Functional analysis of inositol phosphoryl ceramide synthase isoforms from arabidopsis thaliana

Sphingolipids are ubiquitous and essential components of eukaryotic cells. They are major components of the membrane, and have also been identified to be important in signalling. Until recently, very little has been known about IPCS in plants. The activity has been characterized in bean microsomes in 2003 by Bromley et al., but until now no genes encoding IPCS have been identified. Here the three Arabidopsis thaliana genes potentially encoding IPCS, which is responsible for a step in sphingolipid synthesis have been characterized and the expression level has been identified. Genes have been cloned and transformed into the yeast-E. coli shuttle vector pRS426 MET for investigating the encoded activity. In vivo and metabolic labelling in vitro studies of the complementation studies of AURl of these IPCS genes demonstrated that IPCS function as AURl. Although salt tolerance in vivo studies and metabolic labelling in vitro studies of ISCl complementation studies showed that IPCS did not function as ISCl, IPC-PLC. By designing gene specific primer sets, tissue-specific expression patterns for these genes have been identified for the first time and suggest that the expression of particular IPCS genes are regulated in a tissue-specific and developmental stage manner. Furthermore, A. thaliana IPCS was found to be resistant to the anti-fungal agent aureobasidm A (AbA). This may provide important aspects to future management and prevention of fungal diseases in plants. Identifying the functions and characteristics of A. thaliana IPCS provides important aspects of sphmgolipid synthesis and signalling in plants

Fostering Comprehensive Music Ability: A Comparison of Educational Methods in Classes Introducing “The Musician’s Ear Comprehensive Training in Musicianship”

In 2000, the Elisabeth University of Music launched a developmental system to foster the comprehensive ability necessary for the practice of music. In 2002, ‘‘The Musician’s Ear Comprehensive Training in Musicianship’’ was published to train subjects in the system. Since 2000, the Elisabeth University of Music has taught this system as a compulsory subject, aiming to foster comprehensive musical ability by integrating learning of solfège and music theory. However, although teaching is based on this system, no specific instruction manual is available. Thus, the method of education is left to the teachers discretion. In this study, I observed two classes, recorded video and interviewed two teachers to investigate and analyze the teaching methods used in each class. A comparison of the two teaching methods revealed several similarities, and some points of difference. Similarities included the method for selecting teaching material, and an emphasis on aural training. Differences included the method of operation of the system. Thus, even when the same educational system was employed, various approaches were used for the method of education. In addition, the investigation identified several difficulties among students, suggesting possibilities for the development of new teaching methods to resolve them

The Significance of Compound Musical Structures in Solfège Education: Based on Jeanne Bamberger's Cognitive Theory

In a solfège class at a music university, I encountered a student who had difficulty playing cadences without the aid of notation. She could play them from score, but could not without it. She was playing simply by responding to the visual information given in the score, with hardly any understanding of the structure of the music. To help her in solving this problem, I conducted an interview with her to find out the cause of the problem, and then guided her with a training method which I thought useful for her case. The training I chose was the one based on The Musician’s Ear － Comprehensive Training in Musicianship － a training method that is in accordance with the ideas that Jeanne Bamberger (1924-) proposed in her cognitive theory of music. The purpose of this study is to clarify one of the prime requirements of solfège education, through an analysis of the process involved in the student’s improvement regarding the problem, and considerations of its result. The analysis revealed that the main cause of the student’s problem was that she did not grasp each cadence as a reasonable ‘chunk’, a structural unit, that which, according to Bamberger, is a ‘highly aggregated, structurally meaningful entity’. This instance strongly suggests the importance of training that leads students to grasp musically-meaningful entities (i.e., ‘structural chunks’) in the overall context of the music, rather than teaching discrete musical elements

Search for the Infrared Emission Features from Deuterated Interstellar Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons

We report the results of a search for emission features from interstellar deuterated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the 4um region with the Infrared Camera (IRC) onboard AKARI. No significant excess emission is seen in 4.3-4.7um in the spectra toward the Orion Bar and M17 after the subtraction of line emission from the ionized gas. A small excess of emission remains at around 4.4 and 4.65um, but the ratio of their intensity to that of the band emission from PAHs at 3.3-3.5um is estimated as 2-3%. This is an order of magnitude smaller than the values previously reported and also those predicted by the model of deuterium depletion onto PAHs. Since the subtraction of the ionized gas emission introduces an uncertainty, the deuterated PAH features are also searched for in the reflection nebula GN 18.14.0, which does not show emission lines from ionized gas. We obtain a similar result that excess emission in the 4um region, if present, is about 2% of the PAH band emission in the 3um region. The present study does not find evidence for the presence of the large amount of deuterated PAHs that the depletion model predicts. The results are discussed in the context of deuterium depletion in the interstellar medium.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Ap

