Anterior Pituitary Progenitor Cells Express Costimulatory Molecule 4Ig-B7-H31

Abstract Stem/Progenitor cells in the postnatal pituitary gland are embedded in a marginal cell layer around Rathke’s pouch. However, the nature and behavior of anterior pituitary progenitor cells remain unclear. We established bovine anterior pituitary progenitor cell line (BAPC)-1 from the anterior pituitary gland, which expressed stem/progenitor cell-related genes and several inflammatory cytokines. To characterize and localize these pituitary progenitor cells, we produced a mAb (12B mAb) against BAPC-1. The 12B mAb recognized the 4Ig-B7-H3 molecule, which is a costimulatory molecule and negative regulator in T cell activation. WC1+ γδ T cells in young bovine PBMC express the 4Ig-B7-H3 molecule, but few or no 4Ig-B7-H3-immunoreactive cells are expressed in PBMC in adult cattle. The 12B-immunoreactive cells in the bovine anterior pituitary gland were localized around Rathke’s pouch and expressed IL-18 and MHC class II. However, the number of 12B-immunoreactive cells was lower in adult than in young cattle. BAPC-1 expressed IL-18 and MHC class II, and demonstrated phagocytotic activity. BAPC-1 also had the ability to promote CD25 expression in PBMC after 5 days of coculture, and blocking 4Ig-B7-H3 × 12B mAb enhanced their expression of CD25. In addition, the 12B-immunoreactive cells were observed around the pars tuberalis closely bordering the median eminence and in the blood vessels of the primary portal plexus in the anterior pituitary gland. These results suggest that an established BAPC-1 may originate from these progenitor cells, and that the progenitor cells with 4Ig-B7-H3 may play a critical role in the immunoendocrine network.</jats:p

Oncofertility care in young women and the outcomes of pregnancy over the last 5 years

Aim: To ascertain the actual outcomes of oncofertility care in young women to provide more appropriate care. Materials & methods: We analyzed the data of 67 female patients under 43 years of age who underwent oncofertility care between January 2015 and September 2019. Results: There were 28 patients with breast cancer, 19 patients with hematologic cancer and 20 patients with other cancer diagnoses. Breast cancer patients tended to take longer than hematologic cancer patients to initiate oncofertility treatment. Despite undergoing oncofertility care, seven of nine pregnant patients did not choose assisted reproductive technology (ART). Conclusion: As spontaneous pregnancies were more common than ART pregnancies in our study, pregnancy by not only ART but also non-ART method is a viable option for young cancer survivors

『現代日本語書き言葉均衡コーパス』の文境界修正

国立国語研究所 コーパス開発センター 非常勤研究員マンパワーグループ株式会社国立国語研究所 理論・構造研究系 非常勤研究員国立国語研究所 コーパス開発センター 非常勤研究員国立国語研究所 言語資源研究系国立国語研究所 コーパス開発センター 技術補佐員(元)国立国語研究所 コーパス開発センター プロジェクト研究員文部科学省国立国語研究所 言語資源研究系国立国語研究所 言語資源研究系国立国語研究所 言語資源研究系国立国語研究所 言語資源研究系国立国語研究所 言語資源研究系Adjunct Researcher, Center for Corpus Development, NINJALManpower Group Co., LtdAdjunct Researcher, Department of Linguistic Theory and Structure, NINJALAdjunct Researcher, Center for Corpus Development, NINJALDepartment of Corpus Studies, NINJAL(former) Technical Staff, Center for Corpus Development, NINJALPostdoctoral Research Fellow, Center for Corpus Development, NINJALMinistry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and TechnologyDepartment of Corpus Studies, NINJALDepartment of Corpus Studies, NINJALDepartment of Corpus Studies, NINJALDepartment of Corpus Studies, NINJALDepartment of Corpus Studies, NINJAL『現代日本語書き言葉均衡コーパス』第1.0版(Maekawa et al. 2014)(以下BCCWJ)には「文境界」の情報がアノテーションされているが,その認定基準の妥当性について従来から様々な指摘がある(小西ほか2014,長谷川2014,田野村2014)。この問題に対処するために,国立国語研究所コーパス開発センターでは2013年から2014年にかけて,BCCWJの修正を行った。本稿ではその修正作業について報告する。第1.0版におけるBCCWJ 文境界情報の問題は,コーパス構築の過程において文境界を含む文書構造タグの整備と形態素列レベルの情報の整備とを並行して行ったために,文字情報を用いる文境界処理にとどまったことに由来する。今回,形態論情報に基づいた文境界基準を策定し,問題の解消を試みた。文境界修正の指針を示すとともに,文境界修正に用いた作業環境と,修正件数について報告する。In December 2011, the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL) released a 100-million-word balanced corpus - the Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese (BCCWJ) DVD Version 1.0 - which was compiled from 2006 through 2011. Some users have pointed out some issues concerning sentence delimitation in the BCCWJ. To address these issues, we - NINJAL - performed a complete survey and correction, beginning in 2013 and ending in 2014. This article reports the revision work on sentence delimitation in the BCCWJ. The problems with the BCCWJ DVD Version 1.0 derive from the string-based definition. We could not obtain any morpheme information for the sentence delimitation task because of the task parallelism between sentence delimitation annotation and morpheme annotation. The method used this time was morpheme based. We present the morpheme-based annotation guidelines, annotation environment, and basic statistics of the corpus correction

The Constrained Maximal Expression Level Owing to Haploidy Shapes Gene Content on the Mammalian X Chromosome.

X chromosomes are unusual in many regards, not least of which is their nonrandom gene content. The causes of this bias are commonly discussed in the context of sexual antagonism and the avoidance of activity in the male germline. Here, we examine the notion that, at least in some taxa, functionally biased gene content may more profoundly be shaped by limits imposed on gene expression owing to haploid expression of the X chromosome. Notably, if the X, as in primates, is transcribed at rates comparable to the ancestral rate (per promoter) prior to the X chromosome formation, then the X is not a tolerable environment for genes with very high maximal net levels of expression, owing to transcriptional traffic jams. We test this hypothesis using The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) and data from the Functional Annotation of the Mammalian Genome (FANTOM5) project. As predicted, the maximal expression of human X-linked genes is much lower than that of genes on autosomes: on average, maximal expression is three times lower on the X chromosome than on autosomes. Similarly, autosome-to-X retroposition events are associated with lower maximal expression of retrogenes on the X than seen for X-to-autosome retrogenes on autosomes. Also as expected, X-linked genes have a lesser degree of increase in gene expression than autosomal ones (compared to the human/Chimpanzee common ancestor) if highly expressed, but not if lowly expressed. The traffic jam model also explains the known lower breadth of expression for genes on the X (and the Z of birds), as genes with broad expression are, on average, those with high maximal expression. As then further predicted, highly expressed tissue-specific genes are also rare on the X and broadly expressed genes on the X tend to be lowly expressed, both indicating that the trend is shaped by the maximal expression level not the breadth of expression per se. Importantly, a limit to the maximal expression level explains biased tissue of expression profiles of X-linked genes. Tissues whose tissue-specific genes are very highly expressed (e.g., secretory tissues, tissues abundant in structural proteins) are also tissues in which gene expression is relatively rare on the X chromosome. These trends cannot be fully accounted for in terms of alternative models of biased expression. In conclusion, the notion that it is hard for genes on the Therian X to be highly expressed, owing to transcriptional traffic jams, provides a simple yet robustly supported rationale of many peculiar features of X's gene content, gene expression, and evolution