Impact of Gender on In-hospital Mortality in Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction in Nagasaki

Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is one of the leading causes of death in Japan. Immediate reperfusion therapy, includingcoronary intervention, improves patient prognosis. Despite this, females are said to be more prone to poor prognosis. A regional AMI registry in Nagasaki prefecture has been instituted recently that will evaluate whether female gender might predict short-term in-hospital death. Seventeen regional AMI centers enrolled all AMI patients from September 2014 through March 2016. A propensity score (PS) was derived using logistic regression to model the probability of females as a total function of the potential confounding covariates. Two types of PS techniques were used: PS matching and PS stratification. The consistency of in-hospital death was determined between PS matched patients of both genders. Based on PS, patients were ranked and stratified into five groups for the PS stratification. Out of 996 patients, 67 (6.7%) died during hospitalization: 31 (10.4%) out of 298 females and 36 (5.2%) out of 698 males (p < 0.0025). The proportion of cardiac and non-cardiac related death was almost same between genders (25 and 6 in female, 29 and 7 in male, respectively). Among 196 PS matched patients, there was a consistency between genders regarding in-hospital deaths (McNemar test, p = 0.6698). The 717 propensity scored patients had no significant differences between genders among propensity quintiles (Cochran-Mantel-Heanszel test, p = 0.7117). We found that gender alone is not an indicator of short-term in-hospital death in acute myocardial infarction patients

The effects of the photoperiod-insensitive alleles, se13, hd1 and ghd7, on yield components in rice.

Flowering time is closely associated with grain yield in rice (Oryza sativa L.). In temperate regions, seasonal changes in day length (known as the photoperiod) are an important environmental cue for floral initiation. The timing of flowering is important not only for successful reproduction, but also for determining the ideal balance between vegetative growth and reproductive growth duration. Recent molecular genetics studies have revealed key flowering time genes responsible for photoperiod sensitivity. In this study, we investigated the effect of three recessive photoperiod-insensitive alleles, se13, hd1 and ghd7, on yield components in rice under Ehd1-deficient genetic background conditions to ensure vegetative growth of each line. We found that se13-bearing plants had fewer panicles, hd1-bearing plants showed decreased grain-filling percentage, and ghd7-bearing plants appeared to have fewer grains per panicle and fewer secondary branches. Our results indicate that the pleiotropic effects of photoperiod-insensitive genes on yield components are independent of short vegetative growth. This will provide critical information which can be used to create photoperiod-insensitive varieties that can be adapted to a wide range of latitudes

The effects of phytochrome-mediated light signals on the developmental acquisition of photoperiod sensitivity in rice.

Plants commonly rely on photoperiodism to control flowering time. Rice development before floral initiation is divided into two successive phases: the basic vegetative growth phase (BVP, photoperiod-insensitive phase) and the photoperiod-sensitive phase (PSP). The mechanism responsible for the transition of rice plants into their photoperiod-sensitive state remains elusive. Here, we show that se13, a mutation detected in the extremely early flowering mutant X61 is a nonsense mutant gene of OsHY2, which encodes phytochromobilin (PΦB) synthase, as evidenced by spectrometric and photomorphogenic analyses. We demonstrated that some flowering time and circadian clock genes harbor different expression profiles in BVP as opposed to PSP, and that this phenomenon is chiefly caused by different phytochrome-mediated light signal requirements: in BVP, phytochrome-mediated light signals directly suppress Ehd2, while in PSP, phytochrome-mediated light signals activate Hd1 and Ghd7 expression through the circadian clock genes' expression. These findings indicate that light receptivity through the phytochromes is different between two distinct developmental phases corresponding to the BVP and PSP in the rice flowering process. Our results suggest that these differences might be involved in the acquisition of photoperiod sensitivity in rice

Map-based cloning of <i>Se14</i> and structural comparison of the proteins between Se14 and ELF6.

<p>A) Chromosomal location of <i>Se14</i> and marker positions on chromosome 3. B) High-resolution linkage map of <i>Se14</i> and genes annotated in the Rice Annotation Project Database (RAP-DB; <a href="http://rapdb.lab.nig.ac.jp" target="_blank">http://rapdb.lab.nig.ac.jp</a>). C) Genomic structure of the candidate region and the mutation in HS112. D) Schematic domain structure of two loci, Os03g0151300 and Os03g0151400, annotated at RAP-DB, and their combined cDNA.</p

Histone methylation levels at <i>Ehd1</i>, <i>Hd3a</i> and <i>RFT1.</i>

<p>A) The location of primer sets used for ChIP assay. A total of five primer sets named I to V were prepared on the promoter region every 500 bp from −2.0 kb to 0 kb at in the upstream region of TSS, and three sets named VI to VIII on 5′ UTR, exon 1 and intron 1, respectively. B∼J) Relative levels of H3K4me3 in <i>Ehd1, Hd3a</i> and <i>RFT1</i> chromatin. The amount of DNA fragments of the ChIP assay were quantified with three replications of real-time PCR. Concentrations of each sample were normalized to those manipulated with H3 universal antibody.</p

<i>Se14</i>, Encoding a JmjC Domain-Containing Protein, Plays Key Roles in Long-Day Suppression of Rice Flowering through the Demethylation of H3K4me3 of <i>RFT1</i>

<div><p>Floral transition from the vegetative to the reproductive growth phase is a major change in the plant life cycle and a key factor in reproductive success. In rice (<i>Oryza sativa</i> L.), a facultative short-day plant, numerous flowering time and flower formation genes that control floral transition have been identified and their physiological effects and biochemical functions have been clarified. In the present study, we used a <i>Se14</i>-deficient mutant line (HS112) and other flowering mutant lines to investigate the photoperiodic response, chromosomal location and function in the photoperiod sensitivity of the <i>Se14</i> gene. We also studied the interactive effects of this locus with other crucial flowering time genes. We found that <i>Se14</i> is independent of the known photoperiod-sensitive genes, such as <i>Hd1</i> and <i>Ghd7</i>, and is identical to Os03g0151300, which encodes a Jumonji C (JmjC) domain-containing protein. Expression analysis revealed that the expressions of <i>RFT1</i>, a floral initiator known as a “florigen-like gene”, and <i>Ehd1</i> were up-regulated in HS112, whereas this up-regulation was not observed in the original variety of ‘Gimbozu’. ChIP assays of the methylation states of histone H3 at lysine 4 (H3K4) revealed that the trimethylated H3K4 in the promoter region of the <i>RFT1</i> chromatin was significantly increased in HS112. We conclude that <i>Se14</i> is a novel photoperiod-sensitivity gene that has a suppressive effect on floral transition (flowering time) under long day-length conditions through the modification of chromatin structure by H3K4me3 demethylation in the promoter region of <i>RFT1</i>.</p></div

Genetic interaction of the <i>Se14</i> locus with other flowering time genes loci.

<p>Comparison of flowering time among single mutant lines for flowering time: A) <i>hd1</i>, B) <i>ghd7</i>, C) ehd1 and D) <i>se13</i>, and their double mutant lines for <i>se14</i>. These lines were grown under ND.</p

Diurnal expression of flowering time genes in the WT and HS112.

<p>Transcriptional level of the major flowering time genes were compared between HS112 (<i>se14</i>) and Gimbozu (WT) under 14.5 h day-length conditions. X axis means Zeitgeber time (ZT), and the black bars indicate the dark period, and the white bars indicate the light period. Thirty days after sowing, leaves of three plants were sampled at 4 h intervals (three replications). Expression analysis was performed by the standard curve method. For comparing expression levels among the genes, the relative expression level of each gene against the UBQ expression level was calculated.</p