Preventive Effects of Health-Food Drinks on the Obesity and DNA Damage of Mice Fed a High-Fat Diet under a Mild Stress

The body weight gain of mice fed an obesity-inducing diet is suppressed by a mild restraint stress, but at the same time, as previously reported, the stress induces DNA damage in the cells of multiple organs. In the present study, we attempted to prevent not only the obesity but also the DNA damage of mice fed an obesity-inducing diet under a mild restraint with commercially available health-food drinks such as fruit and vegetable juices, soymilks, vinegars and lactic acid bacteria drinks, which are rich in antioxidants. The body weight gain of young female mice fed a high-fat diet containing 20% fat for 4 weeks was considerably inhibited by restraint for 15 min per day in weeks 2 to 4 of 4-week period. The inhibition was further promoted with the concomitant administration of health-food drinks noted above, and was accompanied by a decrease of periovular fat, a major abdominal fat in the female mice. The definite loss of energy intake in the mice given health-food drinks was approximately compensated by the energy of the drink administered. On the other hand, the increase of DNA damage generated by restraint in the cells of five organs – the liver, pancreas, spleen, heart and bone marrow – was markedly suppressed with the administration of these drinks. The results suggest that a combination of mild stress and intake of suitable health-food containing some antioxidants may inhibit lifestyle-related diseases including hyperlipidemia and obesity, which may contribute to the inhibition of metabolic syndrome and childhood obesity

Role of the Schizosaccharomyces pombe F-box DNA helicase in processing recombination intermediates.

In an effort to identify novel genes involved in recombination repair, we isolated fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe mutants sensitive to methyl methanesulfonate (MMS) and a synthetic lethal with rad2. A gene that complements such mutations was isolated from the S. pombe genomic library, and subsequent analysis identified it as the fbh1 gene encoding the F-box DNA helicase, which is conserved in mammals but not conserved in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. An fbh1 deletion mutant is moderately sensitive to UV, MMS, and ¿ rays. The rhp51 (RAD51 ortholog) mutation is epistatic to fbh1. fbh1 is essential for viability in stationary-phase cells and in the absence of either Srs2 or Rqh1 DNA helicase. In each case, lethality is suppressed by deletion of the recombination gene rhp57. These results suggested that fbh1 acts downstream of rhp51 and rhp57. Following UV irradiation or entry into the stationary phase, nuclear chromosomal domains of the fbh1¿ mutant shrank, and accumulation of some recombination intermediates was suggested by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. Focus formation of Fbh1 protein was induced by treatment that damages DNA. Thus, the F-box DNA helicase appears to process toxic recombination intermediates, the formation of which is dependent on the function of Rhp51

Overexpression of BUNDLE SHEATH DEFECTIVE 2 improves the efficiency of photosynthesis and growth in Arabidopsis

Bundle Sheath Defective 2, BSD2, is a stroma-targeted protein initially identified as a factor required for the biogenesis of ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO) in maize. Plants and algae universally have a homologous gene for BSD2 and its deficiency causes a RuBisCO-less phenotype. As RuBisCO can be the rate-limiting step in CO2 assimilation, the overexpression of BSD2 might improve photosynthesis and productivity through the accumulation of RuBisCO. To examine this hypothesis, we produced BSD2 overexpression lines in Arabidopsis. Compared with wild type, the BSD2 overexpression lines BSD2ox-2 and BSD2ox-3 expressed 4.8-fold and 8.8-fold higher BSD2 mRNA, respectively, whereas the empty-vector (EV) harbouring plants had a comparable expression level. The overexpression lines showed a significantly higher CO2 assimilation rate per available CO2 and productivity than EV plants. The maximum carboxylation rate per total catalytic site was accelerated in the overexpression lines, while the number of total catalytic sites and RuBisCO content were unaffected. We then isolated recombinant BSD2 (rBSD2) from E. coli and found that rBSD2 reduces disulfide bonds using reductants present in vivo, for example glutathione, and that rBSD2 has the ability to reactivate RuBisCO that has been inactivated by oxidants. Furthermore, 15% of RuBisCO freshly isolated from leaves of EV was oxidatively inactivated, as compared with 0% in BSD2-overexpression lines, suggesting that the overexpression of BSD2 maintains RuBisCO to be in the reduced active form in vivo. Our results demonstrated that the overexpression of BSD2 improves photosynthetic efficiency in Arabidopsis and we conclude that it is involved in mediating RuBisCO activation.This work was supported in part by a JSPS KAKENHIGrant Number 26450081 (HS), 16H06552 (WY), A-STEP from theJapan Science and Technology Agency (HS), the Ministry of Edu-cation, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) as part ofJoint Research Program implemented at the Institute of PlantScience and Resources, Okayama University in Japan (HS), grantsfrom the Advanced Low Carbon Technology Research and Devel-opment Program from the Japan Science and Technology Agency(ST, TK, and HS), and the Join Usage/Research Center, Institute ofPlant Science and Resources, Okayama University (HS), and theJapan Society for the Promotion of Science under the Japan-UKResearch Cooperative Program from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (TK). JT is sup-ported by Research Fellowships for Young Scientists from JSPS,and FAB is supported by the Australian Government through theAustralian Research Council Centre of Excellence for TranslationalPhotosynthesis (CE1401000015)

Quantitative analysis of brain atrophy in patients with xeroderma pigmentosum group A carrying the founder mutation in Japan

Introduction: Xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) is an inherited congenital disease presenting with dermatological and neurological manifestations. In Japan, XP complementation group A (XP-A) is most frequently observed in eight clinical subtypes, and the homozygous founder mutation, IVS3-1G > C in XPA, suffer from severe manifestations including progressive brain atrophy since childhood. In this study, we used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and applied volumetric analysis to elucidate the start and the progression of the brain atrophy in these patients. Material and methods: Twelve Japanese patients with XP-A carrying the founder mutation and seven controls were included. MRI was performed for each patient once or more. Three-dimensional T1 weighted images were segmented to gray matter, white matter, and cerebrospinal fluid, and each volume was calculated. Results: Conventional MRI demonstrated progressive whole brain atrophy in patients with XP-A. Moreover, volumetric analysis showed that reductions of total gray matter volumes (GMV) and total brain volumes (TBV) started at the age of five. The slope of reduction was similar in all cases. The GMV and TBV values in controls were higher than those in XP-A cases after the age of five. Conclusions: This is the first quantitative report presenting with the progression of brain atrophy in patients with XP-A. It is revealed that the brain atrophy started from early childhood in Japanese patients with XP-A carrying the homozygous founder mutation

Rapid and Efficient MALDI-TOF MS Peak Detection of 2-Nitrobenzenesulfenyl-Labeled Peptides Using the Combination of HPLC and an Automatic Spotting Apparatus

In this paper, we report MALDI-TOF ms analysis of 2-nitrobenzenesulfenyl (NBS) labeled peptides with the powerful aid of an lc-automatic spotting system. using this approach we analyzed mammalian sera (rat and mouse) as biological samples to demonstrate performance. The labeling was carried out using a binary set of 2-nitrobenzenesulfenyl chloride (heavy and light), which modified tryptophan residues in sample proteins. Approximately 1600 doublet peaks were detected in the mass spectrum, some of which had more than threefold differences in their intensities. systematic separation/spotting followed by mass analysis of the NBS-labeled peptides derived from biological samples is described for the first time. This method has proved to be an effective application of NBS-labeled peptides and can be a powerful technique for quantitative analysis of proteins expressed in biological systems