Phosphorylation of a nuclear condensate regulates cohesion and mRNA retention.

Nuclear speckles are membraneless organelles that associate with active transcription sites and participate in post-transcriptional mRNA processing. During the cell cycle, nuclear speckles dissolve following phosphorylation of their protein components. Here, we identify the PP1 family as the phosphatases that counteract kinase-mediated dissolution.

Effectiveness of integrated bovine leukemia virus eradication strategies utilizing cattle carrying resistant and susceptible major histocompatibility complex class II DRB3 alleles.

Bovine leukemia virus (BLV) has spread worldwide and causes serious problems in the cattle industry owing to the lack of effective treatments and vaccines. Bovine leukemia virus is transmitted via horizontal and vertical infection, and cattle with high BLV proviral load (PVL), which is a useful index for estimating disease progression and transmission risk, are considered major infectious sources within herds. The PVL strongly correlates with highly polymorphic bovine lymphocyte antigen (BoLA)-DRB3 alleles.

Rapid Nitriding of Titanium Alloy with Fine Grains at Room Temperature.

Multifunctional surfaces are required to design safe engineering products for human lives. Heating in a nitrogen atmosphere (nitriding) improves the tribological properties but reduces the strength of titanium (Ti) alloys owing to grain coarsening. A rapid nitriding method for Ti alloys forms the nitrided layer on the surface of a Ti alloy by bombarding with commercially pure Ti fine particles with a nitrided phase at room temperature within a short period.

Formal preparation of regioregular and alternating thiophene-thiophene copolymers bearing different substituents.

Differently substituted thiophene-thiophene-alternating copolymers were formally synthesized employing a halo-bithiophene as a monomer. Nickel-catalyzed polymerization of bithiophene with substituents at the 3-position, including alkyl-, fluoroalkyl-, or oligosiloxane-containing groups, afforded the corresponding copolymers in good to excellent yield. The solubility test in organic solvents was performed to reveal that several copolymers showed a superior solubility.

Direct visualization of human myosin II force generation using DNA origami-based thick filaments.

The sarcomere, the minimal mechanical unit of muscle, is composed of myosins, which self-assemble into thick filaments that interact with actin-based thin filaments in a highly-structured lattice. This complex imposes a geometric restriction on myosin in force generation. However, how single myosins generate force within the restriction remains elusive and conventional synthetic filaments do not recapitulate the symmetric bipolar filaments in sarcomeres.

Separation-free single-base extension assay with fluorescence resonance energy transfer for rapid and convenient determination of DNA methylation status at specific cytosine and guanine dinucleotide sites.

A separation-free single-base extension (SBE) assay utilizing fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) was developed for rapid and convenient interrogation of DNA methylation status at specific cytosine and guanine dinucleotide sites. In this assay, the SBE was performed in a tube using an allele-specific oligonucleotide primer (i.e.

Rational and practical exfoliation of graphite using well-defined poly(3-hexylthiophene) for the preparation of conductive polymer/graphene composite.

Processing and manipulation of highly conductive pristine graphene in large quantities are still major challenges in the practical application of graphene for electric device. In the present study, we report the liquid-phase exfoliation of graphite in toluene using well-defined poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) to produce a P3HT/graphene composite. We synthesize and use regioregular P3HT with controlled molecular weights as conductive dispersants for graphene.

Transcriptional bursting is intrinsically caused by interplay between RNA polymerases on DNA.

Cell-to-cell variability plays a critical role in cellular responses and decision-making in a population, and transcriptional bursting has been broadly studied by experimental and theoretical approaches as the potential source of cell-to-cell variability. Although molecular mechanisms of transcriptional bursting have been proposed, there is little consensus. An unsolved key question is whether transcriptional bursting is intertwined with many transcriptional regulatory factors or is an intrinsic characteristic of RNA polymerase on DNA.

Myosin V is a biological Brownian machine.

Myosin V is a vesicle transporter that unidirectionally walks along cytoskeletal actin filaments by converting the chemical energy of ATP into mechanical work. Recently, it was found that myosin V force generation is a composition of two processes: a lever-arm swing, which involves a conformational change in the myosin molecule, and a Brownian search-and-catch, which involves a diffusive "search" by the motor domain that is followed by an asymmetric "catch" in the forward actin target such that Brownian motion is rectified. Here we developed a system that combines optical tweezers with DNA nano-material to show that the Brownian search-and-catch mechanism is the energetically dominant process at near stall force, providing 13 kBT of work compared to just 3 kBT by the lever-arm swing.

Switching of myosin-V motion between the lever-arm swing and brownian search-and-catch.

Motor proteins are force-generating nanomachines that are highly adaptable to their ever-changing biological environments and have a high energy conversion efficiency. Here we constructed an imaging system that uses optical tweezers and a DNA handle to visualize elementary mechanical processes of a nanomachine under load. We apply our system to myosin-V, a well-known motor protein that takes 72 nm 'hand-over-hand' steps composed of a 'lever-arm swing' and a 'brownian search-and-catch'.