Search

Job's tears (Coix lacryma-jobi L.) is grown widely in Asian countries and a crop that can fertilize with own pollen and pistils. The grains are used not only for food but also for medicinal purposes. The grain of many cultivars contains glutinous endosperm; only grains with this glutinous endosperm are suitable for use as medicine in Japan. Many wild types have non-glutinous endosperm and can easily cross with cultivar under natural environmental conditions. Because the non-glutinous endosperm trait is dominant to that of glutinous endosperm, F1 seeds produced by crosses between a cultivar and a wild type have non-glutinous endosperm. To reduce the rate of unwanted crosses, we investigated the pollen dispersal distance by using a red leaf sheath as a morphological marker. When plants were cultivated in rows 70 cm apart, the crossing rate was about 25%-35%. As the distance increased, the crossing rate decreased at a rate that could be fitted to a power approximation in fields without intervening plants and to an exponential equation in fields with intervening plants. Our data could be used as guidelines for preventing unwanted crossing with wild types when growing cultivars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the results from deep Suzaku observations of the central region of the Perseus cluster. Bulbul et al. (2014, ApJ, 789, 13) reported the detection by XMM-Newton instruments of an unidentified X-ray emission line at an energy around 3.5 keV in spectra for the Perseus and other clusters. They argued for a possibility of the decay of sterile neutrino, a dark matter candidate. We examine Suzaku X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (XIS) spectra of the Perseus cluster for evidence in the 3.5 keV line and other possible dark matter features in the 2-6 keV energy band. In order to search for and constrain a weak line feature with the XIS, observations of the Crab Nebula are used to evaluate the system's effective area. We found no line feature at the claimed position with a systematic line flux upper limit at a half (1.5 eV in line equivalent width) of the claimed best-fitting value by Bulbul et al. (2014). We discuss this inconsistency in terms of instrumental calibration errors andmodeling of continuum emission. Future prospects for high-energy resolution spectroscopy with ASTRO-H are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the mutations in the carotenoid cleavage dioxygenase 4 (CCD4) genes of yellow-flesh peaches. Topics discussed include mutation in a carotenoid catabolic gene, CCD4 in peach plants and insertion of a retrotransposon in CCD4. It also discusses frame shift mutation in the micro satellite sequences of the first exon of the gene and relationship between the genotype of CCD4 and the phenotype of flesh color of peaches.

Study Design: Prospective cohort study. Purpose: To quantitatively evaluate bone marrow edema (BME) in the pedicle on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for adolescent athlete patients with spondylolysis. Overview of Literature: Spondylolysis, a stress fracture of the pars interarticularis, is a common occurrence in adolescent athletes with low back pain. T2-weighed fat-saturated MRI is reportedly useful for the detection of BME in the pedicle in the early stage of spondylolysis; however, to our knowledge, the quantitative assessment of BME in spondylolysis has not been reported. Methods: Adolescent athletes with spondylolysis, including those with symptoms of low back pain, were enrolled. The sporting activity of the patients was restricted, and a hard brace was attached to the spine. The BME range of interest was taken on T2-weighed fat-saturated MRI, and the signal intensity (SI) of the BME (SIedema) was measured. The contrast ratio (CR) between the SI of the BME and SI of the spinal cord (SIcord) was calculated per the following formulae: CRedema=(SIedema-SIcord)/(SIedema+SIcord). The CR of the normal pedicle was measured as a control per the following formulae: CRcontrol=(SIcontrol-SIcord)/(SIcontrol+SIcord). Results: The study enrolled 32 men and one woman; the mean patient age was 15.2 years (range, 12-18 years). The average CR of the edema and normal pedicle at the first visit was 0.506 (range, 0.097-0.804) and 0.137 (range, -0.741 to 0.572), respectively. The CR of the edema was significantly higher as compared to that of the normal pedicle (p <0.01). MRI that was performed 1 month after the first visit showed that the CR of the edema had decreased to 0.204 (range, -0.152 to 0.517). The CR of the edema 1 month thereafter was significantly lower than that at the first visit (p <0.01). Conclusions: Quantitative assessment of BME using CR on MRI is useful in the evaluation of