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The effects of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from Rhodobacter sphaeroides, a purple non-sulfur bacterium (PNSB), on the gene expression of the root of rice (Oryza sativa) were investigated by next generation sequencing (NGS) RNA-seq analysis. The rice seeds were germinated on agar plates containing 10 pg/mL of LPS from Rhodobacter sphaeroides NBRC 12203 (type culture). Three days after germination, RNA samples were extracted from the roots and analyzed by RNA-seq. The effects of dead (killed) PNSB cells of R. sphaeroides NBRC 12203T at the concentration of 101 cfu/mL (ca. 50 pg cell dry weight/mL) were also examined. Clean reads of NGS were mapped to rice genome (number of transcript ID: 44785), and differentially expressed genes were analyzed by DEGs. As a result of DEG analysis, 300 and 128 genes, and 86 and 8 genes were significantly up- and down-regulated by LPS and dead cells of PNSB, respectively. The plot of logFC (fold change) values of the up-regulated genes of LPS and PNSB dead cells showed a significant positive relationship (r2 = 0.6333, p < 0.0001), indicating that most of the effects of dead cell were attributed to those of LPS. Many genes related to tolerance against biotic (fungal and bacterial pathogens) and abiotic (cold, drought, and high salinity) stresses were up-regulated, and the most strikingly up-regulated genes were those involved in the jasmonate signaling pathway, and the genes of chalcone synthase isozymes, indicating that PNSB induced defense response against biotic and abiotic stresses via the jasmonate signaling pathway, despite the non-pathogenicity of PNSB.

In a field study, the probiotic effects of a freshwater purple nonsulfur photosynthetic bacterium (PNSB), Rhodobacter sphaeroides, and a marine PNSB, Rhodovulum sulfidophilum, on kuruma shrimp (Marsupenaeus japonicus) were compared by using two commercially operating shrimp ponds. Shrimp were fed with feed containing 0.01% fresh weight (106 cfu/g feed) of PNSB cells for 152 d. The marine PNSB showed a better performance than the freshwater PNSB in average body weight at harvest time, survival rate (P

Gold-nanoparticle-incorporated molecularly imprinted nanogels acquire stealth capabilities in vivo through protein corona regulation using intrinsic dysopsonic proteins. The composite can be used in radiation therapy to treat mouse pancreatic cancer.

SMARCA4-deficient thoracic sarcomatoid tumor is a rare malignancy indicating some characteristics of a smoking-related disease. The purpose of this report is to describe a case of aggressive thoracic tumor with loss of immunochemical SMARCA4 expression and detail the results of our treatment regimen. The patient was a 58-year-old male and clinicopathologically diagnosed with a SMARCA4-deficient thoracic sarcomatoid tumor. Pembrolizumab plus carboplatin and pemetrexed resulted in significant response. This combination therapy showed potential for first-line systemic treatment of SMARCA4-deficient thoracic sarcomatoid tumors.

The sustainability of the shrimp aquaculture depends largely on disease control and the health status of shrimp. Probiotics, which make shrimps healthier and more resistant to pathogens, are promising countermeasure for shrimp diseases. In this study, the effects of the marine purple non-sulfur photosynthetic bacterium (PNSB) Rhodovulum sulfidophilum on Marsupenaeus japonicus (kuruma shrimp) growth and survival were examined in 177 m2 aquaria (140 tons of water) for 70 days. The shrimp received feed containing 0.01 % fresh weight (106 colony forming unit/g) of R. sulfidophilum cells. The survival rate significantly improved (P < 0.001) (R. sulfidophilum-fed = 81.9 %; control = 71.5 %), the feed conversion rate improved (R. sulfidophilum-fed = 1.83; control = 2.11), and there was no difference in the shrimp average body weight. The approximate bacterial cell cost was $0.003 to $0.005 per 1 kg feed, indicating that the R. sulfidophilum approach is economically feasible and a promising candidate for probiotic bacteria in shrimp aquaculture. Keywords: photosynthetic bacteria, Rhodovulum sulfidophilum, Marsupenaeus japonicus, shrimp, probiotics

