Combination of alcohol and glucose consumption as a risk to induce reactive hypoglycemia.

Aims/introduction: Alcohol consumption has been reported to cause hypoglycemia. However, the mechanism involved has not been unequivocally established. This study comprised healthy volunteers.

Dual-function probe to detect protease activity for fluorescence measurement and 19F MRI.

Dynamic duo: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can visualize deep regions of living bodies, whereas fluorescence measurement offers excellent sensitivity. These methods thus offer signal enhancement potential for detecting enzyme activities. A dual-mode off/on probe to detect caspase-3 activity by fluorescence and (19)F MRI is presented.

Paramagnetic relaxation-based 19f MRI probe to detect protease activity.

A novel design principle for 19F MRI probes detecting protease activity was developed. This principle is based on 19F MRI signal quenching by the intramolecular paramagnetic effect from Gd3+. The intramolecular Gd3+ dramatically attenuated the 19F probe signal, and the paramagnetic effect was cancelled by the probe hydrolyzation by caspase-3.

Improved production of L-lysine by disruption of stationary phase-specific rmf gene in Escherichia coli.

Growth and rate, at which fermentation products are formed in cells, generally decreases during the stationary phase as a result of changes in gene expression. We focused on the rmf gene, which encodes the ribosome modulation factor protein, as a target for strain modification in order to improve the rate of L-lysine production in Escherichia coli. Increased expression of the rmf gene during the stationary phase was confirmed under various cultivation conditions using DNA macroarray analysis.