The Inhibitory Role of Rab11b in Osteoclastogenesis through Triggering Lysosome-Induced Degradation of c-Fms and RANK Surface Receptors

Rab11b, abundantly enriched in endocytic recycling compartments, is required for the establishment of the machinery of vesicle trafficking. Yet, no report has so far characterized the biological function of Rab11b in osteoclastogenesis. Using in vitro model of osteoclasts differentiated from murine macrophages like RAW-D cells or bone marrow-derived macrophages, we elucidated that Rab11b served as an inhibitory regulator of osteoclast differentiation sequentially via (i) abolishing surface abundance of RANK and c-Fms receptors; and (ii) attenuating nuclear factor of activated T-cells c1 (NFATc-1) upstream signaling cascades, following RANKL stimulation. Rab11b was localized in early and late endosomes, Golgi complex, and endoplasmic reticulum; moreover, its overexpression enlarged early and late endosomes. Upon inhibition of lysosomal function by a specific blocker, chloroquine (CLQ), we comprehensively clarified a novel function of lysosomes on mediating proteolytic degradation of c-Fms and RANK surface receptors, drastically ameliorated by Rab11b overexpression in RAW-D cell-derived osteoclasts. These findings highlight the key role of Rab11b as an inhibitor of osteoclastogenesis by directing the transport of c-Fms and RANK surface receptors to lysosomes for degradation via the axis of early endosomes-late endosomes-lysosomes, thereby contributing towards the systemic equilibrium of the bone resorption phase.     

Oviposition deterrent by female reproductive gland secretion in Japanese pine sawyer, Monochamus alternatus

Adult females of Monochamus alternatusare known to use palpation to recognize oviposition scars that contain eggs and to be deterred from oviposition. This study investigated the oviposition-deterring activity of a jellylike secretion deposited by the females immediately after oviposition and methanol extracts of female reproductive organs in the laboratory. When females searching for oviposition sites encountered artificial oviposition scars, they stopped walking and drummed the surface and inside of the oviposition scars with their maxillary and labial palpi. When the females encountered the artificial scars plugged with the jellylike secretion, most of them left the scars after palpation. In contrast, when females encountered artificial scars not plugged with the secretion, most of them deposited single eggs through the scars. In another experiment, most females left artificial scars treated with methanol extracts of the spermathecal gland or other reproductive organs after palpation, but most of them oviposited through the scars treated with methanol alone. The results showed that females' recognition of egg-containing scars and departure from such scars were mediated by the chemical(s) produced by their reproductive organs.     

Culture Condition of Bone Marrow Stromal Cells Affects Quantity and Quality of the Extracellular Vesicles

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) released by bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) have been shown to act as a transporter of bioactive molecules such as RNAs and proteins in the therapeutic actions of BMSCs in various diseases. Although EV therapy holds great promise to be a safer cell-free therapy overcoming issues related to cell therapy, manufacturing processes that offer scalable and reproducible EV production have not been established. Robust and scalable BMSC manufacturing methods have been shown to enhance EV production; however, the effects on EV quality remain less studied. Here, using human BMSCs isolated from nine healthy donors, we examined the effects of high-performance culture media that can rapidly expand BMSCs on EV production and quality in comparison with the conventional culture medium. We found significantly increased EV production from BMSCs cultured in the high-performance media without altering their multipotency and immunophenotypes. RNA sequencing revealed that RNA contents in EVs from high-performance media were significantly reduced with altered profiles of microRNA enriched in those related to cellular growth and proliferation in the pathway analysis. Given that pre-clinical studies at the laboratory scale often use the conventional medium, these findings could account for the discrepancy in outcomes between pre-clinical and clinical studies. Therefore, this study highlights the importance of selecting proper culture conditions for scalable and reproducible EV manufacturing.     

Zr(IV)?Fe(III), ?Ga(III), and ?Sn(IV) Binary Metal Complexes as Synergistic and Reusable Esterification Catalysts

Synergism in catalytic activity with the combined use of Hf(O‐i‐Pr)₄ or Zr(O‐i‐Pr)₄ and Fe(O‐i‐Pr)₃ for direct esterification and a very simple method for their extraction with ionic liquids for their recovery and reuse are described. This Zr(IV) Fe(III) complex is an environmentally benign catalyst due to its high turnover number, extremely mild Lewis acidity, low toxicity, reusability, and commercial availability at low cost.     

