Potential climate effects on Japanese rice productivity

Adaptation to climate change has become an important policy question in recent years. Agriculture is the economic activity most sensitive to climate change. We evaluate the dynamic effects of productivity change and individual efforts to adapt to climate change. Adaptation actions in agriculture are evaluated to determine how the climate affects production efficiency. In this paper, we use the bi-directional distance function method to measure Japanese rice production loss due to climate. We find that 1) accumulated precipitation has the greatest effect on rice production efficiency and 2) the climate effect on rice production efficiency decreases over time. Our results empirically support the benefit of an adaptation approach.Climate change, productivity analysis, agriculture

Ongoing Rapid Evolution of a Post-Y Region Revealed by Chromosome-Scale Genome Assembly of a Hexaploid Monoecious Persimmon (Diospyros kaki)

Plants have evolved sex chromosomes independently in many lineages, and loss of separate sexes can also occur. In this study, we assembled a monoecious recently hexaploidized persimmon (Diospyros kaki), in which the Y chromosome has lost the maleness-determining function. Comparative genomic analysis of D. kaki and its dioecious relatives uncovered the evolutionary process by which the nonfunctional Y chromosome (or Y-monoecy) was derived, which involved silencing of the sex-determining gene, OGI, approximately 2 million years ago. Analyses of the entire X and Y-monoecy chromosomes suggested that D. kaki's nonfunctional male-specific region of the Y chromosome (MSY), which we call a post-MSY, has conserved some characteristics of the original functional MSY. Specifically, comparing the functional MSY in Diospyros lotus and the nonfunctional "post-MSY" in D. kaki indicated that both have been rapidly rearranged, mainly via ongoing transposable element bursts, resembling structural changes often detected in Y-linked regions, some of which can enlarge the nonrecombining regions. The recent evolution of the post-MSY (and possibly also MSYs in dioecious Diospyros species) therefore probably reflects these regions' ancestral location in a pericentromeric region, rather than the presence of male-determining genes and/or genes controlling sexually dimorphic traits

シングルセルRNAシーケンシングによる1,25-ジヒドロキシビタミンD3反応性Fgf23発現骨細胞の同定

Fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23), a hormone, mainly produced by osteocytes, regulates phosphate and vitamin D metabolism. By contrast, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3, the active form of vitamin D, has been shown to enhance FGF23 production. While it is likely that osteocytes are heterogenous in terms of gene expression profiles, specific subpopulations of Fgf23-expressing osteocytes have not been identified. Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) technology can characterize the transcriptome of an individual cell. Recently, scRNA-seq has been used for bone tissue analysis. However, owing to technical difficulties associated with isolation of osteocytes, studies using scRNA-seq analysis to characterize FGF23-producing osteocytes are lacking. In this study, we characterized osteocytes secreting FGF23 from murine femurs in response to calcitriol (1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3) using scRNA-seq. We first detected Dmp1, Mepe, and Phex expression in murine osteocytes by in situ hybridization and used these as marker genes of osteocytes. After decalcification, enzyme digestion, and removal of CD45+ cells, femoral bone cells were subjected to scRNA-seq. We identified cell clusters containing osteocytes using marker gene expression. While Fgf23 expression was observed in some osteocytes isolated from femurs of calcitriol-injected mice, no Fgf23 expression was detected in untreated mice. In addition, the expression of several genes which are known to be changed after 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 treatment such as Ccnd2, Fn1, Igfbp7, Pdgfa, and Timp1 was also affected by calcitriol treatment in Fgf23-expressing osteocytes, but not in those lacking Fgf23 expression, even after calcitriol administration. Furthermore, box-and-whisker plots indicated that Fgf23 expression was observed in osteocytes with higher expression levels of the Fam20c, Dmp1, and Phex genes, whose inactivating mutations have been shown to cause FGF23-related hypophosphatemic diseases. These results indicate that osteocytes are heterogeneous with respect to their responsiveness to 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3, and sensitivity to 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 is one of the characteristics of osteocytes with Fgf23 expression. It is likely that there is a subpopulation of osteocytes expressing several genes, including Fgf23, involved in phosphate metabolism

Acute non-heparin-induced thrombocytopenia during hemodiafiltration in a patient with multiple myeloma

This report demonstrates that not only heparin‐induced thrombocytopenia, but also hemodialysis conditions (platelet activation due to hemodiafiltration and heparin underdosing) may markedly reduce the platelet count and cause clotting in the hemodialysis circuit in patients in a hypercoagulable state. The clot prevention effects of bortezomib are therefore of great importance

Potential climate effects on Japanese rice productivity

Adaptation to climate change has become an important policy question in recent years. Agriculture is the economic activity most sensitive to climate change. We evaluate the dynamic effects of productivity change and individual efforts to adapt to climate change. Adaptation actions in agriculture are evaluated to determine how the climate affects production efficiency. In this paper, we use the bi-directional distance function method to measure Japanese rice production loss due to climate. We find that 1) accumulated precipitation has the greatest effect on rice production efficiency and 2) the climate effect on rice production efficiency decreases over time. Our results empirically support the benefit of an adaptation approach

Genetic basis of lineage-specific evolution of fruit traits in hexaploid persimmon

Frequent polyploidization events in plants have led to the establishment of many lineage-specific traits representing each species. Little is known about the genetic bases for these specific traits in polyploids, presumably due to plant genomic complexity and their difficulties in applying genetic approaches. Hexaploid Oriental persimmon (Diospyros kaki) has evolved specific fruit characteristics, including wide variations in fruit shapes and astringency. In this study, using whole-genome diploidized/quantitative genotypes from ddRAD-Seq data of 173 persimmon cultivars, we examined their population structures and potential correlations between their structural transitions and variations in nine fruit traits. The population structures of persimmon cultivars were highly randomized and not substantially correlated with the representative fruit traits focused on in this study, except for fruit astringency. With genome-wide association analytic tools considering polyploid alleles, we identified the loci associated with the nine fruit traits; we mainly focused on fruit-shape variations, which have been numerically characterized by principal component analysis of elliptic Fourier descriptors. The genomic regions that putatively underwent selective sweep exhibited no overlap with the loci associated with these persimmon-specific fruit traits. These insights will contribute to understanding the genetic mechanisms by which fruit traits are independently established, possibly due to polyploidization events

Potential climate effects on Japanese rice productivity

Adaptation to climate change has become an important policy question in recent years. Agriculture is the economic activity most sensitive to climate change. We evaluate the dynamic effects of productivity change and individual efforts to adapt to climate change. Adaptation actions in agriculture are evaluated to determine how the climate affects production efficiency. In this paper, we use the bi-directional distance function method to measure Japanese rice production loss due to climate. We find that 1) accumulated precipitation has the greatest effect on rice production efficiency and 2) the climate effect on rice production efficiency decreases over time. Our results empirically support the benefit of an adaptation approach