Evaluation of Grain-Filling-Related Traits Using Taichung 65 x DV85 Chromosome Segment Substitution Lines (TD-CSSLs) of Rice.

Grain yield of rice consists of sink capacity and grain filling. There are some genes known to contribute to sink capacity, but few genes associated with grain filling are known. We conducted a genetic analysis on yield-related traits by using a chromosome segment substitution line population that have introgression from DV85, an variety of rice, in the background of T65, a variety.

Canine Mammary Tumor Cell Lines Derived from Metastatic Foci Show Increased RAD51 Expression but Diminished Radioresistance via p21 Inhibition.

Due to the high incidence of mammary tumors in dogs, it is important to elucidate the pathogenesis of these tumors in veterinary medicine. Radiation therapy is often used to treat mammary tumors that target DNA lesions. RAD51 is a key molecule that repairs DNA damage via homologous recombination.

A compressed logistic equation on bacteria growth: inferring time-dependent growth rate.

We propose a compressed logistic model for bacterial growth by invoking a time-dependent rate instead of the intrinsic growth rate (constant), which was adopted in traditional logistic models. The new model may have a better physiological basis than the traditional ones, and it replicates experimental observations, such as the case example forand. Stochastic colonial growth at a different rate may have a fractal-like nature, which should be an origin of the time-dependent reaction rate.

Laboratory surveillance of antimicrobial resistance and multidrug resistance among Streptococcus pneumoniae isolated in the Kinki region of Japan, 2001-2015.

The 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) was introduced among children in Japan in 2010. There are no long-term multicenter surveillance studies of antimicrobial resistance in S. pneumoniae before and after the introduction of PCV7.

Assessment of Assistance in Smoking Cessation Therapy by Pharmacies in Collaboration with Medical Institutions- Implementation of a Collaborative Drug Therapy Management Protocol Based on a Written Agreement between Physicians and Pharmacists.

This study built a protocol for drug therapy management (hereinafter "the protocol") that would enable continuous support from the decision making of smoking cessation therapy to the completion of therapy through the collaboration of physicians and community pharmacists, after which we evaluated whether the use of this protocol would be helpful to smoking cessation therapy. This study utilized the "On the Promotion of Team-Based Medical Care", a Notification by the Health Policy Bureau as one of the resources for judgment, and referred to collaborative drug therapy management (CDTM) in the United States. After the implementation of this protocol, the success rate of smoking cessation at the participating medical institutions rose to approximately 70%, approximately 28-point improvement compared to the rate before the implementation.

Role of rigidity and temperature in the kinetics of photodarkening in Ge(x)As(45-x)Se55 thin films.

We present insightful results on the kinetics of photodarkening (PD) in Ge(x)As(45-x)Se55 glasses at the ambient and liquid helium temperatures when the network rigidity is increased by varying x from 0 to 16. We observe a many fold change in PD and its kinetics with decreasing network flexibility and temperature. Moreover, temporal evolution of PD shows a dramatic change with increasing x.

Overexpression of GPR40 in pancreatic beta-cells augments glucose-stimulated insulin secretion and improves glucose tolerance in normal and diabetic mice.

Objective: GPR40 is a G protein-coupled receptor regulating free fatty acid-induced insulin secretion. We generated transgenic mice overexpressing the hGPR40 gene under control of the mouse insulin II promoter and used them to examine the role of GPR40 in the regulation of insulin secretion and glucose homeostasis.

Research Design And Methods: Normal (C57BL/6J) and diabetic (KK) mice overexpressing the hGPR40 gene under control of the insulin II promoter were generated, and their glucose metabolism and islet function were analyzed.

Monte Carlo simulation for evaluation of the efficacy of carbapenems and new quinolones against ESBL-producing Escherichia coli.

Extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing bacteria are known to be resistant to penicillins, cephalosporins, and monobactams because of their substrate specificity, and these bacteria are sensitive only to a narrow range of antimicrobial agents. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the efficacy of carbapenems and the new quinolones against ESBL-producing Escherichia coli, using a Monte Carlo simulation based on the pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) theory. The time above MIC (TAM, %) served as the PK/PD parameter for carbapenems, with the target level set at 40%.

