Degranulation effect of ferric nitrilotriacetate (Fe3+-NTA) on the pancreatic islet beta-cells: its acute toxic effect on glucose metabolism.

A single injection of ferric nitrilotriacetate (Fe3+-NTA) caused a transitory increase in plasma immunoreactive insulin (IRI) and plasma immunoreactive glucagon (IRG) in rats. They reached maximum levels at 2 days after injection and returned to the normal range at 10 days. At 2 days after Fe3+-NTA injection, blood glucose level was normal but the glucose tolerance test (GTT) was impaired. There was a further increase in plasma IRI level and IRG level was suppressed after glucose loading. At 10 days after Fe3+-NTA injection, glucose tolerance was normal and IRI also returned to the normal range. No degenerative changes were found on H.E.-stained rat pancreatic tissue sections after Fe3+-NTA injection. Histochemical staining, however, showed a reduction in beta-granules and heavy metals (Timm's granules) from islet cells in the central area of the rat pancreatic islet 1 to 3 days after injection of Fe3+-NTA. The fading remained in some islets even at 10 days after injection, but by then the beta-granule distribution was restored in most islet cells. The results indicate a single Fe3+-NTA injection induced transitory instability of the pancreatic islet beta-cell granules and the glucose intolerance with a hyperresponse of IRI.</p

Demonstration of a spherical plasma mirror for the counter-propagating kilojoule-class petawatt LFEX laser system

A counter-propagating laser-beam platform using a spherical plasma mirror was developed for the kilojoule-class petawatt LFEX laser. The temporal and spatial overlaps of the incoming and redirected beams were measured with an optical interferometer and an x-ray pinhole camera. The plasma mirror performance was evaluated by measuring fast electrons, ions, and neutrons generated in the counter-propagating laser interaction with a Cu-doped deuterated film on both sides. The reflectivity and peak intensity were estimated as ∼50% and ∼5 × 1018 W/cm2, respectively. The platform could enable studies of counter-streaming charged particles in high-energy-density plasmas for fundamental and inertial confinement fusion research.Kojima S., Abe Y., Miura E., et al. Demonstration of a spherical plasma mirror for the counter-propagating kilojoule-class petawatt LFEX laser system. Optics Express 30, 43491 (2022); https://doi.org/10.1364/oe.475945

The Hyper Suprime-Cam SSP survey: Overview and survey design

Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) is a wide-field imaging camera on the prime focus of the 8.2-m Subaru telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. A team of scientists from Japan, Taiwan, and Princeton University is using HSC to carry out a 300-night multi-band imaging survey of the high-latitude sky. The survey includes three layers: the Wide layer will cover 1400 deg2 in five broad bands (grizy), with a 5 σ point-source depth of r ≈ 26. The Deep layer covers a total of 26 deg2 in four fields, going roughly a magnitude fainter, while the UltraDeep layer goes almost a magnitude fainter still in two pointings of HSC (a total of 3.5 deg2). Here we describe the instrument, the science goals of the survey, and the survey strategy and data processing. This paper serves as an introduction to a special issue of the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan, which includes a large number of technical and scientific papers describing results from the early phases of this survey

Low stutter ratio by SuperFi polymerase

Although stutter is a well-known artifact of STR amplification for DNA typing, it is very difficult to reduce. In this study, we determined whether stutter could be reduced by PCR using previously untested high-performance polymerases, or by droplet PCR that reduced the reaction volume to approximately 1 nL. At the D5S818 locus, our results using control DNA 9948 as a template showed that decreasing PCR volume by droplet PCR did not affect the stutter ratio, whereas high-fidelity polymerases, PrimeSTAR HS, PrimeSTAR MAX, iProof HF, and SuperFi, achieved lower stutter ratios than AmpliTaq Gold 360. To confirm this effect of reducing stutter for other STR loci, triplex PCR was performed for D21S11 and D18S51. The results showed that SuperFi had the lowest stutter ratio among the high-fidelity polymerases, followed by PrimeSTAR MAX. PrimeSTAR HS showed higher stutter ratios at D21S11 and D18S51, and iProof HF showed a higher stutter ratio at D18S51, compared with AmpliTaq Gold 360. The stutter ratios of PrimeSTAR MAX and SuperFi at D18S51 were almost the same as that of AmpliTaq Gold 360. Furthermore, we compared the stutter ratio distribution of 63 samples of AmpliTaq Gold 360 and SuperFi, the latter of which had the lowest stutter ratio in this study. The average stutter values at the loci D5S818, D21S11, and D18S51 were 5.56%, 7.47%, and 6.53% for AmpliTaq Gold 360, but 0.86%, 1.64%, and 5.18% for SuperFi, respectively. SuperFi had significantly lower stutter at all three loci (p 300×), but it was considered that slippage was not directly involved in the replication errors. Besides, it was suggested that high processivity, which has been considered to be effective for reducing stutter, was actually ineffective. It is highly possible that the stutter formation mechanism of STR involves slippage resulting from the pausing of polymerase due to conformational changes. Although the details about SuperFi's function as a high-fidelity polymerase have not been published by the manufacturer, it is considered that it relieves the pausing of polymerase to achieve accurate replication

The Hyper Suprime-Cam SSP survey: Overview and survey design

Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) is a wide-field imaging camera on the prime focus of the 8.2-m Subaru telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. A team of scientists from Japan, Taiwan, and Princeton University is using HSC to carry out a 300-night multi-band imaging survey of the high-latitude sky. The survey includes three layers: the Wide layer will cover 1400 deg2 in five broad bands (grizy), with a 5 σ point-source depth of r ≈ 26. The Deep layer covers a total of 26 deg2 in four fields, going roughly a magnitude fainter, while the UltraDeep layer goes almost a magnitude fainter still in two pointings of HSC (a total of 3.5 deg2). Here we describe the instrument, the science goals of the survey, and the survey strategy and data processing. This paper serves as an introduction to a special issue of the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan, which includes a large number of technical and scientific papers describing results from the early phases of this survey