We prove a forward Ergodic Closing Lemma for nonsingular \begin{document}$ C^1 $\end{document} endomorphisms, claiming that the set of eventually strongly closable points is a total probability set. The "forward" means that the closing perturbation is involved along a finite part of the forward orbit of a point in a total probability set, which is the same perturbation as in Mane's Ergodic Closing Lemma for \begin{document}$ C^1 $\end{document} diffeomorphisms. As an application, Shub's Entropy Conjecture for nonsingular \begin{document}$ C^1 $\end{document} endomorphisms away from homoclinic tangencies is proved, extending the result for \begin{document}$ C^1 $\end{document} diffeomorphisms by Liao, Viana and Yang.

Purple non-sulfur bacteria (PNSB) are used as probiotics in shrimp aquaculture; however, no studies have examined the probiotic effects of PNSB in shrimp at the gene expression level. In this study, we examined the effects of a marine PNSB

Purple nonsulfur bacteria (PNSB) reportedly have probiotic effects in fish, but whether they are indigenous in the digestive tract of fish is a question that requires answering. We attempted to isolate PNSB from the digestive tract of ayu (Plecoglossus altivelis) from the Kuma River (Kumamoto, Japan) and successfully isolated 12 PNSB strains. All the isolated PNSB belonged to the genus Rhodopseudomonas. Five Rhodopseudomonas strains were also isolated from the soil samples collected along the Kuma River. The phylogenetic tree based on the partial sequence of pufLM gene indicated that the PNSB from ayu and soil were similar. The effects of NaCl concentration in growth medium on growth were also compared between the PNSB from ayu and soil. The PNSB from ayu showed a better growth performance at a higher NaCl concentration, suggesting that the intestinal tract of ayu, a euryhaline fish, might provide suitable environment for halophilic microorganisms.

Caffeine intake is associated with a reduced risk developing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), but the underlying molecular mechanisms remain to be fully elucidated. We report here that caffeine markedly improved high fat diet-induced NAFLD in mice resulting in a 10-fold increase in circulating IL-6 levels, leading to STAT3 activation in the liver. Interestingly, the expression of IL-6 mRNA was not increased in the liver, but increased substantially in the muscles of caffeine-treated mice. Caffeine was found to stimulate IL-6 production in cultured myotubes but not in hepatocytes, adipocytes, or macrophages. The inhibition of p38/MAPK abrogated caffeine-induced IL-6 production in muscle cells. Caffeine failed to improve NAFLD in IL-6 and hepatocyte-specific STAT3 knockout mice, indicating that the IL-6/STAT3 pathway is vital for the hepatoprotective effects of caffeine in NAFLD. The possibility that IL-6/STAT3-mediated hepatic autophagosome induction and hepatocytic oxygen consumption are involved in the anti-NAFLD effects of caffeine cannot be excluded, based on the findings presented here. Our results reveal that caffeine ameliorates NAFLD via crosstalk between muscle IL-6 production and liver STAT3 activation.