[Relationship between time taken from collection of blood to incubation and measurement in whole-blood interferon gamma assay for diagnosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection].

Background: The introduction of second-generation QuantiFERON-TB (QFT) enables the diagnosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) infection with high specificity and sensitivity. This in vitro diagnostic test uses 2 TB-specific proteins (ESAT-6 and CFP-10) to stimulate cells in heparinized whole blood and detects interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) produced from blood cells. When QFT is done in laboratories outside of the hospital, several hours may be required to transport blood samples.

[Extended-spectrum-beta-lactamase-producing Proteus mirabilis: laboratory-based surveillance in cooperation with 12 clinical laboratories in the Kinki Region of Japan].

We studied 247 strains of Proteus mirabilis collected during the 6 months from November 2003 to April 2004 from 12 clinical laboratories in the Kinki region of Japan for the production of extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL). Eighteen strains (7.3%) showed MICs for cefpodoxime of > or = 2 microg/mL and 13 strains (5.

Photoinduced volume changes in amorphous selenium.

We have modeled the photoinduced volume change in amorphous selenium. After photon absorption, we treated the excited electron and hole independently within the framework of the tight-binding formalism. We found covalent bond breaking in amorphous networks with photoinduced excited electrons, whereas excited holes contribute to the formation of interchain bonds.

[In vitro activity of antimicrobial agents against clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa].

Two hundred and seven clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa were collected at Tenri Hospital between April 2003 and March 2004. We determined the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 16 antimicrobial agents, including prulifloxacin, pazufloxacin and biapenem which were recently published in Japan, against these isolates according to the guidelines of the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute. For the fluoroquinolones, the rank order of activity was prulifloxacin (MIC50, 0.

[Surveillance of antimicrobial resistance of Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates from the Kinki Region of Japan during 2003/2004. The Surveillance Program of Bacterial Resistance in the Kinki Region of Japan; SBRK].

Three hundred seventy five isolates of Streptococcus pneumoniae were collected from 14 medical institutions in the Kinki region of Japan between November 2003 and February 2004. We determined the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of penicillin G (PCG) and 25 of other antimicrobial agents against these isolates according to the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS). Overall, 71.

Transgenic rats overexpressing the human MrgX3 gene show cataracts and an abnormal skin phenotype.

The human MrgX3 gene, belonging to the mrgs/SNSRs (mas related genes/sensory neuron specific receptors) family, was overexpressed in transgenic rats using the actin promoter. Two animal lines showed cataracts with liquification/degeneration and swelling of the lens fiber cells. The transient epidermal desquamation was observed in line with higher gene expression.

Loss of lysophospholipase 3 increases atherosclerosis in apolipoprotein E-deficient mice.

Human LCAT-like lysophospholipase (LLPL), or lysophospholipase 3, was first identified in vitro, in foam cells derived from THP-1 cells. We demonstrated that LLPL was present in foam cells in the severe atherosclerotic lesions that develop in apolipoprotein E-null (apoE(-/-)) mice. This indicated that LLPL might affect lipid metabolisms in foam cells and, therefore, atherogenesis.

In vitro activity of beta-lactams and quinolones against AmpC beta-lactamase-producing Escherichia coli.

We studied the antimicrobial susceptibility of AmpC beta-lactamase-producing Escherichia coli isolates collected at ten medical institutions in the Kinki area of Japan during a 6-month period (November 2002 through April 2003). Of 2845 E. coli isolates tested, 29 (1.

Metallo-beta-lactamase-producing gram-negative bacilli: laboratory-based surveillance in cooperation with 13 clinical laboratories in the Kinki region of Japan.

A total of 19,753 strains of gram-negative rods collected during two 6-month periods (October 2000 to March 2001 and November 2001 to April 2002) from 13 clinical laboratories in the Kinki region of Japan were investigated for the production of metallo-beta-lactamases (MBLs). MBLs were detected in 96 (0.5%) of the 19,753 isolates by the broth microdilution method, the 2-mercaptopropionic acid inhibition test, and PCR and DNA sequencing analyses.

[In vitro activity of a new semisynthetic echinocandin, micafungin, against clinical isolates of Candida species isolated in Tenri Hospital].

