Publications by authors named "Kota Sakakura"

Energy decomposition analysis is one of the most attractive features of fragment molecular orbital (FMO) calculations from the point of view of practical applications. Here we report some enhancements for PIEDA in the ABINIT-MP program. One is a separation of the dispersion-type stabilization from the electron correlation energy, traditionally referred to as the "dispersion interaction" (DI).

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Background: The antiarrhythmic drug amiodarone has noncardiac adverse effects, leading to restrictive therapeutic plasma ranges. Despite the significant positive correlation between triglyceride and amiodarone levels, the effect of fluctuations in amiodarone levels in patients with hypertriglyceridemia on amiodarone therapy has not been fully characterized. This study is the first to report on the effect of hypertriglyceridemia on the efficacy and safety of amiodarone therapy.

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Objective: Bepridil prolongs the QT interval and can induce torsade de pointes. Although increased bepridil concentration may be a primary cause of prolonged QT, the relationship between serum bepridil concentration and prolonged QT remains unclear. We investigated the relationship between serum bepridil concentration and the corrected QT (QTc) interval in patients treated with bepridil.

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Background: Vancomycin is commonly used to treat () bacteremia. However, there are very few studies on the association between the trough concentration, area under the curve from 0 to 24 h /minimum inhibitory concentration (AUC/MIC) ratio, and the therapeutic effect of vancomycin on bacteremia. This study aimed to investigate the associations between vancomycin pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic parameters, patient characteristics, and mortality in patients with bacteremia

Methods: This retrospective study included patients with bacteremia who received vancomycin between April 2012 and February 2018 at a single acute care hospital in Japan.

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In this study, the third-order Møller-Plesset perturbation (MP3) theory using the resolution of the identity (RI) approximation was combined with the fragment molecular orbital (FMO) method to efficiently calculate a high-order electron correlation energy of biomolecular systems. We developed a new algorithm for the RI-MP3 calculation, which can be used with the FMO scheme. After test calculations using a small molecule, the FMO-RI-MP3 calculations were performed for two biomolecular systems comprising a protein and a ligand.

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Infections caused by carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE) are becoming increasingly common worldwide. Although CPE infections can be fatal, few reports in the literature have described effective and successful treatments for infectious diseases caused by several types of IMP CPE, and, to our knowledge, no reports have described the successful treatment of IMP-6 CPE infections. We describe two patients who developed bacteremia caused by IMP-6 CPE after surgery for cancer who were successfully treated with amikacin plus high-dose prolonged-infusion meropenem.

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The uniqueness of trehalose as a stress protectant may exist in its potential amphiphilic character capable of interacting with both hydrophilic and hydrophobic partners in aqueous solution. To address this issue, we here investigated the interaction between trehalose and aromatic compounds. NMR measurements, including (1)H-(1)H NOESY spectra, provide direct evidence for the formation of stable intermolecular complexes of trehalose with benzene (or p-cresol) in aqueous solution.

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Human serum amyloid A (SAA) protein is an apolipoprotein predominantly present in the high-density lipoprotein fraction of plasma. Despite its critical roles in lipid metabolism, especially in acute phases, systematic understanding of the lipid interaction of this protein is limited. Lipid-binding properties of synthetic fragment peptides corresponding to the N-terminal (residues 1-27), central (residues 43-63), and C-terminal (residues 77-104) parts of SAA molecule were examined.

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The cis-trans isomerization of the peptide bond preceding a proline plays important roles in protein folding and biological function. Although many experimental and theoretical studies have been done, the mechanism has not yet been clearly elucidated. We studied the cis-trans isomerization of the proline dipeptide (Ace-Pro-NMe) in explicit water by molecular dynamics simulations using a combined potential derived from ab initio quantum mechanics and empirical molecular mechanics.

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