Do thin filaments of smooth muscle contain calponin? A new method for the preparation

AbstractA new method for the preparation of smooth muscle thin filaments which include calponin was established. We found that calponin readily separated from thin filaments in the presence of 10 mM ATP. By preventing thin filament extract from exposing to ATP, we obtained thin filaments which contained actin, tropomyosin, caldesmon and calponin in molar ratios of 7:0.9:0.6:0.7. We studied myosin Mg-ATPase activity by using the thin filaments in comparison with classical thin filaments prepared by the method of Marston and Smith, which contained the same amounts of caldesmon and tropomyosin as our thin filaments but lost almost all calponin. The presence of calponin reduced the Vmax value for thin filament-activated myosin Mg-ATPase activity by 33% without a significant change in Km value. These findings suggest that calponin inhibits myosin Mg-ATPase activity by modulation of a kinetic step as an integral component of smooth muscle thin filaments

A Study on a Development Methodology for Real-time Urban Water Monitoring System

The purposes of this study are to raise the awareness of urban water not being efficiently managed and to propose a method for resolving this issue. To serve these purposes, a methodology was proposed to obtain sensing data in a real-time monitoring method and to build them into an IT system. Some sample data among sensing data were used to perform a series of trend analyses using a polynomial model. In addition, a method for the continued management of urban water monitoring systems was proposed based on the real-time monitoring data collected from sensors. As a result of the aforementioned research, a monitoring technique is needed in order to improve the reliability of urban water

A Research on the Trend Pattern Analysis of Industrial Water Consumption

The purpose of this study is to propose the average trend pattern of the industrial water consumption. A real-time sensing technique was adopted for the consumption data acquisition. Data were transformed from the field equipments to the management server in every 5 minutes. The data acquired were substituted to a polynomial formula selected. As a result, a series of models were developed for each day. Each of these models is finalized to represent the average water consumption for the day. In this way, an average consumption pattern is derived for each day of a week. As a result of the aforementioned research, the proposed trend pattern analysis technique is expected to offer some important role for the water supply forecasting administration and management

A at Single Nucleotide Polymorphism-358 Is Required for G at -420 to Confer the Highest Plasma Resistin in the General Japanese Population

Insulin resistance is a feature of type 2 diabetes. Resistin, secreted from adipocytes, causes insulin resistance in mice. We previously reported that the G/G genotype of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) at −420 (rs1862513) in the human resistin gene (RETN) increased susceptibility to type 2 diabetes by enhancing its promoter activity. Plasma resistin was highest in Japanese subjects with G/G genotype, followed by C/G, and C/C. In this study, we cross-sectionally analyzed plasma resistin and SNPs in the RETN region in 2,019 community-dwelling Japanese subjects. Plasma resistin was associated with SNP-638 (rs34861192), SNP-537 (rs34124816), SNP-420, SNP-358 (rs3219175), SNP+299 (rs3745367), and SNP+1263 (rs3745369) (P<10−13 in all cases). SNP-638, SNP -420, SNP-358, and SNP+157 were in the same linkage disequilibrium (LD) block. SNP-358 and SNP-638 were nearly in complete LD (r2 = 0.98), and were tightly correlated with SNP-420 (r2 = 0.50, and 0.51, respectively). The correlation between either SNP-358 (or SNP-638) or SNP-420 and plasma resistin appeared to be strong (risk alleles for high plasma resistin; A at SNP-358, r2 = 0.5224, P = 4.94×10−324; G at SNP-420, r2 = 0.2616, P = 1.71×10−133). In haplotypes determined by SNP-420 and SNP-358, the estimated frequencies for C-G, G-A, and G-G were 0.6700, 0.2005, and 0.1284, respectively, and C-A was rare (0.0011), suggesting that subjects with A at −358, generally had G at −420. This G-A haplotype conferred the highest plasma resistin (8.24 ng/ml difference/allele compared to C-G, P<0.0001). In THP-1 cells, the RETN promoter with the G-A haplotype showed the highest activity. Nuclear proteins specifically recognized one base difference at SNP-358, but not at SNP-638. Therefore, A at -358 is required for G at −420 to confer the highest plasma resistin in the general Japanese population. In Caucasians, the association between SNP-420 and plasma resistin is not strong, and A at −358 may not exist, suggesting that SNP-358 could explain this ethnic difference

Rapid Pathway Evolution Facilitated by Horizontal Gene Transfers across Prokaryotic Lineages

The evolutionary history of biological pathways is of general interest, especially in this post-genomic era, because it may provide clues for understanding how complex systems encoded on genomes have been organized. To explain how pathways can evolve de novo, some noteworthy models have been proposed. However, direct reconstruction of pathway evolutionary history both on a genomic scale and at the depth of the tree of life has suffered from artificial effects in estimating the gene content of ancestral species. Recently, we developed an algorithm that effectively reconstructs gene-content evolution without these artificial effects, and we applied it to this problem. The carefully reconstructed history, which was based on the metabolic pathways of 160 prokaryotic species, confirmed that pathways have grown beyond the random acquisition of individual genes. Pathway acquisition took place quickly, probably eliminating the difficulty in holding genes during the course of the pathway evolution. This rapid evolution was due to massive horizontal gene transfers as gene groups, some of which were possibly operon transfers, which would convey existing pathways but not be able to generate novel pathways. To this end, we analyzed how these pathways originally appeared and found that the original acquisition of pathways occurred more contemporaneously than expected across different phylogenetic clades. As a possible model to explain this observation, we propose that novel pathway evolution may be facilitated by bidirectional horizontal gene transfers in prokaryotic communities. Such a model would complement existing pathway evolution models