The role of NADRIN, a Rho GTPase-activating protein, in the morphological differentiation of astrocytes.

Reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton caused by inactivation of the Rho GTPase RhoA is critical for the morphological differentiation of astrocytes into process-bearing stellate cells. The molecular mechanisms underlying the RhoA inactivation and, in particular, the factors that inactivate RhoA, remain to be elucidated. We show here that the expression of a GTPase-activating protein (GAP) for Rho GTPases, neuron-associated developmentally regulated protein (NADRIN) also known as RICH and ARHGAP17, was significantly increased in stellate astrocytes and induced expression of NADRIN accelerated the morphological differentiation of cultured astrocytes into stellate cells.

Development of defective and persistent Sendai virus vector: a unique gene delivery/expression system ideal for cell reprogramming.

The ectopic expression of transcription factors can reprogram differentiated tissue cells into induced pluripotent stem cells. However, this is a slow and inefficient process, depending on the simultaneous delivery of multiple genes encoding essential reprogramming factors and on their sustained expression in target cells. Moreover, once cell reprogramming is accomplished, these exogenous reprogramming factors should be replaced with their endogenous counterparts for establishing autoregulated pluripotency.

Optimization of the virus concentration method using polyethyleneimine-conjugated magnetic beads and its application to the detection of human hepatitis A, B and C viruses.

To enhance the sensitivity of virus detection by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR), a novel virus concentration method using polyethyleneimine (PEI)-conjugated magnetic beads was developed in our previous study. However, several viruses could not be concentrated by this method. In this paper, the conditions of virus concentration were optimized to concentrate a wide range of viruses more efficiently.