Kinetic analysis of reverse transcriptase activity of bacterial family A DNA polymerases.

Some bacterial thermostable, wild-type or genetically engineered family A DNA polymerases have reverse transcriptase activity. However, difference in reverse transcriptase activities of family A DNA polymerases and retroviral reverse transcriptases (RTs) is unclear. In this study, comparative kinetic analysis was performed for the reverse transcriptase activities of the wild-type enzyme of family A DNA polymerase (M1pol(WT)) from Thermus thermophilus M1 and the variant enzyme of family A DNA polymerase (K4pol(L329A)), in which the mutation of Leu329→Ala is undertaken, from Thermotoga petrophila K4. In the incorporation of dTTP into poly(rA)-p(dT)(45), the reaction rates of K4pol(L329A) and M1pol(WT) exhibited a saturated profile of the Michaelis-Menten kinetics for dTTP concentrations but a substrate inhibition profile for poly(rA)-p(dT)(45) concentrations. In contrast, the reaction rates of Moloney murine leukemia virus (MMLV) RT exhibited saturated profiles for both dTTP and poly(rA)-p(dT)(45) concentrations. This suggests that high concentrations of DNA-primed RNA template decrease the efficiency of cDNA synthesis with bacterial family A DNA polymerases

A study on the evaluation of the occupational health nurse's intervention for health promotion

働き盛り世代への健康づくりに向けた働きかけの示唆を得るため,ヘルスプロモーションを発展させたT社における26年間の保健師の働きかけと社員の変化を分析することにより,ヘルスプロモーションに向かうための保健師の働きかけを評価し,具体的な働きかけ方の手がかりを得ることを目的とした.方法は,50-55歳の社員150名の保健行動や健康意識に関するアンケート調査,安全衛生管理概要34年間分(1967-2000年)とT社保健活動に関する報告書・論文13編の分析,保健師への面接調査を行った.質的分析法に従って報告書・論文及び面接調査から得られたデータを基に保健師の唱道及び身体活動の増加に向けた働きかけについてモデルを用いて分析した.働きかけの評価を唱道に焦点を当てて,PRECEDE-PROCEEDモデルをもとに分析した結果,個人としての人生の開拓や組織の中での自己実現を健康的な行動と結びつけ,持続的な動機づけを図るとともに,受容・報奨的な働きかけと課題を課す働きかけを使い分ける戦略的側面が明らかになった.身体活動の増加をめざした働きかけについて,Marcusらの決定バランス尺度では賛成項目においてより具体的に働きかけられており,体験的プロセスにより多くの内容が見出せた.社員の行動は,変化しやすいものと変化し難いものがあり,運動等変化し難いものには,ストレスや仕事との関連が考えられたが,他調査と比較すると運動を行っているものは多く,長期的な働きかけの影響が示唆された.The purpose of this study were 1) to evaluate of the occupational health nurse's intervention process over 26 years in an enterprise which succeeded in promoting health, 2)to analyze the transformation of employee's health behaviors in the enterprise, and 3)to consider the occupational health nurse's effectiveintervention in health promotion. Questionnaires were sent to 150 employees in the enterprise who were50-55 years old to investigate their health behavior and sense of health value. We also reviewed documentsabout safety and health in the enterprise during the 1967-2000 period and 13 published literatures abouthealth practices in the enterprise. Data were collected by interview and from the 13 published literatures.Following a qualitative approach design, these data were analyzed to ascertain how the occupationl healthnurse advised and intervened there so as to increase and then sustain the proportion of individuals inadopting regular exercise.As a result of this analysis, we found the following:1) By an analysis based on the framework of a PRECEDE-PROCEED model, the occupational health nurseadvocated health promotion to the individual and the organization by connecting their life and self-realization in the organization with healthy behavior, and encouraged them to maintain their motivation.She advocated both rewarding interventions and imposing a task on them as a strategy.2) By analyzing the Decisional Balance measure for exercise, she emphasized positive features moreconcretely than negative features.3) In employees, there are some behaviors which are relatively easy to transform and others which aremore difficult to transform. It was considered that behaviors which were relatively difficult to transform, forexample exercise, who exercise were related to work and stress. Nevertheless, there are many workerswho exercise and this suggested the efficacy of long-team intervention by the occupational health nurse

Crystallization and preliminary X-ray diffraction studies of guanidinoacetate methyltransferase from rat liver

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://scripts.iucr.org/cgi-bin/paper?S0907444999010318.Guanidinoacetate methyltransferase is the enzyme which catalyzes the last step of creatine biosynthesis. The enzyme is found ubiquitously and in abundance in the livers of all vertebrates. Recombinant rat-liver guanidinoacetate methyltransferase has been crystallized with guanidinoacetate and S-adenosylhomocysteine. The crystals belong to the monoclinic space group P21, with unit-cell parameters a = 54.8, b = 162.5, c = 56.1 Å, [beta] = 96.8 (1)° at 93 K, and typically diffract beyond 2.8 Å

Remark on the Consistent Gauge Anomaly in Supersymmetric Theories

We present a direct field theoretical calculation of the consistent gauge anomaly in the superfield formalism, on the basis of a definition of the effective action through the covariant gauge current. The scheme is conceptually and technically simple and the gauge covariance in intermediate steps reduces calculational labors considerably. The resultant superfield anomaly, being proportional to the anomaly d^{abc}=\tr T^a\{T^b,T^c\}, is minimal without supplementing any counterterms. Our anomaly coincides with the anomaly obtained by Marinkovi\'c as the solution of the Wess-Zumino consistency condition.Comment: uses PHYZZX, 17 pages, the result of SUSY anomaly in the Wess-Zumino gauge adde

