Euphausia superba dominates in the diet of Adélie penguins feeding under fast sea-ice in the shelf areas of Enderby Land in summer

Adélie penguins Pygoscelis adeliae in Enderby Land, Antarctica feed mainly on Euphausia superba during the chick rearing season in shelf areas where fast sea-ice remains: indicating that E. superba is abundant under the fast sea-ice in these areas. The shelf areas in Enderby Land, therefore, are unique since the previous studies of Adélie penguin diet in Ross Sea, Adélie Land and Prydz Bay show that E. crystallorophias is the most abundant krill species in shelf areas in general.     

Construction of integrated system for selection of fused plant protoplasts

Summary An integrated system has been constructed to instantly identify and efficiently sort the heterokaryons formed by plant protoplast fusion. The system is composed of the following functions: a) a transport system, b) an electro-manipulator, c) a cell harvester, d) a flow cytometer/cell sorter, and e) a control device. The conditions for an efficient and reproducible enrichment of the heterokaryons have been investigated by this system using the fluorescein isothiocyanate stained protoplasts preparing from Glycyrrhiza glabra cell cultures and unstained protoplasts of Abrus precatorius cell cultures which contain a large quantity of chlorophyll.Abbreviations MS Murashige and Skoog (1962) - 2,4-D 2, 4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid - NAA 1-naphthaleneacetic acid - BAP 6-benzylaminopurine - ABA abscissic acid - FITC fluorescein isothiocyanate This paper is part 96 in the series Studies on Plant Tissue Cultures. For part 95 see Orinara Y., Noguchi T. and Furuya T. (1993) submitted for publication.     

Phylogeography of the temperate grassland plant Tephroseris kirilowii (Asteraceae) inferred from multiplexed inter-simple sequence repeat genotyping by sequencing (MIG-seq) data

Journal of Plant Research - A group of temperate grassland plant species termed the “Mansen elements” occurs in Japan and is widely distributed in the grasslands of continental East...     

Strain differences to effects of aging on concentrations of amino acids in cerebrospinal fluid between Sprague Dawley rat and Wistar Kyoto rat.

Age-related alterations and differences of weights and those of amino acid concentrations in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) were evaluated between Sprague Dawley (SD) rats and Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rats from eight to twenty weeks of age. The weights of SD rats were heavier than WKY rats at all ages. The age-related alterations of the CSF concentration of many amino acids within each strain were significant but showed no significant trend with age. Between the strains, the concentration differences of excitatory and inhibitory amino acids were not frequent although the concentrations of arginine, alanine and threonine were significantly higher in SD rats than in WKY rats. These results suggest that the different CSF concentrations of amino acids may relate to characteristics of rat strains.     

Vibrio trachuri Sp. Nov., a New Species Isolated from Diseased Japanese Horse Mackerel

A new species, Vibrio trachuri sp. nov., was isolated from the cultured Japanese horse mackerel (Trachurus japonicus). These Vibrio were Gram negative, motile rods and formed yellow colonies on BTB teepol and TCBS plate, turned TSI medium to yellow and was sensitive to 150 μM O/129 (2,4-diamino-6,7-diisopropyl pteridine phosphate) like Listonella anguillarum which has been described as Vibrio anguillarum. However, the results of VP test and decarboxylation of lysine or dihydrolation of arginine suggested that these Vibrio are rather closely related to V. parahaemolyticus. DNA similarity determined by the microplate hybridization technique revealed that these Vibrio are genetically quite distant from Listonella anguillarum or V. parahaemolyticus and rather close to V. harveyi, although there was no Vibrio species which had more than 70% similarity value. From these results we propose to nominate Vibrio trachuri sp. nov. for this new Vibrio species.     

Seven guaianolides from Eupatorium chinense

Two allyl hydroperoxy guaianolide sesquiterpene lactones (peroxyeupahakonin-A and -B) and five new guaianolides (eupahakonin-A and -B, eupahakonenin-A and -B, and eupahakonesin) were isolated from E. chinense and characterized. The allyl hydroperoxy sesquiterpene lactones were characterized by spectral and chemical methods. They were prepared chemically by photosensitized oxygenation of eupahakonin-A.     

Callus regeneration from cotyledon protoplasts ofChamaecyparis obtusa (Hinoki cypress)

Summary Protoplasts were isolated from cotyledons of 1- to 1.5-mo.-old seedlings ofChamaecyparis obtusa using 1% driselase or 0.25% pectolyase Y-23 in combination with 1% cellulase RS in 0.6M mannitol solution. Cell division and colony formation were induced efficiently in liquid Murashige and Skoog’s (MS) medium containing 0.6M mannitol and 10 to 30 μM 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid or 1 μM of naphthaleneacegic acid at the cell density of 1 to 2×10³ ml. Continued callus proliferations was observed by transferring tissue to fresh medium of the same composition as the induction medium without mannitol. Campbell and Durzan’s medium and ammonium nitrate-free MS medium were less effective than MS medium. High concentration of benzyladenine (1 or 10 μM) was inhibitory to cell division.     

A novel pathway of import of alpha-mannosidase, a marker enzyme of vacuolar membrane, in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

We have investigated the vacuolar delivery of alpha-mannosidase, a marker enzyme of the vacuolar membrane in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and found that the enzyme has several unique characteristics in its biosynthesis and vacuolar delivery. alpha-Mannosidase has no typical signal sequence (Yoshihisa, T., and Anraku, Y. (1989) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 163, 908-915) but is located on the inner surface of the vacuolar membrane. The enzyme is synthesized as a 107-kDa polypeptide and converted to a 73-kDa polypeptide. Although the conversion depends on a vacuolar processing protease, proteinase A, it is much slower (t1/2 = 10 h) than the proteinase A-dependent processing of other vacuolar proteins. None of Asn-X-Thr/Ser sites on the 107-kDa alpha-mannosidase or on two alpha-mannosidase-invertase fusion proteins that are localized inside the vacuole receives N-linked oligosaccharide, whereas those sites on a carboxypeptidase Y-alpha-mannosidase fusion protein are N-glycosylated. The newly synthesized alpha-mannosidase is normally delivered to the vacuole and converted to the 73-kDa polypeptide even when the secretory pathway is blocked by a subset of sec mutations. These characteristics are different from those of other vacuolar proteins targeted to the vacuole via the secretory pathway. We conclude that alpha-mannosidase is delivered to the vacuole in a novel pathway separate from the secretory pathway.