Specific ablation of mouse Fam20C in cells expressing type I collagen leads to skeletal defects and hypophosphatemia

AbstractFAM20C mutations in humans cause Raine syndrome and our previous studies showed that global inactivation of mouse Fam20C led to bone and dental defects. By crossbreeding 2.3  kb Col 1a1-Cre mice with Fam20C flox/flox mice, we created 2.3  kb Col 1a1-Cre;Fam20C foxl/flox (cKO) mice, in which Fam20C was inactivated in cells expressing Type I collagen. This study showed that the long bones of cKO mice were shorter and had a lower level of mineralization compared to the normal mice. The collagen fibrils in Fam20C-deficient bone were disorganized and thicker while the growth plate cartilage in cKO mice was disorganized and wider compared to the normal mice. The Fam20C-deficient bone had a lower level of dentin matrix protein 1, and higher levels of osteopontin and bone sialoprotein than the normal. The blood of cKO mice had an elevated level of fibroblast growth factor 23 and reduced level of phosphorus. These findings indicate that inactivation of Fam20C in cells expressing type I collagen led to skeletal defects and hypophosphatemia. The altered levels of dentin matrix protein 1 and osteopontin in Fam20C-deficient bone may be significant contributors to the mineralized tissue defects in human patients and animals suffering from the functional loss of FAM20C.</jats:p

The Effect of Inclusion Level of Soybean Oil and Palm Oil on Their Digestible and Metabolizable Energy Content Determined with the Difference and Regression Method When Fed to Growing Pigs

This experiment was conducted to determine the effects of inclusion level of soybean oil (SO) and palm oil (PO) on their digestible and metabolism energy (DE and ME) contents when fed to growing pigs by difference and regression method. Sixty-six crossbred growing barrows (Duroc×Landrace×Yorkshire and weighing 38.1±2.4 kg) were randomly allotted to a 2×5 factorial arrangement involving 2 lipid sources (SO and PO), and 5 levels of lipid (2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, and 10%) as well as a basal diet composed of corn and soybean meal. The barrows were housed in individual metabolism crates to facilitate separate collection of feces and urine, and were fed the assigned test diets at 4% of initial body weight per day. A 5-d total collection of feces and urine followed a 7-d diet adaptation period. The results showed that the DE and ME contents of SO and PO determined by the difference method were not affected by inclusion level. The DE and ME determined by the regression method for SO were greater compared with the corresponding respective values for PO (DE: 37.07, ME: 36.79 MJ/kg for SO; DE: 34.11, ME: 33.84 MJ/kg for PO, respectively). These values were close to the DE and ME values determined by the difference method at the 10% inclusion level (DE: 37.31, ME: 36.83 MJ/kg for SO; DE: 34.62, ME: 33.47 MJ/kg for PO, respectively). A similar response for the apparent total tract digestibility of acid-hydrolyzed ether extract (AEE) in lipids was observed. The true total tract digestibility of AEE in SO was significantly (p<0.05) greater than that for PO (97.5% and 91.1%, respectively). In conclusion, the DE and ME contents of lipid was not affected by its inclusion level. The difference method can substitute the regression method to determine the DE and ME contents in lipids when the inclusion level is 10%

Editor\u27s Notes, Chiba Medical Journal 90-1

Multiple sequence alignment of deduced amino acid sequences of 25 wheat annexin genes with rice annexin OsAnn2 (Os05g31760) obtained by ClustalW. (PDF 212 kb

Regulation of cAMP and GSK3 signaling pathways contributes to the neuronal conversion of glioma

Glioma is the most malignant type of primary central nervous system tumors, and has an extremely poor prognosis. One potential therapeutic approach is to induce the terminal differentiation of glioma through the forced expression of pro-neural factors. Our goal is to show the proof of concept of the neuronal conversion of C6 glioma through the combined action of small molecules. We investigated the various changes in gene expression, cell-specific marker expression, signaling pathways, physiological characteristics, and morphology in glioma after combination treatment with two small molecules (CHIR99021, a glycogen synthase kinase 3 [GSK3] inhibitor and forskolin, a cyclic adenosine monophosphate [cAMP] activator). Here, we show that the combined action of CHIR99021 and forskolin converted malignant glioma into fully differentiated neurons with no malignant characteristics; inhibited the proliferation of malignant glioma; and significantly down-regulated gene ontology and gene expression profiles related to cell division, gliogenesis, and angiogenesis in small molecule-induced neurons. In vivo, the combined action of CHIR99021 and forskolin markedly delayed neurological deficits and significantly reduced the tumor volume. We suggest that reprogramming technology may be a potential treatment strategy replacing the therapeutic paradigm of traditional treatment of malignant glioma, and a combination molecule comprising a GSK3 inhibitor and a cAMP inducer could be the next generation of anticancer drugs