Lipid classes,fatty acid composition and triacylglycerol molecular species of kidney beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)

Seed oils from five legume cultivars of Phaseolus vulgaris, grown in Japan, were extracted and classified by thin‐layer chromatography (TLC) into seven fractions: hydrocarbons (HC; 0.7–1.4 wt‐%), steryl esters (SE; 1.7–3.3 wt‐%), triacylglycerols (TAG; 33.8–45.9 wt‐%), free fatty acids (FFA; 0.6–1.5 wt‐%), sn‐1,3‐diacylglycerols (1,3‐DAG; 0.3–1.0 wt‐%), sn‐1,2‐diacylglycerols (1,2‐DAG; 0.4–1.2 wt‐%) and phospholipids (PL; 49.4–58.8 wt‐%). Fatty acids derivatized as methyl esters were analyzed by gas chromatography (GC) and a flame ionization detector. Molecular species and the fatty acid distribution of TAG isolated from the total lipids in the beans were analyzed by a combination of argentation‐TLC and GC. A modified argentation‐TLC procedure, developed to optimize the separation of the complex mixture of total TAG, provided 18 different groups of TAG, based on both the degree of unsaturation and the total length of the three acyl chains of fatty acid groups. SDT (3.2–4.2 wt‐%), M₂T (3.8–5.0 wt‐%), D₃ (4.8–5.9 wt‐%), MDT (8.0–13.9 wt‐%), D₂T (12.5–15.8 wt‐%), MT₂ (19.4–22.7 wt‐%), DT₂ (17.8–23.5 wt‐%) and T₃ (9.2–13.0 wt‐%) were the main TAG components. The dominant fatty acids of TAG were α‐linolenic (48.5–57.8 wt‐%) and linoleic (16.7–25.8 wt‐%) acids, with appreciable amounts of palmitic (8.3–13.2 wt‐%) and oleic (7.8–13.8 wt‐%) acids. The high content of α‐linolenic acid in the cultivars of P. vulgaris could very likely play a beneficial role in reducing the risk of coronary heart disease among the large populations consuming them in Japan.     

原子转移自由基聚合可控制备聚合物刷及其最新应用进展

刷状聚合物是一类独特的聚合物分子,具有低粘度、高流变性、良好的溶解性及大量末端官能团等特性,在生物医学及先进材料设计等领域潜力巨大。原子转移自由基聚合(ATRP)作为一种温和、通用、强大的活性可控聚合技术,在合成聚合物刷中得到了非常广泛的应用。因此,通过ATRP技术对聚合物的分子结构进行设计,制备出结构明确、性能新颖的聚合物刷对于探索新型功能材料方面日益重要。综述了ATRP技术制备聚合物刷的最新研究进展及其在设计与制备结构可控的各种先进材料方面的应用,并对ATRP法制备聚合物刷的方法、聚合物刷的性能及应用做出了重点介绍。     

Polyethyleneimine/chitosan hexamer-mediated gene transfection into intestinal epithelial cell cultured in serum-containing medium

In search of an efficient nonviral vector, polyethyleneimine (PEI)-based vectors were examined. In general, the transfection efficiency of nonviral vectors is suppressed by serum. Here we show that PEI based vectors, particularly, the chitosan hexamer-PEI vector, could perform efficient gene transfection into intestinal epithelial cells (IEC-6) in the presence of serum. The conjugation order of the two polymers with a plasmid (first, chitosan hexamer; second, PEI) was found to be an important factor in enhancing transfection efficiency.     