Cooperative effect of radioimmunotherapy and antiangiogenic therapy with thalidomide in human cancer xenografts

金沢大学大学院医学系研究科Antiangiogenic therapy may prolong the dormancy of cancer lesions. Moreover, radioimmunotherapy (RIT) may eradicate this population of cells. This study dealt with determining the benefits associated with the combined usefulness of these 2 therapies with respect to inhibition of tumor growth. Methods: Antiangiogenic therapy using oral thalidomide (daily dose, 200 mg/kg) and RIT involving a single intravenous injection (4.63 MBq 131I-A7, an IgG1 murine monoclonal antibody) were conducted in mice bearing LS180 human colon cancer xenografts. RIT with an irrelevant IgG1, HPMS-1, was also performed as a control. Antiangiogenesis of thalidomide was investigated by immunohistochemical analysis of tumor sections. Results: Antiangiogenic therapy and RIT with 131I-A7 significantly suppressed the growth of xenografts. This combination produced more efficient tumor growth inhibition than did the monotherapy (P < 0.005). RIT using 131I-HPMS-1 was far less effective than 131I-A7, even when combined with thalidomide administration. Immunohistochemistry revealed a decrease in the microvessel number within tumors treated with thalidomide (P < 0.0001). Combined therapy further reduced the microvessel number (P < 0.01 vs. thalidomide monotherapy), Conclusion: The combination of RIT and thalidomide antiangiogenic therapy produces a better response of tumors than does monotherapy. Acting in concert, antiangiogenic therapy may prolong the dormancy of cancer lesions and RIT may eradicate this population of cells

Clinical utility of circulating cell-free Epstein–Barr virus DNA in patients with gastric cancer

Recent comprehensive molecular subtyping of gastric cancer (GC) identified Epstein–Barr virus (EBV)-positive tumors as a subtype with distinct salient molecular and clinical features. In this study, we aimed to determine the potential utility of circulating cell-free EBV DNA as a biomarker for the detection and/or monitoring of therapeutic response in patients with EBV-associated gastric carcinoma (EBVaGC). The EBV genes-to-ribonuclease P RNA component H1 ratios (EBV ratios) in the GC tumors and plasma samples were determined by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction in 153 patients with GC, including 14 patients with EBVaGC diagnosed by the conventional method. Circulating cell-free EBV DNA was detected in 14 patients with GC: the sensitivity and specificity of detection were 71.4% (10/14) and 97.1% (135/139), respectively. Plasma EBV ratios were significantly correlated with the size of EBVaGC tumors, and the plasma EBV DNA detected before surgery in EBVaGC cases disappeared after surgery. Patients with EBVaGC may have a better prognosis, but circulating cell-free EBV DNA had no or little impact on prognosis. In addition, repeated assessment of the plasma EBV ratio in EBVaGC showed a decrease and increase in plasma EBV DNA after treatment and during tumor progression/ recurrence, respectively. These results suggest the potential utility of circulating cell-free DNA to reveal EBV DNA for the identification of the EBVaGC subtype and/ or for real-time monitoring of tumor progression as well as treatment response in patients with EBVaGC

The 3rd DBCLS BioHackathon: improving life science data integration with Semantic Web technologies.

BACKGROUND: BioHackathon 2010 was the third in a series of meetings hosted by the Database Center for Life Sciences (DBCLS) in Tokyo, Japan. The overall goal of the BioHackathon series is to improve the quality and accessibility of life science research data on the Web by bringing together representatives from public databases, analytical tool providers, and cyber-infrastructure researchers to jointly tackle important challenges in the area of in silico biological research. RESULTS: The theme of BioHackathon 2010 was the 'Semantic Web', and all attendees gathered with the shared goal of producing Semantic Web data from their respective resources, and/or consuming or interacting those data using their tools and interfaces. We discussed on topics including guidelines for designing semantic data and interoperability of resources. We consequently developed tools and clients for analysis and visualization. CONCLUSION: We provide a meeting report from BioHackathon 2010, in which we describe the discussions, decisions, and breakthroughs made as we moved towards compliance with Semantic Web technologies - from source provider, through middleware, to the end-consumer.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

The whole blood transcriptional regulation landscape in 465 COVID-19 infected samples from Japan COVID-19 Task Force

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19患者由来の血液細胞における遺伝子発現の網羅的解析 --重症度に応じた遺伝子発現の変化には、ヒトゲノム配列の個人差が影響する--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-23.Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a recently-emerged infectious disease that has caused millions of deaths, where comprehensive understanding of disease mechanisms is still unestablished. In particular, studies of gene expression dynamics and regulation landscape in COVID-19 infected individuals are limited. Here, we report on a thorough analysis of whole blood RNA-seq data from 465 genotyped samples from the Japan COVID-19 Task Force, including 359 severe and 106 non-severe COVID-19 cases. We discover 1169 putative causal expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) including 34 possible colocalizations with biobank fine-mapping results of hematopoietic traits in a Japanese population, 1549 putative causal splice QTLs (sQTLs; e.g. two independent sQTLs at TOR1AIP1), as well as biologically interpretable trans-eQTL examples (e.g., REST and STING1), all fine-mapped at single variant resolution. We perform differential gene expression analysis to elucidate 198 genes with increased expression in severe COVID-19 cases and enriched for innate immune-related functions. Finally, we evaluate the limited but non-zero effect of COVID-19 phenotype on eQTL discovery, and highlight the presence of COVID-19 severity-interaction eQTLs (ieQTLs; e.g., CLEC4C and MYBL2). Our study provides a comprehensive catalog of whole blood regulatory variants in Japanese, as well as a reference for transcriptional landscapes in response to COVID-19 infection