Atsushi Higashitani

With global warming, plant high temperature injury is becoming an increasingly serious problem. In wheat, barley, and various other commercially important crops, the early phase of anther development is especially susceptible to high temperatures. Activation of auxin biosynthesis with increased temperatures has been reported in certain plant tissues. In contrast, we here found that under high temperature conditions, endogenous auxin levels specifically decreased in the developing anthers of barl

Although muscle atrophy is a serious problem during spaceflight, little is known about the sequence of molecular events leading to atrophy in response to microgravity. We carried out a spaceflight experiment using <i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i> onboard the Japanese Experiment Module of the International Space Station. Worms were synchronously cultured in liquid media with bacterial food for 4 days under microgravity or on a 1-G centrifuge. Worms were visually observed for health and movement and

Many plant species are susceptible to high-temperature (HT) injury during reproductive development. We recently demonstrated that HT represses the expression of YUCCA auxin biosynthesis genes and reduces endogenous auxin in the developing anthers of barley and Arabidopsis. Here, we show that DNA proliferation in mitochondria, chloroplasts and nuclei of developing panicles is inhibited with increasing temperatures in barley. Following DNA proliferation suppression, terminal abnormalities were obs

Plant reproductive development is more sensitive than vegetative growth to many environmental stresses. High temperature (HT) injury is becoming an increasingly serious problem due to recent global warming. In wheat, barley, and other crops, the early phase of anther development is most susceptible to HT. I and my colleagues recently demonstrated that HT causes cell proliferation arrest and represses auxin signaling in a tissue-specific manner in the anther cells of barley and Arabidopsis. HT al

These results indicate that the microbeam irradiation is useful in characterizing tissue-specific, local biological response to radiation in organisms. DNA damage-induced cell cycle arrest and apoptosis were observed in locally irradiated regions, but there was little, if any, 'bystander effect' in the nematode.

Acute onset of organ failure in heatstroke is triggered by rhabdomyolysis of skeletal muscle. Here, we showed that elevated temperature increases free cytosolic Ca²⁺ [Ca²⁺]f from RYR (ryanodine receptor)/UNC-68 <i>in vivo</i> in the muscles of an experimental model animal, the nematode <i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i> This subsequently leads to mitochondrial fragmentation and dysfunction, and breakdown of myofilaments similar to rhabdomyolysis. In addition, treatment with an i

Autophagy is one of the cellular processes that break down cellular components during senescence, starvation, and stress. The susceptibility of plant pollen development to high-temperature (HT) stress is well known, but the involvement of autophagy in HT injury is yet to be clarified. Here, we found that following transfer to 30 °C, all autophagy-deficient (atg) mutants (atg2-1, 5-1, 7-2, and 10-1) of Arabidopsis thaliana tested displayed visibly impaired pollen development and anther dehiscence

These results indicate that the RBX1 protein participates in diverse functions relevant to chromosome metabolism and cell cycle control.

Mitochondrial dysfunction impairs muscle health and causes subsequent muscle wasting. This study explores the role of mitochondrial dysfunction as an intramuscular signal for the extracellular matrix (ECM)-based proteolysis and, consequentially, muscle cell dystrophy. We found that inhibition of the mitochondrial electron transport chain causes paralysis as well as muscle structural damage in the nematode <i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i>. This was associated with a significant decline in collagen c

Rolling circle type DNA replication is initiated by introduction of a nick in the leading strand of the origin by the initiator protein, which in most cases binds covalently to the 5' end of the nick. In filamentous phage, however, such a covalent complex has not been detected. Using a suitable substrate and short reaction time, we show that filamentous phage initiator gpII forms a covalent complex with nicked DNA, which rapidly dissociates unless gpII is inactivated. A peptide-DNA complex was i