Exercise prevents depression through peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma coactivator 1α (PGC-1α)-mediated activation of a particular branch of the kynurenine pathway. From kynurenine (KYN), two independent metabolic pathways produce neurofunctionally different metabolites, mainly in somatic organs: neurotoxic intermediate metabolites via main pathway and neuroprotective end product, kynurenic acid (KYNA) via the branch. Elevated levels of KYN have been found in patients with depression. Herein, we investigated whether and how caffeine prevents depression, focusing on the kynurenine pathway. Mice exposed to chronic mild stress (CMS) exhibited depressive-like behaviours with an increase and decrease in plasma levels of pro-neurotoxic KYN and neuroprotective KYNA, respectively. However, caffeine rescued CMS-exposed mice from depressive-like behaviours and restored the plasma levels of KYN and KYNA. Concomitantly, caffeine induced a key enzyme converting KYN into KYNA, namely kynurenine aminotransferase-1 (KAT1), in murine skeletal muscle. Upon caffeine stimulation murine myotubes exhibited KAT1 induction and its upstream PGC-1α sustainment. Furthermore, a proteasome inhibitor, but not translational inhibitor, impeded caffeine sustainment of PGC-1α, suggesting that caffeine induced KAT1 by inhibiting proteasomal degradation of PGC-1α. Thus, caffeine protection against CMS-induced depression may be associated with sustainment of PGC-1α levels and the resultant KAT1 induction in skeletal muscle, and thereby consumption of pro-neurotoxic KYN.

We add a lemma implicitly used in the proof of the forward Ergodic Closing Lemma in the paper "A forward Ergodic Closing Lemma and the Entropy Conjecture for nonsingular endomorphisms away from tangencies" [Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst., 40 (2020), 2285-2313].

Expressed sequence tag analyses revealed that two marine Chlorophyceae green algae, Chlamydomonas sp. W80 and Chlamydomonas sp. HS5, contain genes coding for chloroplastic class IIA aldolase (fructose-1, 6-bisphosphate aldolase: FBA). These genes show robust monophyly with those of the marine Prasinophyceae algae genera Micromonas, Ostreococcus and Bathycoccus, indicating that the acquisition of this gene through horizontal gene transfer by an ancestor of the green algal lineage occurred prior to the divergence of the core chlorophytes (Chlorophyceae and Trebouxiophyceae) and the prasinophytes. The absence of this gene in some freshwater chlorophytes, such as Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Volvox carteri, Chlorella vulgaris, Chlorella variabilis and Coccomyxa subellipsoidea, can therefore be explained by the loss of this gene somewhere in the evolutionary process. Our survey on the distribution of this gene in genomic and transcriptome databases suggests that this gene occurs almost exclusively in marine algae, with a few exceptions, and as such, we propose that chloroplastic class IIA FBA is a marine environment-adapted enzyme. This hypothesis was also experimentally tested using Chlamydomonas W80, for which we found that the transcript levels of this gene to be significantly lower under low-salt (that is, simulated terrestrial) conditions. Expression analyses of transcriptome data for two algae, Prymnesium parvum and Emiliania huxleyi, taken from the Sequence Read Archive database also indicated that the expression of this gene under terrestrial conditions (low NaCl and low sulfate) is significantly downregulated. Thus, these experimental and transcriptome data provide support for our hypothesis.

We prove a C1 closing lemma for C1+α diffeomorphisms under the existence of dominated splittings associated with the Lyapunov splittings over the supports of ergodic measures, which creates a sequence of periodic orbits having the local strong stable and unstable manifolds with uniform sizes over some compact set whose measure arbitrarily close to 1. This corresponds to Pesin's stable and unstable manifolds theorem for nonuniformly hyperbolic diffeomorphisms of class C1+α.

Cultured plant cells generally produce low levels of secondary metabolites, and elicitors of secondary metabolites usually inhibit callus growth. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA), a chlorophyll precursor that promotes plant growth, on callus induction from leaves of Taxus cuspidata, and on callus growth on solid medium. ALA at 0.76, 7.6, and 76 μM had similar effects on callus induction and growth, while ALA at 760 μM had negative effects. Next, the effects of ALA concentrations on callus growth and paclitaxel production in suspension cultures in the dark were evaluated. The results showed that 0.76 and 7.6 μM ALA stimulated growth and paclitaxel production, while 76 μM ALA had negative effects. ALA is thought to promote cellular activity under light conditions. Therefore, the effects of light intensity on callus growth and paclitaxel production in the presence of ALA were evaluated. Our results showed that the best conditions for callus growth and paclitaxel production were 7.6 μM ALA under photosynthetically active radiation of 12 μmol photons m−2 s−1. Callus growth and paclitaxel production were inhibited under stronger light (24 μmol photons m−2 s−1). Together, these results show that ALA promoted callus growth and the production of paclitaxel by light-grown cultured T. cuspidata cells.