the healing process of spondylolysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Purpose: We aimed to quantitatively assess bone marrow edema (BME) on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for patients with degenerative lumbar diseases. Overview of Literature: BME adjacent to a sclerotic endplate of the lumbar spine, detected using T2-weighted fat-saturated MRI, is closely associated with low back pain in patients with degenerative lumbar diseases. However, currently, there no quantitative evaluation methods for BME adjacent to the vertebral endplate. Methods: Patients with degenerative lumbar diseases, whose MRIs detected BME, were enrolled. On a T2-weighted fat-saturated MRI, BME appeared as a high-intensity region adjacent to the vertebral endplate. We calculated the contrast ratios (CRs) of BME and normal bone marrow using the signal intensities of BME, normal bone marrow, and the spinal cord. On computed tomography, we calculated Hounsfield unit (HU) values in the same area as BME, the sclerotic endplate, and normal bone marrow to assess bone density. Results: There were 16 men and 14 women, with an average age of 73.5 years. The mean CRs of BME and normal bone marrow were -0.015±0.056 and -0.407±0.023, respectively. BME's CR was significantly higher than that of normal bone marrow (p <0.01). The HU values in the same area as BME, the sclerotic endplate, and normal bone marrow were 251.9±24.6, 828.3±35.6, and 98.1±9.3, respectively; these values were significantly different from each other (p <0.01). Conclusions: The CR on MRI is a useful quantitative assessment tool for BME in patients with degenerative lumbar diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conduct a joint X-ray and weak-lensing study of four relaxed galaxy clusters (Hydra A, A 478, A1689, and A1835) observed by both Suzaku and Subaru out to virial radii, with the aim of understanding recently discovered unexpected features of the intraclustermediu (ICM) in cluster outskirts. We show that the average hydrostatic-to-lensing total mass ratio for the four clusters decreases from ∼70% to ∼40% as the overdensity contrast decreases from 500 to the virial value. The average gas mass fraction from lensing total mass estimates increases with cluster radius and agrees with the cosmicmean baryon fraction within the virial radius, whereas the X-ray-based gas fraction considerably exceeds the cosmic values due to underestimation of the hydrostatic mass. We also develop a new advanced method for determining normalized cluster radial profiles for multiple X-ray observables by simultaneously taking into account both their radial dependence and multivariate scaling relations with weak-lensing masses. Although the four clusters span a range of halo mass, concentration, X-ray luminosity, and redshift, we find that the gas entropy, pressure, temperature, and density profiles are all remarkably self-similar when scaled with the weak-lensing M200 mass and r200 radius. The entropy monotonically increases out to ∼0.5 r200 ∼r1000 following the accretion shock heating model K(r) ∝ r1.1, and flattens at ≳0.5 r200. The universality of the scaled entropy profiles indicates that the thermalization mechanism over the entire cluster region (>0.1 r200) is controlled by gravitation in a common way for all clusters, although the heating efficiency in the outskirts needs to be modified from the standard r1.1 law. The bivariate scaling functions of the gas density and temperature reveal that the flattening of the outskirts entropy profile is caused by the steepening of the temperature, rather than the flattening of the gas density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Red coloration of fruit skin is one of the most important traits in peach (Prunus persica), and it is mainly due to the accumulation of anthocyanins. Three MYB10 genes, PpMYB10.1, PpMYB10.2, and PpMYB10.3, have been reported as important regulators of red coloration and anthocyanin biosynthesis in peach fruit. In this study, contribution of PpMYB10.1/2/3 to anthocyanin accumulation in the fruit skin was investigated in the Japanese peach cultivars, white-skinned ‘Mochizuki’ and red-skinned ‘Akatsuki’. We then investigated the relationships between allelic type of PpMYB10.1 and skin color phenotype in 23 Japanese peach cultivars for future establishment of DNA-marker. Results: During the fruit development of ‘Mochizuki’ and ‘Akatsuki’, anthocyanin accumulation was observed only in the skin of red ‘Akatsuki’ fruit in the late ripening stages concomitant with high mRNA levels of the last step gene leading to anthocyanin accumulation, UDP-glucose:flavonoid-3-O-glucosyltransferase (UFGT). This was also correlated with the expression level of