We have examined the antifungal activities of the available antifungal agents including micafungin (MCFG), one of the echinocandin antifungal group, against 92 yeast-like fungi isolated at our hospital during a 3-month period from November 2002 to February 2003. Determination of the antifungal susceptibility was conducted in conformity with the Standards of the Japanese Society for Medical Mycology. The MIC 80% of the antifungal agents against 4 fungi species including C.

[Application of the MIC breakpoints based on pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics parameter in the clinical laboratory].

The effectiveness of time-dependent antibiotics such as beta-lactams is related to the time above the MIC (TAM, %). We constructed a program to calculate the TAMs of beta-lactams using the pharmacokinetic parameters of the Japanese dosing regimen of a phase I study of the Japanese Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (JSAC), and compared them with the MIC breakpoints published by the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) and JSAC. If the effective TAM was assumed to be more than 40% of the dosing interval, the pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) breakpoints calculated by our program were in agreement with the JSAC breakpoints for pneumonia within 1 dilution MIC.

High frequency of antibiotic-associated diarrhea due to toxin A-negative, toxin B-positive Clostridium difficile in a hospital in Japan and risk factors for infection.

Patients hospitalized in a hospital with a high incidence of antibiotic-associated diarrhea due to toxin A-negative, toxin B-positive (A-/B+) Clostridium difficile were retrospectively investigated to determine the clinical manifestations and risk factors for infection. Of 77 Clostridium difficile isolates obtained from 77 patients during the 1-year investigation period, 30 were A-/B+ and 47 were toxin A-positive, toxin B-positive (A+/B+). By pulsed-field gel electrophoresis analysis, 23 of the 30 A-/B+ strains were outbreak-related, suggesting nosocomial spread of a single type of bacterium, which mainly affected patients in the wards of respiratory medicine, hematology and neurology.

Evaluation of MicroScan ESBL confirmation panel for Enterobacteriaceae-producing, extended-spectrum beta-lactamases isolated in Japan.

We assessed use of the MicroScan ESBL confirmation panel (Dade Behring, Tokyo, Japan) for the detection of eight Enterobacteriaceae-producing extended-spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBL) species. Of 137 bacterial strains isolated from patients in 32 hospitals in the Kinki area of Japan, 91 produced ESBL and comprised 60 bacteria (of E. coli, K.

Production of CTX-M-3 extended-spectrum beta-lactamase and IMP-1 metallo beta-lactamase by five Gram-negative bacilli: survey of clinical isolates from seven laboratories collected in 1998 and 2000, in the Kinki region of Japan.

The aim of this study was to research the distribution in the Kinki region of Japan of Enterobacteriaceae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa that produce extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) and metallo beta-lactamase (MBL). One thousand isolates, 200 of each of four enterobacterial species (i.e.

[Antimicrobial susceptibility and beta-lactamase types among clinical isolates during January and February 2000 in the Kinki area of Japan].

We studied antimicrobial susceptibility and beta-lactamase types among clinical isolates in the Kinki area of Japan. Eight hundreds isolates of eight organisms were collected by seven medical institutions during January and February 2000. The rates of beta-lactamase producing by using the chromogenic nitrocephin test were 68.

Characterization of transgenic rats constitutively expressing vitamin D-24-hydroxylase gene.

Vitamin D-24-hydroxylase (CYP24) is one of the enzymes responsible for vitamin D metabolism. CYP24 catalyzes the conversion of 25-hydroxyvitamin D(3) [25(OH)D(3)] to 24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D(3) [24,25(OH)(2)D(3)] in the kidney. CYP24 is also involved in the breakdown of 1alpha,25-dihydroxyvitamin D(3) [1alpha,25(OH)(2)D(3)], the active form of vitamin D(3).

[Resistance to antimicrobiotics and mutation of PBPs in Streptococcus pneumoniae isolated from Kinki region of Japan].

We studied the susceptibility to penicillin G (PCG) and other antimicrobiotics in 235 clinical isolates of Streptococcus pneumoniae. Samples were collected between April 1 and June 30, 2000 from nine medical institutions of the Kinki Region of Japan. We classified the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of PCG according to the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) criteria.