A Pivotal Role for Interleukin-27 in CD8+ T Cell Functions and Generation of Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes

Cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) play a critical role in the control of various cancers and infections, and therefore the molecular mechanisms of CTL generation are a critical issue in designing antitumor immunotherapy and vaccines which augment the development of functional and long-lasting memory CTLs. Interleukin (IL)-27, a member of the IL-6/IL-12 heterodimeric cytokine family, acts on naive CD4+ T cells and plays pivotal roles as a proinflammatory cytokine to promote the early initiation of type-1 helper differentiation and also as an antiinflammatory cytokine to limit the T cell hyperactivity and production of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Recent studies revealed that IL-27 plays an important role in CD8+ T cells as well. Therefore, this article reviews current understanding of the role of IL-27 in CD8+ T cell functions and generation of CTLs

Deep sequencing reveals as-yet-undiscovered small RNAs in Escherichia coli

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In <it>Escherichia coli</it>, approximately 100 regulatory small RNAs (sRNAs) have been identified experimentally and many more have been predicted by various methods. To provide a comprehensive overview of sRNAs, we analysed the low-molecular-weight RNAs (< 200 nt) of <it>E. coli </it>with deep sequencing, because the regulatory RNAs in bacteria are usually 50-200 nt in length.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We discovered 229 novel candidate sRNAs (≥ 50 nt) with computational or experimental evidence of transcription initiation. Among them, the expression of seven intergenic sRNAs and three <it>cis</it>-antisense sRNAs was detected by northern blot analysis. Interestingly, five novel sRNAs are expressed from prophage regions and we note that these sRNAs have several specific characteristics. Furthermore, we conducted an evolutionary conservation analysis of the candidate sRNAs and summarised the data among closely related bacterial strains.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This comprehensive screen for <it>E. coli </it>sRNAs using a deep sequencing approach has shown that many as-yet-undiscovered sRNAs are potentially encoded in the <it>E. coli </it>genome. We constructed the <it>Escherichia coli </it>Small RNA Browser (ECSBrowser; <url>http://rna.iab.keio.ac.jp/</url>), which integrates the data for previously identified sRNAs and the novel sRNAs found in this study.</p

Research Activities in the Department of Nursing

Research activity at the Department of Nursing is overviewed from the point of research topics, the theme of the projects admitted for grant from the Ministry of Education and Science of Japan, and expected research topics, trying to clarify the needs and challenges of the Department from multilateral aspects in future research activities. The Department of Nursing, Aino University is currently divided into the five areas and further into 12 fields. On the other hand, according to the Scientific Research Grant Program (2015 fiscal year), the research topics in nursing science is subdivided into the five areas; a) basic nursing, b) clinical nursing, c) lifelong developmental nursing, d) elderly nursing, and e) community health nursing

Supplementary Movie S1

Movie S1. Movie of a 3D structural alignment of a dihydroorotate (DHO) dehydrogenase (red, 4OQV), a dihydropyrimidine (DPY) dehydrogenase (blue, 1GTE), and a glutamate synthase (green, 1EA0)

Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material for Graph Splitting: A Graph-Based Approach for Superfamily-scale Phylogenetic Tree Reconstruction. Figures S1–S19, Table S1, Captions for Movies S1–S2, Text S1, and Reference

Supplementary Movie S2

Movie S2. Movie of a 3D structural alignment of a flavin oxidoreductase (group 1) (yellow, 1VHN), a DHO dehydrogenase (red, 4OQV), and a flavin oxidoreductase (group 2) (black, 1Z41)