43 research outputs found
Deuterium- and Alkyne-Based Bioorthogonal Raman Probes for In Situ Quantitative Metabolic Imaging of Lipids within Plants
Plants can rapidly respond to different stresses by activating multiple signaling and defense pathways. The ability to directly visualize and quantify these pathways in real time using bioorthogonal probes would have practical applications, including characterizing plant responses to both abiotic and biotic stress. Fluorescence-based labels are widely used for tagging of small biomolecules but are relatively bulky and with potential effects on their endogenous localization and metabolism. This work describes the use of deuterium- and alkyne-derived fatty acid Raman probes to visualize and track the real-time response of plants to abiotic stress within the roots. Relative quantification of the respective signals could be used to track their localization and overall real-time responses in their fatty acid pools due to drought and heat stress without labor-intensive isolation procedures. Their overall usability and low toxicity suggest that Raman probes have great untapped potential in the field of plant bioengineering
Study of the Fully Frustrated Clock Model using the Wang-Landau Algorithm
Monte Carlo simulations using the newly proposed Wang-Landau algorithm
together with the broad histogram relation are performed to study the
antiferromagnetic six-state clock model on the triangular lattice, which is
fully frustrated. We confirm the existence of the magnetic ordering belonging
to the Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT) type phase transition followed by the chiral
ordering which occurs at slightly higher temperature. We also observe the lower
temperature phase transition of KT type due to the discrete symmetry of the
clock model. By using finite-size scaling analysis, the higher KT temperature
and the chiral critical temperature are respectively estimated as
and . The results are in favor of the double
transition scenario. The lower KT temperature is estimated as .
Two decay exponents of KT transitions corresponding to higher and lower
temperatures are respectively estimated as and
, which suggests that the exponents associated with the KT
transitions are universal even for the frustrated model.Comment: 7 pages including 9 eps figures, RevTeX, to appear in J. Phys.
Cilostazol Inhibits Accumulation of Triglyceride in Aorta and Platelet Aggregation in Cholesterol-Fed Rabbits
Cilostazol is clinically used for the treatment of ischemic symptoms in patients with chronic peripheral arterial obstruction and for the secondary prevention of brain infarction. Recently, it has been reported that cilostazol has preventive effects on atherogenesis and decreased serum triglyceride in rodent models. There are, however, few reports on the evaluation of cilostazol using atherosclerotic rabbits, which have similar lipid metabolism to humans, and are used for investigating the lipid content in aorta and platelet aggregation under conditions of hyperlipidemia. Therefore, we evaluated the effect of cilostazol on the atherosclerosis and platelet aggregation in rabbits fed a normal diet or a cholesterol-containing diet supplemented with or without cilostazol. We evaluated the effects of cilostazol on the atherogenesis by measuring serum and aortic lipid content, and the lesion area after a 10-week treatment and the effect on platelet aggregation after 1- and 10-week treatment. From the lipid analyses, cilostazol significantly reduced the total cholesterol, triglyceride and phospholipids in serum, and moreover, the triglyceride content in the atherosclerotic aorta. Cilostazol significantly reduced the intimal atherosclerotic area. Platelet aggregation was enhanced in cholesterol-fed rabbits. Cilostazol significantly inhibited the platelet aggregation in rabbits fed both a normal diet and a high cholesterol diet. Cilostazol showed anti-atherosclerotic and anti-platelet effects in cholesterol-fed rabbits possibly due to the improvement of lipid metabolism and the attenuation of platelet activation. The results suggest that cilostazol is useful for prevention and treatment of atherothrombotic diseases with the lipid abnormalities
HEPATECTOMY FOR HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA WITH BILE DUCT TUMOR THROMBUS IN RIGHT-SIDED ROUND-LIGAMENT LIVER
A CASE OF AFP-PRODUCING GASTRIC CANCER WITH PORTAL TUMOR THROMBUS ACCOMPANIED BY RUPTURE OF THE METASTATIC LYMPH NODES
RESECTED COLORECTAL CANCER PRESENTING WITH A SUBMUCOSAL TUMOR AND SYNCHRONOUS ISOLATED STOMACH METASTASIS
Miniature Inverted-Repeat Transposable Elements of Stowaway Are Active in Potato
Miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements (MITEs) are dispersed in large numbers within the genomes of eukaryotes although almost all are thought to be inactive. Plants have two major groups of such MITEs: Tourist and Stowaway. Mobile MITEs have been reported previously in rice but no active MITEs have been found in dicotyledons. Here, we provide evidence that Stowaway MITEs can be mobilized in the potato and that one of them causes a change of tuber skin color as an obvious phenotypic variation. In an original red-skinned potato clone, the gene encoding for a flavonoid 3′,5′-hydroxylase, which is involved in purple anthocyanin synthesis, has been inactivated by the insertion of a Stowaway MITE named dTstu1 within the first exon. However, dTstu1 is absent from this gene in a purple somaclonal variant that was obtained as a regenerated plant from a protoplast culture of the red-skinned potato. The color change was attributed to reversion of flavonoid 3′,5′-hydroxylase function by removal of dTstu1 from the gene. In this purple variant another specific transposition event has occurred involving a MITE closely related to dTstu1. Instead of being fossil elements, Stowaway MITEs, therefore, still have the ability to become active under particular conditions as represented by tissue culturing