Inhibition of malaria parasite growth by quinomycin A and its derivatives through DNA-intercalating activity

Quinomycin A and its derivatives were identified as potent antimalarial (Plasmodium falciparum) agents in a screen of the RIKEN NPDepo chemical library. IC₅₀ values of quinomycin A and UK-63,598 were approximately 100 times lower than that of the antimalarial drug chloroquine. This activity was mitigated by the addition of plasmid DNA, suggesting that these compounds act against parasites by intercalating into their DNA.     

The Purification of Soybean 11S Globulin with ConA-Sepharose 4B and Sepharose 6B

Kinetics of the acyl transfer catalyzed by Xanthomonas α-amino acid ester hydrolase was studied. The enzyme hydrolyzed d-α-phenylglycine methyl ester (d-PG-OMe) to give equimolar amounts of d-α-phenylglycine and methanol. With d-PG-OMe as an acyl donor and 7-amino-3-deacetoxy-cephalosporanic acid (7-ADCA) as an acyl acceptor, the enzyme transferred the acyl group from d-PG-OMe to 7-ADCA in competition with water. The addition of amine nucleophiles (7-ADCA and 6-aminopenicillanic acid) decreased the molecular activity (k_o) of the enzyme-catalyzed hydrolysis of d-PG-OMe, whereas it did not alter the Michaelis constant (K_M), and plots of l/k_o against the initial concentration of a nucleophile (n_o) gave a straight line. These results support the assumptions that the overall process for hydrolysis and acyl transfer proceeds through a common acyl-enzyme intermediate, that the acylation step of the enzyme is rate-limiting, and that the transfer competes with the hydrolysis of the acyl donor.     

Rapid Microbiological Assay of Amino Acids

The rapid microbiological method for determination of amino acids was established. It is composed of 3 steps of culture; inoculum culture, intermediate culture, and assay culture. The inoculum culture is the same as that of ordinary method using Leuc. mesenteroides P–60. For the intermediate culture, which is carried out between the inoculum and assay cultures, the basal medium supplemented with appropriate amount of the amino acid to be determined is employed. The large amount of cells at logarithm phase grown in the intermediate culture are dispersed and used as inoculum for the assay culture. By this technique the assay can be performed by 2.5 to 3.5 hr of assay culture after 2 to 3 hr-intermediate culture.

The technique can be applied to the determination of amino acids in the mixture and the results agree with those obtained by ordinary method.     

Secondary structural analysis of proteins based on 13C chemical shift assignments in unresolved solid-state NMR spectra enhanced by fragmented structure database

Magic-angle-spinning solid-state ¹³C NMR spectroscopy is useful for structural analysis of non-crystalline proteins. However, the signal assignments and structural analysis are often hampered by the signal overlaps primarily due to minor structural heterogeneities, especially for uniformly-¹³C,¹⁵N labeled samples. To overcome this problem, we present a method for assigning ¹³C chemical shifts and secondary structures from unresolved two-dimensional ¹³C–¹³C MAS NMR spectra by spectral fitting, named reconstruction of spectra using protein local structures (RESPLS). The spectral fitting was conducted using databases of protein fragmented structures related to ¹³C^α, ¹³C^β, and ¹³C′ chemical shifts and cross-peak intensities. The experimental ¹³C–¹³C inter- and intra-residue correlation spectra of uniformly isotope-labeled ubiquitin in the lyophilized state had a few broad peaks. The fitting analysis for these spectra provided sequence-specific C^α, C^β, and C′ chemical shifts with an accuracy of about 1.5 ppm, which enabled the assignment of the secondary structures with an accuracy of 79 %. The structural heterogeneity of the lyophilized ubiquitin is revealed from the results. Test of RESPLS analysis for simulated spectra of five different types of proteins indicated that the method allowed the secondary structure determination with accuracy of about 80 % for the 50–200 residue proteins. These results demonstrate that the RESPLS approach expands the applicability of the NMR to non-crystalline proteins exhibiting unresolved ¹³C NMR spectra, such as lyophilized proteins, amyloids, membrane proteins and proteins in living cells.     

Enhancement of Glossiness Perception by Retinal-Image Motion: Additional Effect of Head-Yoked Motion Parallax

It has been argued that when an observer moves, a contingent retinal-image motion of a stimulus would strengthen the perceived glossiness. This would be attributed to the veridical perception of three-dimensional structure by motion parallax. However, it has not been investigated whether the effect of motion parallax is more than that of retinal-image motion of the stimulus. Using a magnitude estimation method, we examine in this paper whether cross-modal coordination of the stimulus change and the observer''s motion (i.e., motion parallax) is essential or the retinal-image motion alone is sufficient for enhancing the perceived glossiness. Our data show that a retinal-image motion simulating motion parallax without head motion strengthened the perceived glossiness but that its effect was weaker than that of motion parallax with head motion. These results suggest the existence of an additional effect of the cross-modal coordination between vision and proprioception on glossiness perception. That is, motion parallax enhances the perception of glossiness, in addition to retinal-image motions of specular surfaces.     

