Visual properties and perceived restorativeness in green offices: a photographic evaluation of office environments with various degrees of greening.

Office environments play a critical role in employee wellbeing and productivity. While the benefits of incorporating nature into workspaces have been recognized, the specific visual characteristics that contribute to restorativeness remain unclear. This study investigates how visual characteristics of office environments, specifically the presence of greenery and color complexity, are associated with perceived restorativeness.

Simple tape-stripping method for highly reliable and quantitative analysis of skin microbiome.

The composition of human skin microbiome profoundly impacts host skin health and disease. However, the relationship between skin homeostasis or the development of skin diseases and daily changes in skin microbial composition is poorly understood. Longitudinal samplings at more frequent intervals would address this issue, while conventional sampling methods have technical difficulties, leading to limitations in sampling opportunities.

An Mixed Infection Model With Commensal and Pathogenic Staphylococci for the Exploration of Interspecific Interactions and Their Impacts on Skin Physiology.

The skin microbiota has been recognized to play an integral role in the physiology and pathology of the skin. The crosstalk between skin and the resident microbes has been extensively investigated using two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) cell cultures ; however, skin colonization by multiple species and the effects of interspecific interactions on the structure and function of skin remains to be elucidated. This study reports the establishment of a mixed infection model, incorporating both commensal () and pathogenic () bacteria, based on a 3D human epidermal model.

Phenotypic diversification by enhanced genome restructuring after induction of multiple DNA double-strand breaks.

DNA double-strand break (DSB)-mediated genome rearrangements are assumed to provide diverse raw genetic materials enabling accelerated adaptive evolution; however, it remains unclear about the consequences of massive simultaneous DSB formation in cells and their resulting phenotypic impact. Here, we establish an artificial genome-restructuring technology by conditionally introducing multiple genomic DSBs in vivo using a temperature-dependent endonuclease TaqI. Application in yeast and Arabidopsis thaliana generates strains with phenotypes, including improved ethanol production from xylose at higher temperature and increased plant biomass, that are stably inherited to offspring after multiple passages.

Combinatorial Screening for Transgenic Yeasts with High Cellulase Activities in Combination with a Tunable Expression System.

Combinatorial screening used together with a broad library of gene expression cassettes is expected to produce a powerful tool for the optimization of the simultaneous expression of multiple enzymes. Recently, we proposed a highly tunable protein expression system that utilized multiple genome-integrated target genes to fine-tune enzyme expression in yeast cells. This tunable system included a library of expression cassettes each composed of three gene-expression control elements that in different combinations produced a wide range of protein expression levels.

A highly tunable system for the simultaneous expression of multiple enzymes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Control of the expression levels of multiple enzymes in transgenic yeasts is essential for the effective production of complex molecules through fermentation. Here, we propose a tunable strategy for the control of expression levels based on the design of terminator regions and other gene-expression control elements in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Our genome-integrated system, which is capable of producing high expression levels over a wide dynamic range, will broadly enable metabolic engineering and synthetic biology.

Characterization of five terminator regions that increase the protein yield of a transgene in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Strong terminator regions could be used to improve metabolically engineered yeasts by increasing the target enzyme protein yields above those achieved with traditional terminator regions. We recently identified five strong terminator regions (RPL41Bt, RPL15At, DIT1t, RPL3t, and IDP1t) in a comprehensive analysis of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The effect of the terminator regions was analyzed by measuring the protein production of a linked transgene, and was shown to be twice that of a traditional terminator region (PGK1t).

A genome-wide activity assessment of terminator regions in Saccharomyces cerevisiae provides a ″terminatome″ toolbox.

The terminator regions of eukaryotes encode functional elements in the 3' untranslated region (3'-UTR) that influence the 3'-end processing of mRNA, mRNA stability, and translational efficiency, which can modulate protein production. However, the contribution of these terminator regions to gene expression remains unclear, and therefore their utilization in metabolic engineering or synthetic genetic circuits has been limited. Here, we comprehensively evaluated the activity of 5302 terminator regions from a total of 5880 genes in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae by inserting each terminator region downstream of the P TDH3 - green fluorescent protein (GFP) reporter gene and measuring the fluorescent intensity of GFP.

A method for reverse interactome analysis: High-resolution mapping of interdomain interaction network in Dam1 complex and its specific disorganization based on the interaction domain expression.

An experimental methodology that facilitates functional analysis of numerous protein-protein interactions, which have been found in genome-wide interactome researches, has long been awaited. We propose herein an antagonistic inhibition-based approach. The antagonizing polypeptide is generated in the course of interaction domain mapping based on yeast 2-hybrid (Y2H) screening coupled with in vitro convergence of the Y2H-selected fragments, which is performed in a formatted procedure.

Exhaustive identification of interaction domains using a high-throughput method based on two-hybrid screening and PCR-convergence: molecular dissection of a kinetochore subunit Spc34p.

The Dam1 complex, also known as DASH complex, is the outer kinetochore protein complex of yeast that plays a crucial role in attachment of kinetochore to microtubule. The Dam1 complex is formed by at least nine proteins including Dam1p, Duo1p, Dad1p, Spc19p and Spc34p. In this study, domains of Spc34p that physically interact with other subunits of the complex were mapped using a high-throughput methodology.

Chimeric gene library construction by a simple and highly versatile method using recombination-dependent exponential amplification.

A simple and efficient method for the construction of chimeric gene libraries termed RDA-PCR (recombination-dependent exponential amplification polymerase chain reaction) was developed by modifying polymerase chain reaction. A chimeric gene library is generated from homologous parental genes with additional primer-annealing sequences at their "heads" and "tails". Two primers ("skew primers") are designed to exclusively anneal to either the heads of maternal genes or the tails of paternal genes.

A method for functional mapping of protein-protein binding domain by preferential amplification of the shortest amplicon using PCR.

We have developed a novel method for rapid and empirical mapping of the protein interaction domain using a unique and atypical PCR-based amplification and a conventional yeast two-hybrid system. The modified PCR, designated as PASA-PCR, enables preferential amplification of the shortest amplicon from a complex expression library. PASA-PCR consists of reiterative cycles of denaturation of template DNAs and extremely abbreviated annealing/extension of primers to prevent their complete extension in a single cycle, followed by conventional amplification cycles.