The acyclic diterpenoid acid geranylgeranoic acid (GGA) has been reported to induce autophagic cell death in several human hepatoma-derived cell lines; however, the molecular mechanism for this remains unknown. In the present study, several diterpenoids were examined for ability to induce XBP1 splicing and/or lipotoxicity for human hepatoma cell lines. Here we show that three groups of diterpen...

Trisomy mapping is a powerful method for assigning genes to chicken microchromosome 16 (GGA 16). The single chicken nucleolar organizer region (NOR), the 2 major histocompatibility complex regions (MHC-Y and MHC-B), and CD1 genes were all previously assigned to GGA 16 using trisomy mapping. Here, we combined array comparative genomic hybridization with trisomy mapping to screen unassigned genom...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to review HIV-negative patients with pulmonary cryptococcosis to analyze the correlations between clinical characteristics and chest computed tomography (CT) findings. METHODS We retrospectively analyzed medical records of 16 HIV-negative patients with pulmonary cryptococcosis diagnosed at our institution, and clinical characteristics of the patients with n...

Binding or potential energy curves have been calculated for the ground-state diatomics H(2)(+), He(2)(+), LiH(+), H(2), N(2), and C(2), for the transition state H(3), and for the triplet first excited state of H(2) using the nonempirical density functionals from the first three rungs of a ladder of approximations: the local spin density (LSD) approximation, the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE) gene...

The predictive power of density functional theory for materials properties can be improved without increasing the overall computational complexity by extending generalized gradient approximation (GGA) electronic exchange and correlation to functionals depending on kinetic energy in addition charge its gradient, resulting a meta-GGA. Here, we propose an empirical meta-GGA model that is based bot...

We have used density-functional theory generalized gradient approximation GGA to study lithium intercalation at low concentration into anatase TiO2. To describe the defect states produced by Li doping a Hubbard “+U” correction is applied to the Ti d states GGA+U . Uncorrected GGA calculations predict LixTiO2 to be metallic with the excess charge distributed over all Ti sites, whereas GGA+U pred...

The ground and lower excited states of Fe2, Fe2(-), and FeO(+) were studied using a number of density functional theory (DFT) methods. Specific attention was paid to the relative state energies, the internuclear distances (re), and the harmonic vibrational frequencies (ωe). A number of factors influencing the calculated values of these properties were examined. These include basis sets, the nat...

Optimal sensor placement OSP technique plays a key role in the structural health monitoring SHM of large-scale structures. Based on the criterion of the OSP for the modal test, an improved genetic algorithm, called “generalized genetic algorithm GGA ”, is adopted to find the optimal placement of sensors. The dual-structure coding method instead of binary coding method is proposed to code the so...

Geranylgeranoic acid (GGA) and 2,3-dihydrogeranylgeranoic acid (2,3-diGGA) are geranylgeraniol-derived metabolites (Kodaira et al. (2002) J Biochem 132: 327-334). In the present study, we examined the effects of these acids on HL-60 cells. The cells were differentiated into neutrophils by GGA stimulation like retinoic acid stimulation. In the case of cells stimulated with 2,3-diGGA, neutrophils...

Avian leukosis is a neoplastic disease caused in part by subgroup J avian leukosis virus J (ALV-J). Micro ribonucleic acids (miRNAs) play pivotal oncogenic and tumour-suppressor roles in tumour development and progression. However, little is known about the potential role of miRNAs in avian leukosis tumours. We have found a novel tumour-suppressor miRNA, gga-miR-375, associated with avian leuko...