Activation of specific cytokine receptors promotes survival and proliferation of hematopoietic progenitor cells but their role in the control of differentiation is unclear. To address this issue, the effects of human interleukin-3 (hIL-3) and human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (hGM-CSF) on hematopoietic development were investigated in hematopoietic progenitor cells. Murine ...

Activation of human interleukin 3 (IL-3) and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) receptors, ectopically expressed in FDCP-mix multipotent cells, stimulates self-renewal or myeloid differentiation, respectively. These receptors are composed of unique alpha subunits that interact with common beta(c) subunits. A chimeric receptor (hGM/beta(c)), comprising the extracellular do...

Thymocytes show differential cytokine responses, depending on the stage of differentiation. Whether these responses are due to preferential cytokine receptor expression or due to downstream signaling mechanisms is unknown. In this study, we examined the relationship between receptor expression and T-cell proliferation or differentiation using thymocytes from transgenic mice constitutively expre...

We present software packages for the holonomic gradient method (HGM). These packages compute normalizing constants and the probabilities of some regions. While many algorithms which compute integrals over high-dimensional regions utilize the Monte-Carlo method, our HGM utilizes algorithms for solving ordinary differential equations such as the Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg method. As a result, our HGM c...

This study aims to establish a human gut microbiota (HGM) transplanted gnotobiotic (Gn) pig model of human rotavirus (HRV) infection and diarrhea, and to verify the dose-effects of probiotics on HRV vaccine-induced immune responses. Our previous studies using the Gn pig model found that probiotics dose-dependently regulated both T cell and B cell immune responses induced by rotavirus vaccines. ...

To increase transgenic production of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), we mutated the mRNA's 3'-untranslated region, AUUUA instability elements. Expression vectors containing human or murine GM-CSF cDNAs coding for wild-type (GM-AUUUA) or mutant versions with reiterated AUGUA repeats (GM-AUGUA) were transfected into cells in culture or animals using particle-mediated ge...

Because of the specific anatomical and physiological properties of the human intestine, a specific oxygen gradient builds up within this organ that influences the intestinal microbiota. The intestinal microbiome has been intensively studied in recent years, and certain respiratory substrates used by gut inhabiting microbes have been shown to play a crucial role in human health. Unfortunately, a...

A 50-year-old woman presented with dyspepsia but no history of weight loss or gastrointestinal bleeding. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) showed a sessile polypoidal submucosal lesion in the second part of the duodenum close to the ampulla with a central opening (fish-mouth appearance) (▶Fig. 1). The contour of this lesion was smooth and there was no disruption of the surrounding folds, nor ulc...

To explore efficient of different gene transfer methods and to express human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (hGM-CSF) in silk glands of transgenic silkworm, a novel transgenic vector containing a hGM-CSF controlled by silkworm fibroin heavy chain gene promoter (Pfib-H) with a neomycin resistance gene (neo) driven by BmNPV (B. mori nucleopolyhedrovirus) immediate-early gene ie-...

Ubiquinone and menaquinone are membrane lipid-soluble carriers of electrons that are essential for cellular respiration. Eukaryotic cells can synthesize ubiquinone but not menaquinone, whereas prokaryotes can synthesize both quinones. So far, most of the human gut microbiome (HGM) studies have been based on metagenomic analysis. Here, we applied an analysis of individual HGM genomes to the iden...