Native Morphology of Influenza Virions

Influenza A virus is an enveloped virus with a segmented, single-strand, negative-sense RNA genome. Its virions show spherical or filamentous shapes of about 100 nm in diameter and occasionally irregular morphology, which exemplifies the pleomorphic nature of these virions. Each viral RNA segment forms a ribonucleoprotein complex (RNP), along with an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase complex and multiple copies of nucleoproteins; the RNPs reside in the enveloped virions. Here, we focus on electron microscopic analyses of influenza virions and RNPs. Based on the morphological and structural observations obtained by using electron microscopic techniques, we present a model of the native morphology of the influenza virion

Fabrication and characterization of an L3 nanocavity designed by an iterative machine-learning method

Optical nanocavities formed by defects in a two-dimensional photonic crystal (PC) slab can simultaneously realize a very small modal volume and an ultrahigh quality factor (Q). Therefore, such nanocavities are expected to be useful for the enhancement of light-matter interaction and slowdown of light in devices. In the past, it was difficult to design a PC hole pattern that makes sufficient use of the high degree of structural freedom of this type of optical nanocavity, but very recently, an iterative optimization method based on machine learning was proposed that efficiently explores a wide parameter space. Here, we fabricate and characterize an L3 nanocavity that was designed by using this method and has a theoretical Q value of 29 x 10(6) and a modal volume of 0.7 cubic wavelength in the material. The highest unloaded Q value of the fabricated cavities is 4.3 x 10(6); this value significantly exceeds those reported previously for an L3 cavity, i.e., approximate to 2.1 x 10(6). The experimental result shows that the iterative optimization method based on machine learning is effective in improving cavity Q values

Left–Right Reversal Recurrently Evolved Regardless of Diaphanous-Related Formin Gene Duplication or Loss in Snails

Bilateria exhibit whole-body handedness in internal structure. This left–right polarity is evolutionarily conserved with virtually no reversed extant lineage, except in molluscan Gastropoda. Phylogenetically independent snail groups contain both clockwise-coiled (dextral) and counterclockwise-coiled (sinistral) taxa that are reversed from each other in bilateral handedness as well as in coiling direction. Within freshwater Hygrophila, Lymnaea with derived dextrality have diaphanous related formin (diaph) gene duplicates, while basal sinistral groups possess one diaph gene. In terrestrial Stylommatophora, dextral Bradybaena also have diaph duplicates. Defective maternal expression of one of those duplicates gives rise to sinistral hatchlings in Lymnaea and handedness-mixed broods in Bradybaena, through polarity change in spiral cleavage of embryos. These findings led to the hypothesis that diaph duplication was crucial for the evolution of dextrality by reversal. The present study discovered that diaph duplication independently occurred four times and its duplicate became lost twice in gastropods. The dextrality of Bradybaena represents the ancestral handedness conserved across gastropods, unlike the derived dextrality of Lymnaea. Sinistral lineages recurrently evolved by reversal regardless of whether diaph had been duplicated. Amongst the seven formin gene subfamilies, diaph has most thoroughly been conserved across eukaryotes of the 14 metazoan phyla and choanoflagellate. Severe embryonic mortalities resulting from insufficient expression of the duplicate in both of Bradybaena and Lymnaea also support that diaph duplicates bare general roles for cytoskeletal dynamics other than controlling spiralian handedness. Our study rules out the possibility that diaph duplication or loss played a primary role for reversal evolution.journal articl

Intersubband absorption linewidth in GaAs quantum wells due to scattering by interface roughness, phonons, alloy disorder, and impurities

We calculate the intersubband absorption linewidth in quantum wells (QWs) due to scattering by interface roughness, LO phonons, LA phonons, alloy disorder, and ionized impurities, and compare it with the transport energy broadening that corresponds to the transport relaxation time related to electron mobility. Numerical calculations for GaAs QWs clarify the different contributions of each individual scattering mechanism to absorption linewidth and transport broadening. Interface roughness scattering contributes about an order of magnitude more to linewidth than to transport broadening, because the contribution from the intrasubband scattering in the first excited subband is much larger than that in the ground subband. On the other hand, LO phonon scattering (at room temperature) and ionized impurity scattering contribute much less to linewidth than to transport broadening. LA phonon scattering makes comparable contributions to linewidth and transport broadening, and so does alloy disorder scattering. The combination of these contributions with significantly different characteristics makes the absolute values of linewidth and transport broadening very different, and leads to the apparent lack of correlation between them when a parameter, such as temperature or alloy composition, is changed. Our numerical calculations can quantitatively explain the previously reported experimental results.Comment: 17 pages, including 15 figure

Finding cell-specific expression patterns in the early Ciona embryo with single-cell RNA-seq

Single-cell RNA-seq has been established as a reliable and accessible technique enabling new types of analyses, such as identifying cell types and studying spatial and temporal gene expression variation and change at single-cell resolution. Recently, single-cell RNA-seq has been applied to developing embryos, which offers great potential for finding and characterising genes controlling the course of development along with their expression patterns. In this study, we applied single-cell RNA-seq to the 16-cell stage of the Ciona embryo, a marine chordate and performed a computational search for cell-specific gene expression patterns. We recovered many known expression patterns from our single-cell RNA-seq data and despite extensive previous screens, we succeeded in finding new cell-specific patterns, which we validated by in situ and single-cell qPCR

Replicative capacity of SARS-CoV-2 omicron variants BA.5 and BQ.1.1 at elevated temperatures

新型コロナウイルス・オミクロン株のBA.5系統およびBQ.1.1系統が、高温で増殖しづらいことを解明. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2023-04-27

Population genetic structure ofYamato-sllijimi clam in Lake Sbinji, Japan

Yamato-shijimiclam Corbicula japonica is the best-known bivalve inhabiting ln brackish estuaries and lakes around Japan and one of the most commercially important species in inland fisheries. Althoughthe amotmt of C japonica from Lake Shinji has accotmted for the large part of the domestic catch, itsamolmt has dramatically fallen in recent years･ This study was conducted to verifythe genetic structtue and reproduction mechanism of C･ japonica, both of which are essential to its stock management in Lake Shinji. Weanalyzed sequence polymorphism of the 588 bp portion ofthemitochondrial DNA cytochrome oxidase subunit I (Col) gene to determinethe population genetic structure of C･ japonica in Lake Shinji･Among a total of 177 C･ japonica specimens collected from 4 colonies, 37 haplotypes were obtained, and 2 major haplotypes were apparent withrelatively highabtmdance in all colonies･ Well correspondingmismatch distributions along the Col gene were determined for the data sets of the individual colonies, and the pairwise population estimates FsT among the individual colonies were also generally low, Such small genetic differentiation of C japonica is derived kom highgeneflow in Lake Shinji, and this could be caused by a lake-wide dispersion of its larvae mediated by the water movements･Article信州大学山地水環境教育研究センター研究報告 6: 115-124(2010)departmental bulletin pape