also did frequent complement of AT III. Strict anticoagulant therapy resulted in better outcome for both the patient and her baby without fatal venous thromboses or fetal complications