Root-knot nematodes are sedentary endoparasites that induce permanent infestation sites inside the roots of a broad range of crop plants. The development of effective control strategies require understanding the root-knot nematode parasitic process, however, the key molecular determinants for host manipulation during infestation remain elusive. One limiting factor has been the lack of a standardized conventional method for quantitative measurement of host parasitism by root-knot nematodes, particularly one that enables efficient downstream analyses and is free from other biological sources of variability. We report here a robust, highly reproducible system for quantitative analysis of all stages of root-knot nematode infestation using the legume Lotus japonicus as the plant host. This system provides a high quality nematode inoculum that maintains consistency in juvenile age and viability even between independently prepared populations. An optimized root transformation protocol was also developed for L. japonicus to facilitate downstream molecular studies in conjunction with the quantitative assay. Hairy root transformation efficiencies up to 91% were achieved. Root-knot nematodes formed egg masses at the root surface of both intact plants and transgenic hairy root cultures within eight weeks, confirming the assay conditions support an efficient completion of the infestation cycle. The in vitro assay system described here is compatible with other plant hosts and will benefit agricultural biotechnology research as it now enables specific high-throughput screening of nematode resistance traits together with subsequent mechanistic elucidation of the causative factors.

Palis conjectured that densely in Diff(M), r ≥ 1, diffeomorphisms are either hyperbolic or exhibit homoclinic bifurcations. We prove a generic trichotomy for C2 diffeomorphisms: an Axiom A diffeomorphism with no cycles or Kupka-Smale ones admitting zero Lyapunov exponents or the C1 creation of homoclinic bifurcations (i.e., the creation of homoclinic tangencies or heterodimensional cycles by some C1 small perturbations).

We report here on taxane production by a combination of in situ extraction with lauryl alcohol (LA) and elicitation by methyl jasmonate (MJ) in a suspension callus of Taxus cuspidata. LA is an effective organic solvent for the in situ extraction of paclitaxel which gives a decrease in the paclitaxel concentration in the medium thus reducing its feed-back inhibition against callus growth. Improved callus growth and increased production amounts of the taxanes were observed in the two phase systems including MJ, compared with the control culture where LA and MJ were not added. In particular significant amounts of 10-deacetyl baccatin III and baccatin III, which are precursors of paclitaxel, were produced, indicating that the rate-limiting steps in the production of paclitaxel might be the enzymatic activities of converting baccatin III to paclitaxel and/or the genes expression of the related enzymes.

We report here the development of a new bioreactor (bioreactor with foam separation, BFS) for efficient production and recovery of paclitaxel that circumvents paclitaxel's inhibitory effects on growth through a feedback mechanism. The BFS captures paclitaxel through its hydrophobic interaction with the foam generated by aerated culture medium. The BFS comprises co-axial 0.65 dm3 outer (150 mm height and 75 mm diameter) and 0.15 dm3 inner vessels (90 mm height and 50 mm diameter) equipped with a ball-type sparger (5–10 µm pore size, 10 mm diameter) and a wire-framed draft tube covered by a water-permeable cellulose bag (150 × 40 mm, 100 µm maximum pore size). The BFS was tested by adding paclitaxel alone to the medium of 0.12 dm3 in the inner vessel and collecting it in the foam that overflowed into the outer vessel. Paclitaxel was separated with first-order kinetics and was optimally recovered using an aeration rate of 0.05 dm3 min−1 (0.21 vvm). Next, a Taxus cuspidata callus was cultured using the optimal aeration rate. A conventional shaking culture (110 rpm) served as the control using a 0.2 dm3 Erlenmeyer flask (0.12 dm3 medium). Paclitaxel was maintained at less than 0.02 g m−3 in the inner vessel of the BFS. Consequently, there was no feedback inhibition, and the paclitaxel production increased by a factor of five in the BFS compared with the control culture where there was feedback inhibition by the high concentration of paclitaxel. © 2013 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