Individualized Mutation Detection in Circulating Tumor DNA for Monitoring Colorectal Tumor Burden Using a Cancer-Associated Gene Sequencing Panel

Background

Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) carries information on tumor burden. However, the mutation spectrum is different among tumors. This study was designed to examine the utility of ctDNA for monitoring tumor burden based on an individual mutation profile.

Methodology

DNA was extracted from a total of 176 samples, including pre- and post-operational plasma, primary tumors, and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC), from 44 individuals with colorectal tumor who underwent curative resection of colorectal tumors, as well as nine healthy individuals. Using a panel of 50 cancer-associated genes, tumor-unique mutations were identified by comparing the single nucleotide variants (SNVs) from tumors and PBMCs with an Ion PGM sequencer. A group of the tumor-unique mutations from individual tumors were designated as individual marker mutations (MMs) to trace tumor burden by ctDNA using droplet digital PCR (ddPCR). From these experiments, three major objectives were assessed: (a) Tumor-unique mutations; (b) mutation spectrum of a tumor; and (c) changes in allele frequency of the MMs in ctDNA after curative resection of the tumor.

Results

A total of 128 gene point mutations were identified in 27 colorectal tumors. Twenty-six genes were mutated in at least 1 sample, while 14 genes were found to be mutated in only 1 sample, respectively. An average of 2.7 genes were mutated per tumor. Subsequently, 24 MMs were selected from SNVs for tumor burden monitoring. Among the MMs found by ddPCR with > 0.1% variant allele frequency in plasma DNA, 100% (8 out of 8) exhibited a decrease in post-operation ctDNA, whereas none of the 16 MMs found by ddPCR with < 0.1% variant allele frequency in plasma DNA showed a decrease.

Conclusions

This panel of 50 cancer-associated genes appeared to be sufficient to identify individual, tumor-unique, mutated ctDNA markers in cancer patients. The MMs showed the clinical utility in monitoring curatively-treated colorectal tumor burden if the allele frequency of MMs in plasma DNA is above 0.1%.     

Association between Smoking Status and Obesity in a Nationwide Survey of Japanese Adults

Objective

A positive association between the number of cigarettes smoked per day and obesity has been reported, whereas how other smoking-related indices, such as pack-years and duration of smoking, are related with obesity has been less investigated. We analyzed the age-adjusted cross-sectional association between smoking and obesity in a general Japanese population.

Methods

We used data from a nationwide epidemiological study of Japanese adults (N = 23,106). We compared the prevalence of obesity (defined as body mass index ≥ 25kg/m²) among groups classified by smoking behavior, pack-years, number of cigarettes per day, duration of smoking, and duration and time of smoking cessation.

Results

In men, current smokers had a lower odds ratio (OR) for obesity of 0.80 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.72–0.88) compared to non-smokers, whereas past smokers had a higher OR of 1.23 (95% CI: 1.09–1.37) compared to current smokers. In women, there were no differences in obesity between the three groups classified by smoking behavior. However, in both sexes, the prevalence of obesity tended to increase with pack-years and the number of cigarettes per day, but not with duration of smoking in current and past smokers. Further, in male smokers, the risks for obesity were markedly higher in short-term heavy smokers compared with long-term light smokers, even with the same number of pack-years. Regarding the impact of smoking cessation, female past smokers who quit smoking at an age > 55-years had an elevated OR of 1.60 (95% CI:1.05–2.38) for obesity.

Conclusions

In a general Japanese population, obesity is progressively associated with pack-years and number of cigarettes per day, but not with the duration of smoking. When investigating the association between obesity and cigarette smoking, the daily smoking burden and the duration of smoking require to be independently considered.     

Proteomic analysis of bone proteins adsorbed onto the surface of titanium dioxide

Osseointegration is the structural and functional connection between bone tissues and implants such as titanium dioxide (TiO₂). The bone-TiO₂ interface is thought to contain proteoglycans. However, exhaustive analysis of the proteins in this layer has not been performed. In this study, we evaluated the bone protein adhered on the surface of TiO₂ comprehensively. Pig bone protein was extracted by sequential elutions with guanidine, 0.1 M EDTA, and again with guanidine. The proteins obtained from these extractions were allowed to adhere to an HPLC column packed with TiO₂ and were eluted with 0.2 M NaOH. The eluted proteins were identified by LC/MS/MS and included not only proteoglycans but also other proteins such as extracellular matrix proteins, enzymes, and growth factors. Calcium depositions were observed on TiO₂ particles incubated with bone proteins, guanidine-extracted proteins adhered to TiO₂ displayed significantly high amounts of calcium depositions.