Embedded Ubiquitous Services on Hospital Information Systems.

A Hospital Information Systems (HIS) have turned a hospital into a gigantic computer with huge computational power, huge storage and wired/wireless local area network. On the other hand, a modern medical device, such as echograph, is a computer system with several functional units connected by an internal network named a bus. Therefore, we can embed such a medical device into the HIS by simply replacing the bus with the local area network. This paper designed and developed two embedded systems, a ubiquitous echograph system and a networked digital camera. Evaluations of the developed systems clearly show that the proposed approach, embedding existing clinical systems into HIS, drastically changes productivity in the clinical field. Once a clinical system becomes a pluggable unit for a gigantic computer system, HIS, the combination of multiple embedded systems with application software designed under deep consideration about clinical processes may lead to the emergence of disruptive innovation in the clinical field

A novel superior factor widely controlling the rice grain quality

Synthesis of storage starch and protein accumulation is the main action of endosperm organogenesis in term of the economic importance of rice. This event is strongly disturbed by abiotic stresses such as high temperature; thus, the upcoming global warming will cause a crisis with a great impact on food production^1,2^. The enzymes for the protein storage and starch synthesis pathway should work in concert to carry out the organogenesis of rice endosperm^3-5^, but the regulatory mechanism is largely unknown. Here we show that a novel regulatory factor, named OsCEO1, acts as the conductor of endosperm organogenesis during the rice grain filling stage. The physiological properties of _floury-endosperm-2_ (_flo2_) mutants showed many similarities to symptoms of grains developed under high-temperature conditions, suggesting important roles of the responsible gene in sensitivity to high-temperature stress. Our map-based cloning identified the responsible gene for the _flo2_ mutant, _OsCEO1_, which has no homology to any genes of known function. The _OsCEO1_ belongs to a novel conserved gene family and encodes a protein composed of 1,720 amino acid residues containing a TPR (tetratricopeptide repeat) motif, which is considered to mediate a protein-protein interaction. The yeast two-hybrid analysis raised an unknown protein showing homology to a late embryogenesis abundant protein and a putative basic helix-loop-helix protein as candidates for the direct interactor for _OsCEO1_, whereas no enzyme genes for the synthesis of storage substances were detected. The _flo2_ mutant exhibited reduced expression of several genes for putative regulatory proteins as well as many enzymes involved in storage starch and proteins. These results suggest that _OsCEO1_ is a superior conductor of the novel regulatory cascade of endosperm organogenesis and may have important roles in the response to high-temperature stress

Regulatory mechanism on sucrose metabolism in rice endosperm by a specific protein kinase, SPK

Synthesis and accumulation of storage starch is a main action of endosperm organogenesis. The enzymes for starch synthesis should work in concert, but the regulatory mechanism is largely unknown. Rice SPK, a calcium-dependent protein kinase, is uniquely expressed in endosperm of immature seeds. Antisense-SPK transformants showed lacked accumulation of storage starch resulting in production of watery seeds with a large amount of sucrose. In vitro phosphorylation indicated that SPK specifically phosphorylated a serine residue in sucrose synthase involved in its activity, and thus SPK is a sucrose-synthase kinase. Sucrose synthase catalyzes the reversible conversion of sucrose in the presence of UDP to UDP-glucose and fructose. Recently, the reaction accompanied with ADP is also reported. Since sucrose synthase is regulated by reversible phosphorylation, we determined effect of the phosphorylation on its activity. The basal activity of sucrose synthase accompanied with ADP and ADP-glucose was quite low but apparently detected as well as that with UDP and UDP-glucose. The activity of sucrose cleavage accompanied with ADP was significantly elevated after sucrose synthase was phosphorylated, whereas little alteration was detected on other reactions. Thus, it is suggested that SPK enhances efficiency of sucrose cleavage reaction with ADP of sucrose synthase by its phosphorylation, and promotes the generation of ADP-glucose from sucrose in endosperm. Since storage starch is mainly produced from ADP-glucose, it appears that this reaction greatly contributes the supply of substrate for storage starch biosynthesis

Construction of a Versatile, Programmable RNA-Binding Protein Using Designer PPR Proteins and Its Application for Splicing Control in Mammalian Cells

RNAs play many essential roles in gene expression and are involved in various human diseases. Although genome editing technologies have been established, the engineering of sequence-specific RNA-binding proteins that manipulate particular cellular RNA molecules is immature, in contrast to nucleotide-based RNA manipulation technology, such as siRNA- and RNA-targeting CRISPR/Cas. Here, we demonstrate a versatile RNA manipulation technology using pentatricopeptide-repeat (PPR)-motif-containing proteins. First, we developed a rapid construction and evaluation method for PPR-based designer sequence-specific RNA-binding proteins. This system has enabled the steady construction of dozens of functional designer PPR proteins targeting long 18 nt RNA, which targets a single specific RNA in the mammalian transcriptome. Furthermore, the cellular functionality of the designer PPR proteins was first demonstrated by the control of alternative splicing of either a reporter gene or an endogenous CHK1 mRNA. Our results present a versatile protein-based RNA manipulation technology using PPR proteins that facilitates the understanding of unknown RNA functions and the creation of gene circuits and has potential for use in future therapeutics