White adipose tissue (WAT) is important for the maintenance of metabolic homeostasis, and metabolic syndrome is sometimes associated with WAT dysfunction in humans and animals. WAT reportedly plays a key, beneficial role in the maintenance of glucose and lipid homeostasis during de novo lipogenesis (DNL). Pu’erh tea extract (PTE) can inhibit harmful, ectopic DNL in the liver, thus protecting against hepatosteatosis, in mice with diet-induced obesity. We examined whether PTE could induce DNL in WAT and consequently protect against hepatosteatosis. C57BL/6 male mice were fed a high-fat diet (HFD) with/without PTE for 16 weeks. Systemic insulin sensitivity was determined using HOMA-IR, insulin- and glucose-tolerance tests, and WAT adipogenesis was evaluated by histological analysis. Adipogenesis-, inflammation-, and DNL-related gene expression in visceral AT (VAT) and subcutaneous AT (SAT) was measured using quantitative reverse transcription-PCR. Regression analysis was used to investigate the association between DNL in WAT and systemic insulin resistance or hepatosteatosis. Pu’erh tea extract significantly reduced the gain of body weight and SAT, but not VAT adiposity, in mice fed the high-fat diet and induced adipogenesis in VAT. The expression of DNL-related genes, including Glut4, encoding an important insulin-regulated glucose transporter (GLUT4), were highly elevated in VAT. Moreover, PTE inhibited VAT inflammation by simultaneously downregulating inflammatory molecules and inducing expression of Gpr120 that encodes an anti-inflammatory and pro-adipogenesis receptor (GPR-120) that recognizes unsaturated long-chain fatty acids, including DNL products. The expression of DNL-related genes in VAT was inversely correlated with hepatosteatosis and systemic insulin resistance. Activation of DNL in VAT may explain PTE-mediated alleviation of hepatosteatosis symptoms and systemic insulin resistance.

We synthesized three allophanes from precursors by a hydrothermal reaction at 100 °C for 48 h. The precursors were formed from the solutions of Na 4 SiO 4 and AlCl 3 ⋅ 6H 2 O at different Si/Al molar ratios (0.5, 0.75, 1.0). The nanostructure of the synthetic allophanes was compared with that of a natural allophane from New Zealand by using X-ray diffractometry, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetry/differential thermal analysis, 29 Si and 27 Al magic angle spinning (MAS) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), field emission electron microscopy, and pore-size distribution based on the Cranston–Inkley method. The propensity of the allophanes to adsorb adenine and adenosine-5′-monophosphate (5′-AMP) was assessed by batch experiments. The adsorption data were fitted by the Freundlich equation and the adsorption parameters were discussed in relation to the properties of the natural and synthetic allophanes. The adsorption capacity ( K f ) of the natural allophane for 5′-AMP was three times that for adenine. The average K f value of the three synthetic allophanes for 5′-AMP was more than twice that of the natural allophane, possibly due to the higher purity of the synthetic allophanes.

Bioluminescence has attracted considerable attention in the area of biophysics, primarily because the phenomenon can fundamentally be interpreted as the conversion of chemical to light energy. Although the molecular mechanisms underlying luminescence have been studied extensively in fireflies and bacteria, few studies have been undertaken in luminous fungi. This relative lack of information is likely due to the absence of a common and species-specific reaction-type in the luminous fungi examined to date. We recently succeeded in extracting, for the first time, a luminiferous substance from the fungus Mycena chlorophos. The substance was purified and characterized according to its chemical and optical properties. It is hoped that this information will facilitate the clarification of a novel molecular mechanism in fungal bioluminescence systems.

