Exopolysaccharides (EPS) and internal (intracellular) polysaccharides (IPS) obtained from the Pleurotus ostreatus M2191 and PBS281009 cultivated using the batch system revealed an average of between 0.1-2 (EPS) and 0.07-1.5 g/L/day (IPS). The carbohydrate analysis revealed that the polysaccharides comprised 87-89% EPS and 68-74% IPS. The investigation of antioxidant activity in vitro revealed a...

During the late 1990s, the U.S. government instituted an interim payment system (IPS) to constrain Medicare home health care expenditures. Previous research has focused largely on the implications of the IPS for Medicare patients; this study broadens the analysis to consider patients with other payer sources. Using the National Home and Hospice Care Survey, we found similar effects of the IPS a...

The era of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells carries with it the promise of virtually unlimited sources of autologous cells for regenerative medicine. However, efficiently differentiating iPS cells into fully functional mature cell types remains challenging. A new study reporting the formation of fully functional platelets from human iPS (hiPS) cells improves upon recent efforts to generate ...

The human parietal cortex exhibits a preference to contralaterally presented visual stimuli (i.e., laterality) as well as an asymmetry between the two hemispheres with the left parietal cortex showing greater laterality than the right. Using visual short-term memory and perceptual tasks and varying target location predictability, this study examined whether hemispheric laterality and asymmetry ...

Six 25- to 30-year-old slash pine, Pinus elliottii Englm. var. elliottii, trees were inoculated with Ophiostoma minus (Hedgc.) H.P. Sydow, O. ips (Rumb.) Nannf or sterile water. Two, 4 and 6 weeks after inoculation, the lengths of developing lesions and the monoterpene concentration of the necrotic tissue within each lesion were measured. Both sterile and fungal wounding resulted in the develop...

Human artificial chromosomes (HACs) have unique characteristics as gene-delivery vectors, including episomal transmission and transfer of multiple, large transgenes. Here, we demonstrate the advantages of HAC vectors for reprogramming mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Two HAC vectors (iHAC1 and iHAC2) were constructed. Both carried four reprogramming ...

Human-induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells share the same key properties as embryonic stem cells, and may be generated from patient- or disease-specific sources, which makes them attractive for personalized medicine, drug screens, or cellular therapy. Long-term cultivation and maintenance of normal iPS cells in an undifferentiated self-renewing state is a major challenge. Our previous studies h...

Two years ago, the first clinical application study of iPS cells began with age-related macular degeneration. At first, six cases were scheduled. However, last year, for the second patient, the operation was stopped due to the genetic mutation of iPS cells from this patient. This genetic mutation was reported to be the absence of some genetic information. The risk of developing cancer also coul...

Hematopoiesis generated from human embryonic stem cells (ES) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) are unprecedented resources for cell therapy. We compared hematopoietic differentiation potentials from ES and iPS cell lines originated from various donors and derived them using integrative and non-integrative vectors. Significant differences in differentiation toward hematopoietic lineage we...

Three-dimensional (3D) shape is important for the visual control of grasping and manipulation. We used fMRI to study the processing of 3D shape extracted from disparity in human parietal cortex. Subjects stereoscopically viewed random-line stimuli portraying a 3D structure, a 2D structure in multiple depth planes or a 2D structure in the fixation plane. Subtracting the second from the first con...