A Synergistic Antiobesity Effect by a Combination of Capsinoids and Cold Temperature Through Promoting Beige Adipocyte Biogenesis.

Beige adipocytes emerge postnatally within the white adipose tissue in response to certain environmental cues, such as chronic cold exposure. Because of its highly recruitable nature and relevance to adult humans, beige adipocytes have gained much attention as an attractive cellular target for antiobesity therapy. However, molecular circuits that preferentially promote beige adipocyte biogenesis remain poorly understood. We report that a combination of mild cold exposure at 17°C and capsinoids, a nonpungent analog of capsaicin, synergistically and preferentially promotes beige adipocyte biogenesis and ameliorates diet-induced obesity. Gain- and loss-of-function studies show that the combination of capsinoids and cold exposure synergistically promotes beige adipocyte development through the β2-adrenoceptor signaling pathway. This synergistic effect on beige adipocyte biogenesis occurs through an increased half-life of PRDM16, a dominant transcriptional regulator of brown/beige adipocyte development. We document a previously unappreciated molecular circuit that controls beige adipocyte biogenesis and suggest a plausible approach to increase whole-body energy expenditure by combining dietary components and environmental cues

On Periploma mitsuganoense Araki (Bivalvia: Mollusca) from the Miocene Bihoku Group in Niimi City, Okayama Prefecture, southwest Japan ―with special reference to it’s paleogeographic significance―

In this paper, we deal with re-description of Periploma mitsuganoense Araki and it’s morphological variation and significance of the molluscan fauna of it from the Miocene Bihoku Group in Niimi City, Okayama Prefecture, Southwest Japan. Moreover, the paleogeographic significance of this species is analyzed. The obtained results are summarized as follows: 1. The morphological variation of Periploma mitsuganoense Araki has a wide range on the basis of the analysis of the morphological outline. 2. The occurrence of P. mitsuganoense Araki from the Pectinid fauna is the first record in the West Setouchi Geological Province. 3. It is presumable that P. mitsuganoense Araki is an endemic species in the First Setouchi Geological Province from a view point of it’s spatial distribution

Adversarial Example Generation using Evolutionary Multi-objective Optimization

This paper proposes Evolutionary Multi-objective Optimization (EMO)-based Adversarial Example (AE) design method that performs under black-box setting. Previous gradient-based methods produce AEs by changing all pixels of a target image, while previous EC-based method changes small number of pixels to produce AEs. Thanks to EMO's property of population based-search, the proposed method produces various types of AEs involving ones locating between AEs generated by the previous two approaches, which helps to know the characteristics of a target model or to know unknown attack patterns. Experimental results showed the potential of the proposed method, e.g., it can generate robust AEs and, with the aid of DCT-based perturbation pattern generation, AEs for high resolution images

MHC Genotyping in Human and Nonhuman Species by PCRbased Next-Generation Sequencing

The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is a highly polymorphic genomic region that encodes the transplantation and immune regulatory molecules. It receives special attention for genetic investigation because of its important role in the regulation of innate and adaptive immune responses and its strong association with numerous infectious and/or autoimmune diseases. Recently, genotyping of the polymorphisms of MHC genes using targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies was developed for humans and some nonhuman species. Most species have numerous highly homologous MHC loci so the NGS technologies are likely to replace traditional genotyping methods in the near future for the investigation of human and animal MHC genes in evolutionary biology, ecology, population genetics, and disease and transplantation studies. In this chapter, we provide a short review of the use of targeted NGS for MHC genotyping in humans and nonhuman species, particularly for the class I and class II regions of the Crab-eating Macaque MHC (Mafa)

Synthesis of Fluorescent Gelators and Direct Observation of Gelation with a Fluorescence Microscope

Fluorescein-, benzothiazole-, quinoline-, stilbene-, and carbazole-containing fluorescent gelators have been synthesized by connecting gelation-driving segments, including l-isoleucine, l-valine, l-phenylalanine, l-leucine residue, cyclo(l-asparaginyl-l-phenylalanyl), and trans-(1R,2R)-diaminocyclohexane. The emission behaviors of the gelators were investigated, and their gelation abilities studied against 15 solvents. The minimum gel concentration, variable-temperature spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, fluorescence microscopy (FM), and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) were used to characterize gelation. The intermolecular hydrogen bonding between the N-H and C=O of amide, van der Waals interactions and pi-pi stacking play important roles in gelation. The colors of emission are related to the fluorescence structures of gelators. Fibrous aggregates characterized by the color of their emission were observed by FM. 3D images are produced by the superposition of images captured by CLSM every 0.1 mu m to a settled depth. The 3D images show that the large micrometer-sized aggregates spread out three dimensionally. FM observations of mixed gelators are studied. In the case of gelation, two structurally related gelators with the same gelation-driving segment lead to the gelators build up of the same aggregates through similar hydrogen-bonding patterns. When two gelators with structurally different gelation-driving segments induce gelation, the gelators build up each aggregate through individual hydrogen-bonding patterns. A fluorescent reagent that was incorporated into the aggregates of gels through van der Waals interactions was developed. The addition of this fluorescent reagent enables the successful observation of nonfluorescent gelators' aggregates by FM.ArticleCHEMISTRY-A EUROPEAN JOURNAL.22(47):16937-16947(2016)journal articl