We consider a few applications of Mañé’s C 2 C^2 Connecting Lemma. These are the C 2 C^2 creation of homoclinic points associated to a basic set (i.e., isolated transitive hyperbolic set), a C 2 C^2 locally generic criterion to know whether a given point belongs to the stable set of hyperbolic homoclinic classes, and that measurably hyperbolic diffeomorphisms (i.e., having the closure of supports of all invariant measures as a countable union of disjoint basic sets) are C 2 C^2 generically uniformly hyperbolic diffeomorphisms.

An extended version of the ergodic closing lemma of Mañé is proved. As an application, we show that, C1 densely in the complement of the closure of Morse–Smale diffeomorphisms and those with a homoclinic tangency, there exists a weakly hyperbolic structure (dominated splittings with average hyperbolicity at almost every point on hyperbolic parts, and one-dimensional center direction when zero Lyapunov exponents are involved) over the supports of all non-atomic ergodic measures. As another application, we prove an approximation theorem, which claims that approximating the Lyapunov exponents of any non-atomic ergodic measure by those of an atomic ergodic measure by a C1 small perturbation is possible.

In this paper, the morphologies of martensite and retained austenite for 1.5 mass%C-12 mass%Cr and 1 mass%C-8 mass%Cr steels were observed by means of optical microscopy, XRD, SEM/EBSD and TEM. The amount of retained austenites was quantitatively investigated and compared with XRD, EBSD and TEM observation methods. The retained austenites were distributed in the form of a block type and a film type in the martensite structures. For the 1.5 mass%C-12 mass%Cr steel, the amount of block type retained austenite and film type one are almost equal in three distinct regions of carbide; primary carbide, secondary carbide and without carbide. In the case of 1 mass%C-8 mass%Cr steel, as to film type retained austenite there are not so much differences among those regions. However, block type retained austenites are distributed with much amount, especially in the region around primary carbide. [doi:10.2320/matertrans.MRA2008161]

We prove a dichotomy of C2 partially hyperbolic sets with one-dimensional center direction admitting no zero Lyapunov exponents, either hyperbolicity over the supports of ergodic measures or approximation by a heterodimensional cycle. This provides a partial result to the C1 Palis Conjecture that claims a dichotomy, hyperbolicity or homoclinic bifurcations in a dense subset of the space of C1 diffeomorphisms. Moreover, a theorem of Mane applied in the proof is modified to have an additional property concerning the Hausdorff distance between a periodic orbit and the support of a hyperbolic ergodic measure.

Processing ultra-fast optical signals without optical/electronic conversion is in demand and time-to-space conversion has been proposed as an effective solution. We have designed and fabricated an arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) based optical spectrum control circuit (OSCC) using silica planar lightwave circuit (PLC) technology. This device is composed of an AWG, tunable phase shifters and a mirror. The principle of signal processing is to spatially decompose the signal’s frequency components by using the AWG. Then, the phase of each frequency component is controlled by the tunable phase shifters. Finally, the light is reflected back to the AWG by the mirror and synthesized. Amplitude of each frequency component can be controlled by distributing the power to high diffraction order light. The spectral controlling range of the OSCC is 100 GHz and its resolution is 1.67 GHz. This paper describes equipping the OSCC with optical coded division multiplex (OCDM) encoder/decoder functionality. The encoding principle is to apply certain phase patterns to the signal’s frequency components and intentionally disperse the signal. The decoding principle is also to apply certain phase patterns to the frequency components at the receiving side. If the applied phase pattern compensates the intentional dispersion, the waveform is regenerated, but if the pattern is not appropriate, the waveform remains dispersed. We also propose an arbitrary filter function by exploiting the OSCC’s amplitude and phase control attributes. For example, a filtered optical signal transmitted through multiple optical nodes that use the wavelength multiplexer/demultiplexer can be equalized.