Publications by authors named "Norio Tanaka"

The mushroom is consumed worldwide and has high industrial value because of its rich content of bioactive compounds such as ergothioneine and eritadenine. Currently, mainstream artificial cultivation methods for this mushroom typically use synthetic logs. However, browning of the stem's interior (stem browning) has been observed during the cultivation in some strains.

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  • Researchers used target-panel sequencing and DNA methylation analysis to investigate the molecular changes during this transition in samples from endometrial tissues.
  • Key findings included the identification of a PTEN mutation in AEH lesions, changes in DNA methylation patterns that may affect tumor development, and a potential methylation signature to differentiate between NAEH and AEH, highlighting the biological steps leading to endometrial cancer.
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Alisma L. is a genus of aquatic and wetland plants belonging to family Alismataceae. At present, it is thought to contain ten species.

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Importance: Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) is the standard of care for advanced rectal cancer. Yet, estimating response to CRT remains an unmet clinical challenge.

Objective: To investigate and better understand the transcriptomic factors associated with response to neoadjuvant CRT and survival in patients with advanced rectal cancer.

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Helicobacter pylori (HP) is a major etiologic driver of diffuse-type gastric cancer (DGC). However, improvements in hygiene have led to an increase in the prevalence of HP-naïve DGC; that is, DGC that occurs independent of HP. Although multiple genomic cohort studies for gastric cancer have been conducted, including studies for DGC, distinctive genomic differences between HP-exposed and HP-naïve DGC remain largely unknown.

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A 76-year-old man presented with liver dysfunction and intrahepatic bile duct dilatation. Imaging studies showed two large stones that had become impacted in the common hepatic duct, which was fused with the gallbladder. The patient was diagnosed with Mirizzi syndrome type IV.

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  • An integrated analysis on 64 adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) patients explored genomic biomarkers related to treatment outcomes with mogamulizumab, revealing key gene alterations.
  • Notable findings showed that alterations in CCR4 and CCR7 occurred in 22% and 11% of the patients, respectively, with CCR4 alterations linked to better clinical responses.
  • Additionally, alterations in TP53, CD28, and CD274 were associated with poorer overall survival, while CCR4 showed a protective effect, suggesting potential targets for precision medicine in ATL patients.
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Coastal forests have been recognized to considerably reduce the energy of tsunamis and act as a measure against them. However, broken trees due to tsunamis produce woody debris and cause secondary damage to people and buildings. Thus, coastal forests have both positive and negative effects on tsunamis and people.

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Gene set analysis has commonly been used to interpret DNA methylome data. However, summarizing the DNA methylation level of a gene is challenging due to variability in the number, density and methylation levels of CpG sites, and the numerous intergenic CpGs. Instead, we propose to use region sets to annotate the DNA methylome.

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The Great East Japan Tsunami, triggered by the earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011 in the Pacific Ocean, caused significant fatalities and socioeconomic damage. As recovery of a disaster area requires significant time, all possible mitigation measures must be prepared in advance for future events. As a tsunami countermeasure, coastal forests have been acknowledged to considerably reduce tsunami energy and decrease tsunami-related damage.

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Genes involved in the homologous recombination repair pathway-as exemplified by BRCA1, BRCA2, PALB2, ATM, and CHEK2-are frequently associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer syndrome. Germline mutations in the loci of these genes with loss of heterozygosity or additional somatic truncation at the WT allele lead to the development of breast cancers with characteristic clinicopathological features and prominent genomic features of homologous recombination deficiency, otherwise referred to as "BRCAness." Although clinical genetic testing for these and other genes has increased the chances of identifying pathogenic variants, there has also been an increase in the prevalence of variants of uncertain significance, which poses a challenge to patient care because of the difficulties associated with making further clinical decisions.

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  • Carcinosarcoma (CS) is a rare and aggressive type of tumor in the uterus or ovary, consisting of both epithelial and mesenchymal components, with four molecular subtypes linked to patient outcomes.
  • Researchers conducted immune microenvironment analyses on CS samples using RNA-seq and other techniques to examine the role of immune cells in these tumors.
  • Results showed that hypermutator tumors (POLE and MSI) had more favorable immune cell profiles, whereas non-hypermutator tumors (CNH and CNL) had higher M2 macrophages, suggesting that understanding the immune environment might help improve clinical outcomes in gynecological CS.
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Sagittaria is a genus of ca. 40 species in the aquatic plant family Alismataceae with a nearly global distribution, and a center of diversity in the New World. Two thirds of the known species are native to the Americas, while only a few species are distributed in Africa, Asia and Europe.

