Yuki Okada

Recent studies indicate that histone lysine methylation is subject to enzyme-catalyzed reversion, and jumonji C (JmjC) domain-containing proteins have been identified as one of the members of histone demethylases. Although an increasing number of histone demethylases have been identified and biochemically characterized, their biological functions are poorly characterized. To elucidate the physiological functions, we generated the knockout mouse model of dimethylated or monomethylated histone 3 l

As in humans, obesity and its associated diseases represent the most significant threat to the health of veterinary populations. Previous human studies have provided insights into the risk factors of obesity, complex pathogenesis of obesity-associated diseases, and their life-threatening consequences. In humans, the "metabolic syndrome" represents a cluster of metabolic risk factors associated with the development of cardiovascular disease. Risk factors for metabolic syndrome, such as diabetes,

The abnormal aggregation of amyloid β-protein (Aβ) is considered central in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. We focused on membrane-mediated amyloidogenesis and found that amyloid fibrils formed on monosialoganglioside GM1 clusters were more toxic than those formed in aqueous solution. In this study, we investigated the structure of the toxic fibrils by Aβ-(1-40) in detail in comparison with less-toxic fibrils formed in aqueous solution. The less-toxic fibrils contain in-resister paralle

Increasing numbers of sense-antisense transcripts (SATs), which are transcribed from the same chromosomal location but in opposite directions, have been identified in various eukaryotic species, but the biological meanings of most SATs remain unclear. To improve understanding of natural sense-antisense transcription, we performed comparative expression profiling of SATs conserved among humans and mice. Using custom oligo-arrays loaded with probes that represented SATs with both protein-coding an

Abdominal and/or back pain is one of the most common symptoms in patients with pancreatic cancer. However, the cause of the pain and the clinicopathologic features of patients with pain have not been fully elucidated. We retrospectively determined the factors related to preoperative abdominal and/or back pain in 95 patients with resectable pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic tumor size, invasion of the intrapancreatic nerves, invasion of the anterior pancreatic capsule, and lymph node metastasis were

Sperm chromatin condensation is a critical step in mammalian spermatogenesis to protect the paternal DNA from external damaging factors and to acquire fertility. During chromatin condensation, various events proceed in a chronological order, independently or in sequence, interacting with each other both inside and outside the nucleus to support the dramatic chromatin changes. Among these events, histone-protamine replacement, which is concomitant with acrosome biogenesis and cytoskeletal alterat

Although dexamethasone in combination with other antiemetic agents has been used to prevent chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV), it is of clinical importance to minimize total dose of dexamethasone in patients undergoing multiple cycles of emetogenic chemotherapy. This individual-patient-data meta-analysis from five randomized controlled trials (1,194 patients) demonstrated a noninferiority of the dexamethasone-sparing regimen for complete response and complete control of CINV. The o

Polyomavirus JC (JCV) causes the human demyelinating disease, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML). The recent demonstration of cases of PML in association with human T-lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) infection prompted us to examine whether the HTLV-I-encoded regulatory protein Tax activates JCV transcription. By employing a dual luciferase assay, we initially found that the expression of Tax activated the transcriptional potential of both early and late promoters of JCV in human