Real-time Monitoring for the Next Core-Collapse Supernova in JUNO

Core-collapse supernova (CCSN) is one of the most energetic astrophysical events in the Universe. The early and prompt detection of neutrinos before (pre-SN) and during the SN burst is a unique opportunity to realize the multi-messenger observation of the CCSN events. In this work, we describe the monitoring concept and present the sensitivity of the system to the pre-SN and SN neutrinos at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), which is a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector under construction in South China. The real-time monitoring system is designed with both the prompt monitors on the electronic board and online monitors at the data acquisition stage, in order to ensure both the alert speed and alert coverage of progenitor stars. By assuming a false alert rate of 1 per year, this monitoring system can be sensitive to the pre-SN neutrinos up to the distance of about 1.6 (0.9) kpc and SN neutrinos up to about 370 (360) kpc for a progenitor mass of 30$M_{\odot}$ for the case of normal (inverted) mass ordering. The pointing ability of the CCSN is evaluated by using the accumulated event anisotropy of the inverse beta decay interactions from pre-SN or SN neutrinos, which, along with the early alert, can play important roles for the followup multi-messenger observations of the next Galactic or nearby extragalactic CCSN.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure

Forkhead box protein O1 (FoxO1) /SERPINB1 ameliorates ROS production in diabetic nephropathy

With the increasing prevalence of diabetes in recent years, diabetic nephropathy (DN) has become a severe disease that greatly threatens human health. DN not only is a common complication of diabetes, but also takes an important place in kidney disease. To this end, the present study was designed to explore the effects of Forkhead box protein O1 (FoxO1) on reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in DN mice. DN mice were treated with recombinant protein of FoxO1. Afterward, inflammation ELISA kits were used to measure the levels of TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6, and IL-18. The levels of MDA, SOD, GSH, and GSH-PX were measured using kits according to the manufacturer's instructions. In addition, the production of ROS was assessed. Interestingly, the expression of FoxO1 was down-regulated in DN mice. The treatment of FoxO1 recombinant protein ameliorated MDA levels, increased the levels of SOD, GSH, and GSH-PX, and induced both mRNA and protein expression of hepatic serine protease inhibitor B1 (serpinB1) in ND mice. Similarly, FoxO1 reduced MDA levels and ROS production, increased the levels of SOD, GSH, and GSH-PXs, and induced the mRNA and protein expression of serpinB1 in in vitro model of DN. The inhibition of serpinB1 attenuated the effects of FoxO1 on ROS production-induced oxidative stress in in vitro model of DN. Overall, FoxO1/SERPINB1 ameliorated ROS production-induced oxidative stress in DN

Efficient intra mode decision for low complexity HEVC screen content compression.

High efficiency video coding screen content coding (HEVC-SCC) extension is the latest HEVC development to improve the compression performance of screen content (SC) video. Similar to HEVC, the intra mode selection in HEVC-SCC is performed all the coding unit (CU) partitions to find the least rate distortion (RD) cost. Furthermore, additional intra tools are introduced to improve HEVC-SCC coding efficiency. However, these new tools could cause high computation complexity which restricts HEVC-SCC from ongoing applications. To solve the problem, an efficient intra mode decision for HEVC-SCC that adaptively utilizes the texture complexity of SC treeblock is proposed. The texture complexity of a SC treeblock is first analyzed according to the variation degree of the luminance value. And then, two efficient approaches are proposed based on the constructed model, which are early CU depth level determination and adaptive intra mode selection. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can save 48.5% encoder runtime while keeping nearly the same coding efficiency as the HEVC-SCC encoders