Use and Conservation of Edible Wild Plants in Bhutan

In an investigation of edible wild plants in Bhutan by the authors, plants samples were identified and categorized into 60 families and 172 species and 6 families and 18 species from Divisions Magnoliophyta and Pteridophyta,respectively.Management of the community forest is one effective way for achieving in-situ conservation of edible wild plants. Since gathering edible wild plants in a forest is performed simultaneously with the maintenance and management of the forest in Bhutan, gathering is thought to be helpful to forest conservation.ブータンでの食用野生植物の調査の結果，種子植物で60科172種が，シダ植物で６科18種が確認された。共有林を維持管理していくことは，このような野生植物の生息域内保全に効果的である。ブータンでは食用野生植物の採取は森林の維持管理と一体的に行われているため，森林保全の一助にもなっていると考えられる。Article信州大学農学部紀要 48（1-2）: 75-83(2012)departmental bulletin pape

Comparison of seasonal growth and yield performances of Japanese cabbage varieties in Nagano, Japan

Three cabbage varieties, "Ajioh","Shutoku SP" and "Shinshu 868" were investigated at the AFC field, Faculty of Agriculture, Shinshu University during 2014. The experiment was established in a simple Randomized Complete Block Design, where these three cabbage varieties were transplanted and harvested at five different seasons. There were some significant differences among the varieties in head weight, head width and head height, as well as the number of leaves and their weight. For seasonal difference, the highest growth and yield performances were observed in Phase 3 (harvested in October) among the varieties. The results obtained indicated that "Shinshu 868" produced the highest head weight (1.64㎏) and the highest head width (19.1㎝) ; while "Ajioh" produced the highest head height (14.4㎝/head). The phase 5 had no head formation due to change in weather condition from October to December.Article信州大学農学部AFC報告 13: 131-136 (2015)departmental bulletin pape

局所型前立腺癌に対する3次元原体照射後の晩期消化管障害に関連する臨床因子

Original Pape

Ultrafast single-molecule imaging reveals focal adhesion nano-architecture and molecular dynamics

細胞膜上の分子がバレエの群舞のように見えてきた： 1蛍光分子の感度で、究極速度で撮像できるカメラを開発. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2023-06-06.Using our newly developed ultrafast camera described in the companion paper, we reduced the data acquisition periods required for photoactivation/photoconversion localization microscopy (PALM, using mEos3.2) and direct stochastic reconstruction microscopy (dSTORM, using HMSiR) by a factor of ≈30 compared with standard methods, for much greater view-fields, with localization precisions of 29 and 19 nm, respectively, thus opening up previously inaccessible spatiotemporal scales to cell biology research. Simultaneous two-color PALM-dSTORM and PALM-ultrafast (10 kHz) single fluorescent-molecule imaging-tracking has been realized. They revealed the dynamic nanoorganization of the focal adhesion (FA), leading to the compartmentalized archipelago FA model, consisting of FA-protein islands with broad diversities in size (13–100 nm; mean island diameter ≈30 nm), protein copy numbers, compositions, and stoichiometries, which dot the partitioned fluid membrane (74-nm compartments in the FA vs. 109-nm compartments outside the FA). Integrins are recruited to these islands by hop diffusion. The FA-protein islands form loose ≈320 nm clusters and function as units for recruiting FA proteins

Intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT) for previously untreated malignant gliomas

BACKGROUND: Intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT) is one of the methods used to deliver a large single dose to the tumor tissue while reducing the exposure of normal surrounding tissue. However, the usefulness of intraoperative electron therapy for malignant gliomas has not been established. METHODS: During the period from 1987 to 1997, 32 patients with malignant gliomas were treated with IORT. The histological diagnoses were anaplastic astrocytoma in 11 patients and glioblastoma in 21 patients. Therapy consisted of surgical resection and intraoperative electron therapy using a dose of 12–15 Gy (median, 15 Gy). The patients later underwent postoperative external radiation therapy (EXRT) with a median total dose of 60 Gy. Each of the 32 patients treated with IORT was randomly matched with patients who had been treated with postoperative EXRT alone (control). Patients were matched according to histological grade, age, extent of tumor removal, and tumor location. RESULTS: In the anaplastic astrocytoma group, the one-, two- and five-year survival rates were 81%, 51% and 15%, respectively in the IORT patients and 54%, 43% and 21%, respectively in the control patients. In the glioblastoma group, one-, two- and five-year survival rates were 63%, 26% and 0%, respectively in the IORT patients and 70%, 18% and 6%, respectively in the control patients. There was no significant difference between survival rates in the IORT patients and control patients in either the anaplastic astrocytoma group or glioblastoma group. CONCLUSIONS: IORT dose not improve survival of patients with malignant gliomas compared to that of patients who have received EXRT alone

Repeated freeze–thaw cycles reduce the survival rate of osteocytes in bone-tendon constructs without affecting the mechanical properties of tendons

Frozen bone-patellar tendon bone allografts are useful in anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction as the freezing procedure kills tissue cells, thereby reducing immunogenicity of the grafts. However, a small portion of cells in human femoral heads treated by standard bone-bank freezing procedures survive, thus limiting the effectiveness of allografts. Here, we characterized the survival rates and mechanisms of cells isolated from rat bones and tendons that were subjected to freeze–thaw treatments, and evaluated the influence of these treatments on the mechanical properties of tendons. After a single freeze–thaw cycle, most cells isolated from frozen bone appeared morphologically as osteocytes and expressed both osteoblast- and osteocyte-related genes. Transmission electron microscopic observation of frozen cells using freeze-substitution revealed that a small number of osteocytes maintained large nuclei with intact double membranes, indicating that these osteocytes in bone matrix were resistant to ice crystal formation. We found that tendon cells were completely killed by a single freeze–thaw cycle, whereas bone cells exhibited a relatively high survival rate, although survival was significantly reduced after three freeze–thaw cycles. In patella tendons, the ultimate stress, Young’s modulus, and strain at failure showed no significant differences between untreated tendons and those subjected to five freeze–thaw cycles. In conclusion, we identified that cells surviving after freeze–thaw treatment of rat bones were predominantly osteocytes. We propose that repeated freeze–thaw cycles could be applied for processing bone-tendon constructs prior to grafting as the treatment did not affect the mechanical property of tendons and drastically reduced surviving osteocytes, thereby potentially decreasing allograft immunogenecity