Understanding and reducing the disaster risk of landslide-induced tsunamis: a short summary of the panel discussion in the World Tsunami Awareness Day Special Event of the Fifth World Landslide Forum

A World Tsunami Awareness Day Special Event was held in hybrid mode on 5 November 2021, during the Fifth World Landslide Forum, in Kyoto, Japan. In this context, a panel discussion was organized across America, Europe, and Asia, with the goal to better understand and reduce the disaster risk of landslide-induced tsunamis, consistent with the Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020. This article presents a short summary of this panel discussion

The whole blood transcriptional regulation landscape in 465 COVID-19 infected samples from Japan COVID-19 Task Force

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19患者由来の血液細胞における遺伝子発現の網羅的解析 --重症度に応じた遺伝子発現の変化には、ヒトゲノム配列の個人差が影響する--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-23.Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a recently-emerged infectious disease that has caused millions of deaths, where comprehensive understanding of disease mechanisms is still unestablished. In particular, studies of gene expression dynamics and regulation landscape in COVID-19 infected individuals are limited. Here, we report on a thorough analysis of whole blood RNA-seq data from 465 genotyped samples from the Japan COVID-19 Task Force, including 359 severe and 106 non-severe COVID-19 cases. We discover 1169 putative causal expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) including 34 possible colocalizations with biobank fine-mapping results of hematopoietic traits in a Japanese population, 1549 putative causal splice QTLs (sQTLs; e.g. two independent sQTLs at TOR1AIP1), as well as biologically interpretable trans-eQTL examples (e.g., REST and STING1), all fine-mapped at single variant resolution. We perform differential gene expression analysis to elucidate 198 genes with increased expression in severe COVID-19 cases and enriched for innate immune-related functions. Finally, we evaluate the limited but non-zero effect of COVID-19 phenotype on eQTL discovery, and highlight the presence of COVID-19 severity-interaction eQTLs (ieQTLs; e.g., CLEC4C and MYBL2). Our study provides a comprehensive catalog of whole blood regulatory variants in Japanese, as well as a reference for transcriptional landscapes in response to COVID-19 infection

DOCK2 is involved in the host genetics and biology of severe COVID-19

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19疾患感受性遺伝子DOCK2の重症化機序を解明 --アジア最大のバイオレポジトリーでCOVID-19の治療標的を発見--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-10.Identifying the host genetic factors underlying severe COVID-19 is an emerging challenge. Here we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) involving 2, 393 cases of COVID-19 in a cohort of Japanese individuals collected during the initial waves of the pandemic, with 3, 289 unaffected controls. We identified a variant on chromosome 5 at 5q35 (rs60200309-A), close to the dedicator of cytokinesis 2 gene (DOCK2), which was associated with severe COVID-19 in patients less than 65 years of age. This risk allele was prevalent in East Asian individuals but rare in Europeans, highlighting the value of genome-wide association studies in non-European populations. RNA-sequencing analysis of 473 bulk peripheral blood samples identified decreased expression of DOCK2 associated with the risk allele in these younger patients. DOCK2 expression was suppressed in patients with severe cases of COVID-19. Single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis (n = 61 individuals) identified cell-type-specific downregulation of DOCK2 and a COVID-19-specific decreasing effect of the risk allele on DOCK2 expression in non-classical monocytes. Immunohistochemistry of lung specimens from patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia showed suppressed DOCK2 expression. Moreover, inhibition of DOCK2 function with CPYPP increased the severity of pneumonia in a Syrian hamster model of SARS-CoV-2 infection, characterized by weight loss, lung oedema, enhanced viral loads, impaired macrophage recruitment and dysregulated type I interferon responses. We conclude that DOCK2 has an important role in the host immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and the development of severe COVID-19, and could be further explored as a potential biomarker and/or therapeutic target

波浪による砂質地盤の液状化に関する研究

京都大学0048新制・課程博士博士(工学)甲第8315号工博第1880号新制||工||1164(附属図書館)UT51-2000-F219京都大学大学院工学研究科土木工学専攻(主査)教授 関口 秀雄, 教授 岡 二三生, 教授 酒井 哲郎学位規則第4条第1項該当Doctor of EngineeringKyoto UniversityDA

Mechanical characteristics of undisturbed coral gravel soils: The intergranular void ratio as a common governing parameter

Coral gravel soils are composite soils comprised of large fragments of finger coral and fine particles from silt matrixes. When the amount of coral fragments is small, the mechanical behavior of the coral gravel soil is mainly governed by the silt matrixes, and when the amount of coral fragments is large, the mechanical behavior is mainly governed by the coral fragments. Undisturbed samples, called high-quality samples in the present study, were collected at large-scale coastal construction sites in Okinawa Prefecture and Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. A series of triaxial CD-tests was conducted in the laboratory to evaluate the mechanical characteristics of coral gravel soils. The test results were examined from various viewpoints to find a common governing parameter for the mechanical behavior of coral gravel soils. It was anticipated that it would be difficult to interpret the mechanical behavior of the high-quality samples in a uniform manner because undisturbed coral gravel soils, in the form of natural sediments, are generally very heterogeneous. To provide a reference for the parametric interpretation of the test results showing the remarkable features of coral gravel soils, such as interlocking and particle crushing, the test data newly obtained for the high-quality samples were compared to the previous test results obtained for reconstituted mixtures having various volumetric percentages of coral fragments. It was found that an intergranular void ratio corresponding to 0.075 mm, in which particles finer than a grain size of 0.075 mm (i.e., particles of clay and silt) are regarded as voids, can be employed as a useful parameter in evaluating the shear strength of both reconstituted and undisturbed coral gravel soil samples