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Microsatellite instability (MSI) is categorized by mutation frequency: high MSI (MSI-H), low MSI (MSI-L) and microsatellite stable (MSS). MSI-H tumors have a distinct immunogenic phenotype, with immunotherapies using checkpoint inhibitors already approved for the treatment of MSI-H gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma (GEA); this is not observed for MSI-L or MSS. Here, we tested the hypothesis that MSI-L tumors are also a distinct phenotype and potentially immunogenic.

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Emerging evidence suggests that an increased density of pre-treatment CD8 tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) is associated with good response to chemoradiotherapy (CRT) in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer. However, the significance of T-cell complexity in the clinical setting remains unknown. High-throughput T-cell receptor (TCR) β sequencing was applied to quantify the TCR repertoire of pre-treatment biopsies from 67 patients with advanced rectal cancer receiving preoperative CRT.

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DNA fragmentation is a fundamental step during library preparation in hybridization capture-based, short-read sequencing. Ultra-sonication has been used thus far to prepare DNA of an appropriate size, but this method is associated with a considerable loss of DNA sample. More recently, studies have employed library preparation methods that rely on enzymatic fragmentation with DNA endonucleases to minimize DNA loss, particularly in nano-quantity samples.

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Endometrial endometrioid adenocarcinoma (EEA) is conventionally considered to be a single pathologic entity that develops through a hyperplasia-carcinoma sequence under the influence of estrogen. Previously, another EEA subtype was described and proposed to arise directly from normal endometrium. These conventional and de novo subtypes are designated groups 1 and 2, respectively.

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Carcinosarcoma (CS) of the uterus or ovary is a rare, aggressive and biphasic neoplasm composed of carcinoma and sarcoma elements. Previous genomic studies have identified the driver genes and genomic properties associated with CS. However, there is still no molecular subtyping scheme with clinical relevance for this disease.

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Eriocaulon is a genus of c. 470 aquatic and wetland species of the monocot plant family Eriocaulaceae. It is widely distributed in Africa, Asia and America, with centres of species richness in the tropics.

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Ottelia, a pantropical genus of aquatic plants belonging to the family Hydrocharitaceae, includes several narrowly distributed taxa in Asia. Although the Asian species have received comparatively more research attention than congeners in other areas, various key taxonomic questions remain unaddressed, especially with regards to apparent cryptic diversity within O. alismoides, a widespread species complex native to Asia, northern Australia and tropical Africa.

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Colorectal cancer (CRC) is caused by genetic alterations, and comprehensive sequence analyses have revealed the mutation landscapes. In addition to somatic changes, genetic variations are considered important factors contributing to tumor development; however, our knowledge on this subject is limited. Familial adenomatous polyposis coli (FAP) is an autosomal-dominant inherited disease caused by germline mutations in the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) gene.

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Patient-derived cancer organoid culture is an important live material that reflects clinical heterogeneity. However, the limited amount of organoids available for each case as well as the considerable amount of time and cost to expand in vitro makes it impractical to perform high-throughput drug screening using organoid cultures from multiple patients. Here, we report an advanced system for the high-throughput screening of 2427 drugs using the cancer tissue-originated spheroid (CTOS) method.

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The effectiveness of coastal forests to mitigate a tsunami has received increased attention. However, many trees are broken, overturned, or washed out in large tsunami events like the 2011 Great East Japan tsunami (GEJT). For quantitatively estimating the advantages and disadvantages of a coastal forest, it is important to reproduce the forest breakage, especially paying attention to the production of driftwood and the trapping ability of standing trees.

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Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is the most common lymphoma subtype characterized by both biological and clinical heterogeneity. In refractory cases, complete response/complete response unconfirmed rates in salvage therapy remain low. We performed whole-exome sequencing of DLBCL in a discovery cohort comprising 26 good and nine poor prognosis cases.

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