Concentration of 2-phenylphenol by organoclays from aqueous sucrose solution

The adsorption of 2-phenylphenol, which is an antifungal agent, onto organically modified clay from aqueous sucrose solution was investigated. 2-Phenylphenol was effectively adsorbed on neostigmine-modified smectites and octadecyltrimethylammoniurh modified smectites even in the presence of sucrose in the starting aqueous solution. Two smectites (a natural montmorillonite, Kunipia F, and a synthetic saponite, Sumecton SA) were used to find clay minerals with lower layer charge density gave larger adsorption capacity for 2-phenylphenol. The result showed the potential application of the organically modified clays to remove 2-phenylphenol from orange extracts. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V.ArticleAPPLIED CLAY SCIENCE. 109: 64-67 (2015)journal articl

Velocity resolved [CII], [CI], and CO observations of the N159 star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud: a complex velocity structure and variation of the column densities

The [CII]158um line is one of the dominant cooling lines in star-forming active regions. The commonly assumed clumpy UV-penetrated cloud models predict a [CII] line profile similar to that of CO. However, recent spectral-resolved observations show that they are often very different, indicating a more complex origin of the line emission including the dynamics of the source region. The aim of our study is to investigate the physical properties of the star-forming ISM in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) by separating the origin of the emission lines spatially and spectrally. In this paper, we focus on the spectral characteristics and the origin of the emission lines, and the phases of carbon-bearing species in the N159 star-forming region in the LMC. We mapped a 4'x(3-4)' region in N159 in [CII]158um and [NII]205um with the GREAT on board SOFIA, and in CO(3-2), (4-3), (6-5), 13CO(3-2), and [CI]3P1-3P0 and 3P2-3P1 with APEX. The emission of all transitions observed shows a large variation in the line profiles across the map and between the different species. At most positions the [CII] emission line profile is substantially wider than that of CO and [CI]. We estimated the fraction of the [CII] integrated line emission that cannot be fitted by the CO line profile to be 20%-50%. We derived the relative contribution from C+, C, and CO to the column density in each velocity bin. The contribution from C+ dominates the velocity range far from the velocities traced by the dense molecular gas, and the region located between the CO cores of N159 W and E. We estimate the contribution of the ionized gas to the [CII] emission using the ratio to the [NII] emission to be < 19% to the [CII] emission at its peak position, and <15% over the whole observed region. Using the integrated line intensities, we present the spatial distribution of I([CII])/I(FIR). (abridged for arXiv)Comment: 16 pages with 14 figures, accepted for publication in A&

GREAT/SOFIA atmospheric calibration

The GREAT observations need frequency-selective calibration across the passband for the residual atmospheric opacity at flight altitude. At these altitudes the atmospheric opacity has both narrow and broad spectral features. To determine the atmospheric transmission at high spectral resolution, GREAT compares the observed atmospheric emission with atmospheric model predictions, and therefore depends on the validity of the atmospheric models. We discusse the problems identified in this comparison with respect to the observed data and the models, and describe the strategy used to calibrate the science data from GREAT/SOFIA during the first observing periods.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure

Imaging and mapping of mouse bone using MALDI-imaging mass spectrometry

Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-imaging mass spectrometry (MALDI-IMS) is an advanced method used globally to analyze the distribution of biomolecules on tissue cryosections without any probes. In bones, however, hydroxyapatite crystals make it difficult to determine the distribution of biomolecules using MALDI-IMS. Additionally, there is limited information regarding the use of this method to analyze bone tissues. To determine whether MALDI-IMS analysis of bone tissues can facilitate comprehensive mapping of biomolecules in mouse bone, we first dissected femurs and tibiae from 8-week-old male mice and characterized the quality of multiple fixation and decalcification methods for preparation of the samples. Cryosections were mounted on indium tin oxide-coated glass slides, dried, and then a matrix solution was sprayed on the tissue surface. Images were acquired using an iMScope at a mass-to-charge range of 100–1000. Hematoxylin-eosin, Alcian blue, Azan, and periodic acid-Schiff staining of adjacent sections was used to evaluate histological and histochemical features. Among the various fixation and decalcification conditions, sections from trichloroacetic acid-treated samples were most suitable to examine both histology and comprehensive MS images. However, histotypic MS signals were detected in all sections. In addition to the MS images, phosphocholine was identified as a candidate metabolite. These results indicate successful detection of biomolecules in bone using MALDI-IMS. Although analytical procedures and compositional adjustment regarding the performance of the device still require further development, IMS appears to be a powerful tool to determine the distribution of biomolecules in bone tissues