ノコギリヒラタムシ食害小麦に含まれる定着活性ケトステロイド

From hexane extract of wheat flour infested by the sawtoothed gain beetle [Oryzaephilus surinamensis (L.); Coleoptera; Silvanidae, three ketosteroids,cholestan-3-one(3),ergostan-3-one(4)and stigmastan-3-one(5),were obtained in a mixture and identified as arrestants to this weevil.世界的に著名な貯穀害虫であるノコギリヒラタムシによって食害された小麦のヘキサン抽出物中には、未食害の小麦には含まれない、数種のノコギリヒラタムシ定着活性物質が存在し、このうちの2種の活性物質が既に構造解明された。本研究では種々の機器分析、および市販化合物からの誘導などにより、未知の活性物質がcholestan-3-one,ergostan-3-one,stifmastan-3-one の混合物であると同定した

NBRP databases: databases of biological resources in Japan

The National BioResource Project (NBRP) is a Japanese project that aims to establish a system for collecting, preserving and providing bioresources for use as experimental materials for life science research. It is promoted by 27 core resource facilities, each concerned with a particular group of organisms, and by one information center. The NBRP database is a product of this project. Thirty databases and an integrated database-retrieval system (BioResource World: BRW) have been created and made available through the NBRP home page (http://www.nbrp.jp). The 30 independent databases have individual features which directly reflect the data maintained by each resource facility. The BRW is designed for users who need to search across several resources without moving from one database to another. BRW provides access to a collection of 4.5-million records on bioresources including wild species, inbred lines, mutants, genetically engineered lines, DNA clones and so on. BRW supports summary browsing, keyword searching, and searching by DNA sequences or gene ontology. The results of searches provide links to online requests for distribution of research materials. A circulation system allows users to submit details of papers published on research conducted using NBRP resources

The 3rd DBCLS BioHackathon: improving life science data integration with Semantic Web technologies.

BACKGROUND: BioHackathon 2010 was the third in a series of meetings hosted by the Database Center for Life Sciences (DBCLS) in Tokyo, Japan. The overall goal of the BioHackathon series is to improve the quality and accessibility of life science research data on the Web by bringing together representatives from public databases, analytical tool providers, and cyber-infrastructure researchers to jointly tackle important challenges in the area of in silico biological research. RESULTS: The theme of BioHackathon 2010 was the 'Semantic Web', and all attendees gathered with the shared goal of producing Semantic Web data from their respective resources, and/or consuming or interacting those data using their tools and interfaces. We discussed on topics including guidelines for designing semantic data and interoperability of resources. We consequently developed tools and clients for analysis and visualization. CONCLUSION: We provide a meeting report from BioHackathon 2010, in which we describe the discussions, decisions, and breakthroughs made as we moved towards compliance with Semantic Web technologies - from source provider, through middleware, to the end-consumer.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Hitomi (ASTRO-H) X-ray Astronomy Satellite

The Hitomi (ASTRO-H) mission is the sixth Japanese x-ray astronomy satellite developed by a large international collaboration, including Japan, USA, Canada, and Europe. The mission aimed to provide the highest energy resolution ever achieved at E  >  2  keV, using a microcalorimeter instrument, and to cover a wide energy range spanning four decades in energy from soft x-rays to gamma rays. After a successful launch on February 17, 2016, the spacecraft lost its function on March 26, 2016, but the commissioning phase for about a month provided valuable information on the onboard instruments and the spacecraft system, including astrophysical results obtained from first light observations. The paper describes the Hitomi (ASTRO-H) mission, its capabilities, the initial operation, and the instruments/spacecraft performances confirmed during the commissioning operations for about a month

Evolution of Proliferative Model Protocells Highly Responsive to the Environment

In this review, we discuss various methods of reproducing life dynamics using a constructive approach. An increase in the structural complexity of a model protocell is accompanied by an increase in the stage of reproduction of a compartment (giant vesicle; GV) from simple reproduction to linked reproduction with the replication of information molecules (DNA), and eventually to recursive proliferation of a model protocell. An encounter between a plural protic catalyst (C) and DNA within a GV membrane containing a plural cationic lipid (V) spontaneously forms a supramolecular catalyst (C@DNA) that catalyzes the production of cationic membrane lipid V. The local formation of V causes budding deformation of the GV and equivolume divisions. The length of the DNA strand influences the frequency of proliferation, associated with the emergence of a primitive information flow that induces phenotypic plasticity in response to environmental conditions. A predominant protocell appears from the competitive proliferation of protocells containing DNA with different strand lengths, leading to an evolvable model protocell. Recently, peptides of amino acid thioesters have been used to construct peptide droplets through liquid–liquid phase separation. These droplets grew, owing to the supply of nutrients, and were divided repeatedly under a physical stimulus. This proposed chemical system demonstrates a new perspective of the origins of membraneless protocells, i.e., the “droplet world” hypothesis. Proliferative model protocells can be regarded as autonomous supramolecular machines. This concept of this review may open new horizons of “evolution” for intelligent supramolecular machines and robotics

Physicochemical Cause and Effect Observed in DNA Length-Dependent Division of Protocell as the Primitive Flow of Information

In the prebiotic era, physicochemical cause and effect served as the primitive flow of information for protocells. Our recent study claimed that the manners and frequencies of self-reproduction of giant vesicle (GV) -based model protocells were regulated by the incorporated DNA-length, and not the base-pair sequence due to the presence of a supramolecular catalyst (lipo-deoxyribozyme) composed of DNA and lipophilic catalysts. The DNA-length dependent dynamics of the self-reproducing GVs containing different length of DNA were examined by three independent experiments; Population analysis by flow cytometric measurements, counting of　increased numbers of protocells and direct morphological observation of a single GV by confocal microscopy. These results may shed light on the information system in the prebiotic stage, when the central dogma was not established. Notably, recent reports have revealed the possible influence of DNA length on the activation of living cells through the complexation of DNA to an enzyme in non-sequential aggregation manner.This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI (Grant Numbers JP25103009, JP16K05759 and JP17H04876), ‘Platform for Dynamic Approaches to Living System’ at the University of Tokyo, Kanagawa University Grant for Joint Research, and the Yoshida Scholarship Foundation