Publications by authors named "Emiko Nishi"

Article Synopsis
  • The Golgi apparatus is a vital organelle responsible for processing proteins, and this study focused on the distribution of glycosyltransferases within it using advanced imaging techniques.
  • Researchers discovered that even glycosyltransferases thought to be in the same compartment have unique localizations influenced by their N-terminal regions.
  • The findings suggest that these N-terminal regions are critical for determining where glycosyltransferases are located, enhancing our understanding of Golgi organization and potentially informing clinical strategies for protein glycosylation.
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For many primates, sweet taste is palatable and is an indicator that the food contains carbohydrates, such as sugars and starches, as energy sources. However, we have found that Asian colobine monkeys (lutungs and langurs) have low sensitivity to various natural sugars. Sweet tastes are recognized when compounds bind to the sweet taste receptor TAS1R2/TAS1R3 in the oral cavity; accordingly, we conducted a functional assay using a heterologous expression system to evaluate the responses of Javan lutung (Trachypithecus auratus) TAS1R2/TAS1R3 to various natural sugars.

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Taste sensitivity differs among animal species depending on feeding habitat. To humans, sucrose is one of the sweetest natural sugars, and this trait is expected to be similar in other primates. However, previous behavioral tests have shown that some primate species have equal preferences for maltose and sucrose.

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