PpMYB10.1. Unlike PpMYB10.1, expression levels of PpMYB10.2/3 were low in the skin of both ‘Mochizuki’ and ‘Akatsuki’ throughout fruit development. Moreover, only PpMYB10.1 revealed expression levels associated with total anthocyanin accumulation in the leaves and flowers of ‘Mochizuki’ and ‘Akatsuki’. Introduction of PpMYB10.1 into tobacco increased the expression of tobacco UFGT, resulting in higher anthocyanin accumulation and deeper red transgenic tobacco flowers; however, overexpression of PpMYB10.2/3 did not alter anthocyanin content and color of transgenic tobacco flowers when compared with wild-type flowers. Dual-luciferase assay showed that the co-infiltration of PpMYB10.1 with PpbHLH3 significantly increased the activity of PpUFGT promoter. We also found close relationships of two PpMYB10.1 allelic types, MYB10.1-1/MYB10.1-2, with the intensity of red skin coloration. Conclusion: We showed that PpMYB10.1 is a major regulator of anthocyanin accumulation in red-skinned peach and that it activates PpUFGT transcription. PpMYB10.2/3 may be involved in functions other than anthocyanin accumulation in peach. The peach cultivars having two MYB10.1-2 types resulted in the white skin color. By contrast, those with two MYB10.1-1 or MYB10.1-1/MYB10.1-2 types showed respective red or pale red skin color. These findings contribute to clarifying the molecular mechanisms of anthocyanin accumulation and generating gene-based markers linked to skin color phenotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present results of four-pointing Suzaku X-ray observations (total ~200 ks) of the intracluster medium (ICM) in the A1835 galaxy cluster (kT ~ 8 keV, z = 0.253) out to the virial radius (rvir ~ 2.9Mpc) and beyond. Faint X-ray emission from the ICM out to rvir is detected. The temperature gradually decreases with radius from ~8 keV in the inner region to ~2 keV at rvir. The entropy profile is shown to flatten beyond r500, in disagreement with the r1.1 dependence predicted from the accretion shock heating model. The thermal pressure profile in the range 0.3r500 ≲ r ≲ rvir agrees well with that obtained from the stacked Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect observations with the Planck satellite. The hydrostatic mass profile in the cluster outskirts (r500 ≲ r ≲ rvir) falls well short of the weak-lensing one derived from Subaru/Suprime-Cam observations, showing an unphysical decrease with radius. The gas mass fraction at rvir defined with the lensing total mass agrees with the cosmic baryon fraction from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe seven-year data. All these results indicate, rather than the gas-clumping effect, that the bulk of the ICM in the cluster outskirts is far from hydrostatic equilibrium and infalling matter retained some of its kinetic energy. Finally, combining with our recent Suzaku and lensing analysis of A1689, a cluster of similar mass, temperature, and redshift, we show that the cluster temperature distribution in the outskirts is significantly correlated with the galaxy density field in the surrounding large-scale environment at (1-2)rvir [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the results from an extensive spectroscopic survey of the central region of the nearby galaxy cluster Abell 2199 (A2199) at z = 0.03. By combining 775 new redshifts from the MMT/Hectospec observations with the data in the literature, we construct a large sample of 1624 galaxies with measured redshifts at , which results in high spectroscopic completeness at (77%). We use these data to study the kinematics and clustering of galaxies, focusing on the comparison with those of the intracluster medium (ICM) from Suzaku X-ray observations. We identify 406 member galaxies of A2199 at using the caustic technique. The velocity dispersion profile of cluster members appears smoothly connected to the stellar velocity dispersion profile of the cD galaxy. The luminosity function is well fitted with a Schechter function at . The radial velocities of cluster galaxies generally agree well with those of the ICM, but there are some regions where the velocity difference between the two is about a few hundred kilometers per second. The cluster galaxies show a hint of global rotation at with , but the ICM in the same region does not show such rotation. We apply a friends-of-friends algorithm to the cluster galaxy sample at and identify 32 group candidates, and examine the spatial correlation between the galaxy groups and X-ray emission. This extensive survey in the central region of A2199 provides an important basis for future studies of interplay among the galaxies, the ICM, and the dark matter in the cluster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]