University of Tokyo

About: University of Tokyo is a education organization based out in Tokyo, Japan. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Gene. The organization has 134564 authors who have published 337567 publications receiving 10178620 citations. The organization is also known as: Todai & Universitas Tociensis.

Path Integral Measure for Gauge Invariant Fermion Theories

Abstract: It is shown that the path-integral measure for gauge-invariant fermion theories is not invariant under the ${\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{5}$ transformation and the Jacobian gives rise to an extra phase factor corresponding to the Adler-Bell-Jackiw anomaly. The derivation of "anomalous" Ward-Takahashi identities by means of the variational derivative can thus be made consistent in the path-integral formalism.

The Second Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Abstract: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has validated and made publicly available its Second Data Release. This data release consists of 3324 deg2 of five-band (ugriz) imaging data with photometry for over 88 million unique objects, 367,360 spectra of galaxies, quasars, stars, and calibrating blank sky patches selected over 2627 deg2 of this area, and tables of measured parameters from these data. The imaging data reach a depth of r ≈ 22.2 (95% completeness limit for point sources) and are photometrically and astrometrically calibrated to 2% rms and 100 mas rms per coordinate, respectively. The imaging data have all been processed through a new version of the SDSS imaging pipeline, in which the most important improvement since the last data release is fixing an error in the model fits to each object. The result is that model magnitudes are now a good proxy for point-spread function magnitudes for point sources, and Petrosian magnitudes for extended sources. The spectroscopy extends from 3800 to 9200 A at a resolution of 2000. The spectroscopic software now repairs a systematic error in the radial velocities of certain types of stars and has substantially improved spectrophotometry. All data included in the SDSS Early Data Release and First Data Release are reprocessed with the improved pipelines and included in the Second Data Release. Further characteristics of the data are described, as are the data products themselves and the tools for accessing them.

Mice lacking the vitamin D receptor exhibit impaired bone formation, uterine hypoplasia and growth retardation after weaning

Abstract: 1 alpha,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D3[1 alpha,25(OH)2D3], an active form of vitamin D, has roles in many biological phenomena such as calcium homeostasis and bone formation, which are thought to be mediated by the 1 alpha,25(OH)2D3 receptor (VDR), a member of the nuclear hormone receptor superfamily. However, the molecular basis for the actions of 1 alpha,25(OH)2D3 in bone formation, its role during development and VDR genetic polymorphisms for predicting bone mineral density are uncertain. To investigate the functional role of VDR, we generated mice deficient in VDR by gene targeting. We report here that in VDR null mutant mice, no defects in development and growth were observed before weaning, irrespective of reduced expression of vitamin D target genes. After weaning, however, mutants failed to thrive, with appearance of alopoecia, hypocalcaemia and infertility, and bone formation was severely impaired as a typical feature of vitamin D-dependent rickets type II (refs 8, 9). Unlike humans with this disease, most of the null mutant mice died within 15 weeks after birth, and uterine hypoplasia with impaired folliculogenesis was found in female reproductive organs. These defects, such as alopoecia and uterine hypoplasia, were not observed in vitamin D-deficient animals. The findings establish a critical role for VDR in growth, bone formation and female reproduction in the post-weaning stage.

Adaptive seeds tame genomic sequence comparison.

Abstract: The main way of analyzing biological sequences is by comparing and aligning them to each other. It remains difficult, however, to compare modern multi-billionbase DNA data sets. The difficulty is caused by the nonuniform (oligo)nucleotide composition of these sequences, rather than their size per se. To solve this problem, we modified the standard seed-and-extend approach (e.g., BLAST) to use adaptive seeds. Adaptive seeds are matches that are chosen based on their rareness, instead of using fixed-length matches. This method guarantees that the number of matches, and thus the running time, increases linearly, instead of quadratically, with sequence length. LAST, our open source implementation of adaptive seeds, enables fast and sensitive comparison of large sequences with arbitrarily nonuniform composition.

D-type cyclin-dependent kinase activity in mammalian cells.

Abstract: D-type cyclin-dependent kinase activities have not so far been detected in mammalian cells. Lysis of rodent fibroblasts, mouse macrophages, or myeloid cells with Tween 20 followed by precipitation with antibodies to cyclins D1, D2, and D3 or to their major catalytic partner, cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (cdk4), yielded kinase activities in immune complexes which readily phosphorylated the retinoblastoma protein (pRb) but not histone H1 or casein. Virtually all cyclin D1-dependent kinase activity in proliferating macrophages and fibroblasts could be attributed to cdk4. When quiescent cells were stimulated by growth factors to enter the cell cycle, cyclin D1-dependent kinase activity was first detected in mid G1, reached a maximum near the G1/S transition, and remained elevated in proliferating cells. The rate of appearance of kinase activity during G1 phase lagged significantly behind cyclin induction and correlated with the more delayed accumulation of cdk4 and formation of cyclin D1-cdk4 complexes. Thus, cyclin D1-associated kinase activity was not detected during the G0-to-G1 transition, which occurs within the first few hours following growth factor stimulation. Rodent fibroblasts engineered to constitutively overexpress either cyclin D1 alone or cyclin D3 together with cdk4 exhibited greatly elevated cyclin D-dependent kinase activity, which remained absent in quiescent cells but rose to supraphysiologic levels as cells progressed through G1. Therefore, despite continued enforced overproduction of cyclins and cdk4, the assembly of cyclin D-cdk4 complexes and the appearance of their kinase activities remained dependent upon serum stimulation, indicating that upstream regulators must govern formation of the active enzymes.