CFL Phase of High Density QCD at Non Zero Strange Quark Mass

We compute free energy of quark matter at asymptotically high baryon number density in the presence of non zero strange quark mass including dynamics of pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons due to chiral symmetry breaking, extending previously existing analysis based on perturbative expansion in $m_s^2/4\mu\Delta.$ We demonstrate that the CFL$K^0$ state has lower free energy than the symmetric CFL state for $0<m_s^2/4\mu\Delta<2/3$. We also calculate the spectrum of the fermionic quasiparticle excitations about the kaon condensed ground state in the regime $m_s^2/4\mu\Delta \sim 1$ and find that $(m_s^2/4\mu\Delta)_{crit}=2/3$ for the CFL-gCFL phase transition, the leading order result reported in [1], is not modified.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure

Nucleotide sequence of a cDNA encoding a common precursor of disintegrin flavostatin and hemorrhagic factor HR2a from the venom of Trimeresurus flavoviridis

AbstractThe venom of Trimeresurus flavoviridis has three disintegrins that act as platelet aggregation inhibitors by binding to integrin αIIbβ3 on platelets through its Arg-Gly-Asp sequence. We isolated the cDNA encoding the flavostatin precursor that is one of the disintegrins in T. flavoviridis venom. The open reading frame consisted of four regions, a pre-peptide region, a metalloprotease region, a spacer region and a disintegrin region, indicating that the flavostatin precursor belongs to the metalloprotease/disintegrin family. Surprisingly, the deduced amino acid sequence of the metalloprotease region was completely consistent with that of hemorrhagic metalloprotease HR2a, which indicated that this metalloprotease released from the flavostatin precursor functions as a hemorrhagic factor. These observations indicated that a disintegrin and a hemorrhagic metalloprotease were synthesized as a common precursor. Thus, our results support the hypothesis that a disintegrin is synthesized as a metalloprotease/disintegrin precursor and matures by cleavage from the precursor molecule

A protocol to induce expandable limb-bud mesenchymal cells from human pluripotent stem cells

Here, we present a protocol for the selective differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells mimicking human developmental processes into expandable PRRX1+ limb-bud mesenchymal (ExpLBM) cells. This approach enables expansion through serial passage while maintaining capacity for chondrogenic differentiation. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Yamada et al. (2021, 2022)

Mouse Model for Optogenetic Genome Engineering

Optogenetics, a technology to manipulate biological phenomena thorough light, has attracted much attention in neuroscience. Recently, the Magnet System, a photo-inducible protein dimerization system which can control the intracellular behavior of various biomolecules with high accuracy using light was developed. Furthermore, photoactivation systems for controlling biological phenomena are being developed by combining this technique with genome-editing technology (CRISPR/Cas9 System) or DNA recombination technology (Cre-loxP system). Herein, we review the history of optogenetics and the latest Magnet System technology and introduce our recently developed photoactivatable Cre knock-in mice with temporal-, spatial-, and cell-specific accuracy

N-(Fluoren-9-ylmethoxy­carbon­yl)-l-aspartic acid 4-tert-butyl ester

The bond distances and bond angles of the title compound, C23H25NO6, are consistent with values typically found for fluoren-9-ylmethoxy­carbonyl-protected amino acids. The conformations of the backbone and the side chain are slightly different from those of l-aspartic acid. The crystal structure exhibits two inter­molecular hydrogen bonds, forming a two-dimensional sheet structure parallel to the ab plane

Dynamics of biexciton localization in AlxGa1-xN mixed crystals under exciton resonant excitation

We report the localization dynamics of biexcitons in AlxGa1−xN mixed crystals under exciton resonant excitation at low temperatures. During a few tens of picoseconds just after intense laser excitation, the photoluminescence (PL) spectral shape obeys an inverse Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution and free biexcitons dominate the PL spectrum. With a further increase in the delay time, the biexciton PL peak energy and edge energy shift to lower energies. These redshift behaviors in AlxGa1−xN mixed crystals are completely different from the behaviors of free biexcitons in GaN crystals. Our observations reveal the rapid transformation dynamics from free to localized biexcitons in band-tail states in AlxGa1−xN mixed crystals