Publications by authors named "Hiroki Okazaki"

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology has the potential to improve diabetes education for older individuals with diabetes. However, as AI becomes integrated into healthcare, it will be important to ensure even greater accuracy and establish a framework. The significance of direct communication between patients and healthcare providers will remain unchanged, regardless of the level of technological advancement.

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Acetylation of histones and other proteins plays crucial roles in transcriptional regulation, chromatin organization, and other biological processes. It has been recently reported that the nucleoprotein (NP) of influenza virus is acetylated in infected cells, and this modification contributes to the RNA polymerization activity of the virus. As the influenza virus, the Ebolavirus contains single-stranded negative-sense RNA as its viral genome, which interacts with NP and other viral proteins.

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This report describes a cost-effective experimental method for determining an intrinsically disordered protein (IDP) region in a given protein sample. In this area, the most popular (and conventional) means is using the amide ( H ) NMR signal chemical shift distributed in the range of 7.5-8.

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Asymmetric methods for preparation of chiral alkynyl-containing compounds are in extremely high demand in many sectors of chemical research. In this work, we report the discovery of a general organocatalytic enantioselective alkynylation based on the idea of Si/F activation of the allylic C-F bond. This approach features reasonably broad substrate scope, functional group tolerance, and relatively neutral, mild, and operationally convenient reaction conditions; all of which bode well for the synthetic value of the discovered method.

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Lipid rafts have attracted much attention because of their significant functional roles in membrane-associated processes. It is thought that sphingomyelin and cholesterol are essential for forming lipid rafts; however, their motion characteristics are not fully understood despite numerous studies. Here we show accurate local motions encompassing an entire sphingomyelin molecule, which were captured by measuring quadrupole splittings for 19 kinds of site-specifically deuterated sphingomyelins (that is, molecular motion capture of sphingomyelin).

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A lipid raft is a cholesterol (Chol)-rich microdomain floating in a sea of lipid bilayers. Although Chol is thought to interact preferentially with sphingolipids such as sphingomyelin (SM), rather than with glycerophospholipids, the origin of the specific interaction has remained unresolved, primarily because of the high mobility of lipid molecules and weak intermolecular interactions. In this study, we synthesized SM-Chol conjugates with functionally designed linker portions to restrain Chol mobility and examined their formation of ordered membranes by a detergent insolubility assay, fluorescence anisotropy experiments, and fluorescence-quenching assay.

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Vasorelaxant effects of a series of bis(bibenzyls) from liverworts such as Marchantia polymorpha and Marchantia paleacea on rat aorta demonstrated that they relaxed phenylephrine (PE)-induced contractions, which may be mediated through the increased release of NO from endothelial cells as well as opening of K(+) channels, and inhibition of Ca(2+) influx through voltage-dependent Ca(2+) channels (VDCs) and/or receptor-operated Ca(2+) channels (ROCs). Structure-activity relationship based on their structures was discussed. The presence of two aromatic rings which can be connected through two atoms bridge spacer may play an important role for vasorelaxant effect.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study explores the use of TiCl4 combined with Lewis bases (like AcOEt and CH3NO2) to effectively remove tert-butyldimethylsilyl (TBDMS) ethers, achieving faster reaction rates than using TiCl4 alone.
  • - Selective desilylation was successfully demonstrated between various types of ethers, including aliphatic and aromatic TBDMS ethers, as well as with other functional groups like benzyl and allyl.
  • - The technique was particularly effective for TBDMS-aldol and beta-lactam derivatives due to assistance from nearby carbonyl groups, and it was applied to synthesize 1beta-methylcarbapenems.
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