Synthesis and properties of 4′-ThioDNA: unexpected RNA-like behavior of 4′-ThioDNA

The synthesis and properties of fully modified 4′-thioDNAs, oligonucleotides consisting of 2′-deoxy-4′-thionucleosides, were examined. In addition to the known literature properties (preferable hybridization with RNA and resistance to endonuclease hydrolysis), we also observed higher resistance of 4′-thioDNA to 3′-exonuclease cleavage. Furthermore, we found that fully modified 4′-thioDNAs behaved like RNA molecules in their hybridization properties and structural aspect, at least in the case of the 4′-thioDNA duplex. This observation was confirmed by experiments using groove binders, in which a 4′-thioDNA duplex interacts with an RNA major groove binder, lividomycin A, but not with DNA groove binders, to give an increase in its thermal stability. Since a 4′-thioDNA duplex competitively inhibited the hydrolysis of an RNA duplex by RNase V(1), it was not only the physical properties but also this biological data suggested that a 4′-thioDNA duplex has an RNA-like structure

Characterization of Novel 4-n-Butylphenol- Degrading Pseudomonas Veronii Strains Isolated from Rhizosphere of Giant Duckweed, Spirodela polyrrhiza

『大阪大学大学院工学研究科環境・エネルギー工学専攻生物圏環境工学領域 研究活動報告』, (2009.4.1～2010.3.31), pp.32-41, 大阪大学大学院工学研究科環境・エネルギー工学専攻環境資源・材料学講座生物圏環境工学領域, 2010.5 に掲

Health Checkup and Telemedical Intervention Program for Preventive Medicine in Developing Countries: Verification Study

Background: The prevalence of non-communicable diseases is increasing throughout the world, including developing countries. / Objective: The intent was to conduct a study of a preventive medical service in a developing country, combining eHealth checkups and teleconsultation as well as assess stratification rules and the short-term effects of intervention. / Methods: We developed an eHealth system that comprises a set of sensor devices in an attaché case, a data transmission system linked to a mobile network, and a data management application. We provided eHealth checkups for the populations of five villages and the employees of five factories/offices in Bangladesh. Individual health condition was automatically categorized into four grades based on international diagnostic standards: green (healthy), yellow (caution), orange (affected), and red (emergent). We provided teleconsultation for orange- and red-grade subjects and we provided teleprescription for these subjects as required. / Results: The first checkup was provided to 16,741 subjects. After one year, 2361 subjects participated in the second checkup and the systolic blood pressure of these subjects was significantly decreased from an average of 121 mmHg to an average of 116 mmHg (P<.001). Based on these results, we propose a cost-effective method using a machine learning technique (random forest method) using the medical interview, subject profiles, and checkup results as predictor to avoid costly measurements of blood sugar, to ensure sustainability of the program in developing countries. / Conclusions: The results of this study demonstrate the benefits of an eHealth checkup and teleconsultation program as an effective health care system in developing countries

Unexpected A-form formation of 4′-thioDNA in solution, revealed by NMR, and the implications as to the mechanism of nuclease resistance

Fully modified 4′-thioDNA, an oligonucleotide only comprising 2′-deoxy-4′-thionucleosides, exhibited resistance to an endonuclease, in addition to preferable hybridization with RNA. Therefore, 4′-thioDNA is promising for application as a functional oligonucleotide. Fully modified 4′-thioDNA was found to behave like an RNA molecule, but no details of its structure beyond the results of circular dichroism analysis are available. Here, we have determined the structure of fully modified 4′-thioDNA with the sequence of d(CGCGAATTCGCG) by NMR. Most sugars take on the C3′-endo conformation. The major groove is narrow and deep, while the minor groove is wide and shallow. Thus, fully modified 4′-thioDNA takes on the A-form characteristic of RNA, both locally and globally. The only structure reported for 4′-thioDNA showed that partially modified 4′-thioDNA that contained some 2′-deoxy-4′-thionucleosides took on the B-form in the crystalline form. We have determined the structure of 4′-thioDNA in solution for the first time, and demonstrated unexpected differences between the two structures. The origin of the formation of the A-form is discussed. The remarkable biochemical properties reported for fully modified 4′-thioDNA, including nuclease-resistance, are rationalized in the light of the elucidated structure

Recognizing and Understanding Nursing Activities for a Whole Day with a Big Dataset

In this paper, we 1) provide a real nursing data set for mobile activity recognition that can be used for supervised machine learning, 2) provide big data combined with the patient medical records and sensors attempted for 2 years, and also 3) propose a method for recognizing activities for a whole day utilizing prior knowledge about the activity segments in a day. Furthermore, we demonstrate data mining by applying our method to the bigger data with additional hospital data. In the proposed method, we 1) convert a set of segment timestamps into a prior probability of the activity segment by exploiting the concept of importance sampling, 2) obtain the likelihood of traditional recognition methods for each local time window within the segment range, and, 3) apply Bayesian estimation by marginalizing the conditional probability of estimating the activities for the segment samples. By evaluating with the dataset, the proposed method outperformed the traditional method without using the prior knowledge by 25.81% at maximum by a balanced classification rate, and outperformed by 6.5% the F-measure with accepting 1 hour of margin. Moreover, the proposed method significantly reduces duration errors of activity segments from 324.2 seconds of the traditional method to 74.6 seconds at maximum. We also demonstrate the data mining by applying our method to bigger data in a hospital