A-SATCHMORE: SATCHMORE with availability checking

We present an improvement of SATCHMORE, calledA-SATCHMORE, by incorporating availability checking into relevancy. Because some atoms unavailable to the further computation are also marked relevant, SATCHMORE suffers from a potential explosion of the search space. Addressing this weakness of SATCHMORE, we show that an atom does not need to be marked relevant unless it is available to the further computation and no non-Horn clause needs to be selected unless all its consequent atoms are marked availably relevant, i.e., unless it is totally availably relevant. In this way,A-SATCHMORE is able to further restrict the ues of non-Horn clauses (therefore to reduce the search space) and makes the proof more goal-oriented. Our theorem prover,A-SATCHMORE, can be simply implemented in PROLOG based on SATCHMORE. We discuss how to incorporate availability cheeking into relevancy, describe our improvement and present the implementation. We also prove that our theorem prover is sound and complete, and provide examples to show the power of our availability approach. This research is supported in part by the Japanese Ministry of Education and the Artificial Intelligence Research Promotion Foundation. Lifeng He, Ph.D: He received the B. E. degree from Northwest Institute of Light Industry, China, in 1982, the M. S. and Ph.D. degrees in AI and computer science from Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan, in 1994 and 1997, respectively. He currently works at the Institute of Open System in Nagoya, Japan. His research interests include automated reasoning, theorem proving, logic programming, knowledge bases, multi-agent cooperation and modal logic. Yuyan Chao, M. S.: She received the B. E. degree from Northwest Institute of Light Industry, China, in 1984, and the M. S. degree from Nagoya University, Japan, in 1997. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Human Information, Nagoya University. Her research interests include image processing, graphic understanding, CAD and theorem proving. Yuka Shimajiri, M. S.: She currently works as a Assistant Professor in Department of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science at the Nagoya Institute of Technology. She received her B.Eng. and M.Eng. from the Nagoya Institute of Technology in 1994 and 1996, respectively. Her current research interests include logic programming and automated deduction. She is a member of IPSJ and JSAI. Hirohisa Seki, Ph.D.: He received the B. E., M. E. and Ph.D degrees from the University of Tokyo in 1979, 1981 and 1991 respectively. He joined the Central Research Laboratory of Mitsubishi Electric Corporation in 1981. From 1985 to 1989, he was with the Institute for New Generation Computer Technology (ICOT). Since 1992, he has been an Associate Professor in the Department of AI and Computer Science at Nagoya Institute of Technology. His current research interests include logic programming, deductive databases and automated deduction. He is a member of ACM, IEEE, IPSJ and JSAI. Hidenori Itoh, Ph.D.: He received the B. S. degree from Fukui University, in 1969, the M. S. degree and Ph.D degree from Nagoya University, Japan, in 1971 and 1974, respectively. From 1974 to 1985, he worked at Nippon Telephone and Telegraph Laboratories, developing operating systems. From 1985 to 1989, he was with the Institute for New Generation Computer Technology, developing knowledge base systems. Since 1989, he has become a professor at the Nagoya Institute of Technology. His current research interests include image processing, parallel computing, fuzzy logic and knowledge processing.     

Comparison of L- and D-Amino Acids for Bacterial Imaging in Lung Infection Mouse Model

The effectiveness of L- and D-amino acids for detecting the early stage of infection in bacterial imaging was compared. We evaluated the accumulation of ³H-L-methionine (Met), ³H-D-Met, ³H-L-alanine (Ala), and ³H-D-Ala in E. coli EC-14 and HaCaT cells. Biological distribution was assessed in control and lung-infection-model mice with EC-14 using ³H-L- and D-Met, and ¹⁸F-FDG. A maximum accumulation of ³H-L- and D-Met, and ³H-L- and D-Ala occurred in the growth phase of EC-14 in vitro. The accumulation of ³H-L-Met and L-Ala was greater than that of ³H-D-Met and D-Ala in both EC-14 and HaCaT cells. For all radiotracers, the accumulation was greater in EC-14 than in HaCaT cells at early time points. The accumulation was identified at 5 min after injection in EC-14, whereas the accumulation gradually increased in HaCaT cells over time. There was little difference in biodistribution between ³H-L-and D-Met except in the brain. ³H-L- and D-Met were sensitive for detecting areas of infection after the spread of bacteria throughout the body, whereas ¹⁸F-FDG mainly detected primary infection areas. Therefore, ¹¹C-L- and D-Met, radioisotopes that differ only in terms of ³H labeling, could be superior to ¹⁸F-FDG for detecting bacterial infection in lung-infection-model mice.     

A new BEDT-TTF-based organic metal with an anionic weak acceptor 2-sulfo-1,4-benzoquinone

An anionic weak acceptor, 2-sulfo-1,4-benzoquinone, has provided a new BEDT-TTF (bis(ethylenedithio)tetrathiafulvalene) salt (BEDT-TTF)₂(2-sulfo-1,4-benzoquinone)·H₂O. Single crystal X-ray analysis indicates that the unit cell has two crystallographically independent donor layers, one of which has a β″-type packing motif and the other being disordered. Population analysis and SQUID magnetometry suggests that non-β″-layer has an α?-type packing motif. The dual-layered salt shows metallic behavior with a metal–insulator transition at 90 K.