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Urgent Notice: Delays in resource shipments to Europe

Due to the current war in Ukraine, DNA shipments to Europe are under disruption and deliveries of DNA may experience more delays than usual. We are facing concerns that the DNA will not be delivered in favorable condition. We will determine the exact dates of transportation through close consultation with the transportation company, and will ensure that recipients are notified (with these dates) individually by email.
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Gene expression characterizing HIV-1 infected cells (2021/11/01 T.M.)

  • Human CD4 T cells, which play a role in the control of immune system, are the primary target of HIV-1. By infection of HIV1-GFP reporter virus to “humanized mouse” model in which human immune system including CD4 T cell was reconstructed, the research group discovered that characteristic factors of HIV-1-producing cells include CXCL13 gene high expression group and interferon induction gene low expression group by multidimensional analysis method. This is expected to contribute to a better understanding of the characteristics of latent HIV-1 infected cells, which are essential for the treatment of AIDS.[more…]


Large-scale analysis of causative genes for severe cardiomyopathy in neonates (2021/10/26 T.M.)

  • By analyzing the genomes of Japanese patients with severe mitochondrial cardiomyopathy in their newborn, the research group in this paper found that duplication of the ATAD3 gene cluster was involved in the onset. In addition, a large-scale analysis based on international collaborative research was conducted, and similar duplications were found in 16 families. Regarding the ATAD3 gene duplication, they indicated that abnormal fusion proteins are likely to contribute to disease development.[more…]


Discovery of agents with antiviral activity against multiple viruses (2021/10/20 T.M.)

  • Viral infections are prevalent in the world, and the development of therapeutic drugs is an urgent issue. The research group in this paper found that 5-hydroxymethyltubercidin (HMTU) exhibited antiviral activity against multiple virus species.[more…]


Expression and purification of recombinant galectins (2021/05/13 N.N.)

  • Galectins belong a family of lectins and bind specifically to beta-galactosides and are known to be involved in many vital phenomena, including development, differentiation, cancer, and immunity.
  • Dr. Nozomu Nishi of the Kagawa University has been involved in galectin research for many years and has established methods for the expression and purification of the galectin family proteins using bacteria expression system. In order to help researchers, in particular those who have limited experience in biochemical assay, he published an experimental protocol for the purification of recombinant galectin proteins consisting of 27 steps（Nishi, N., Glycoforum 23 (5), A15, 2020). This protocol, describes the operation and the handling cautions of galectin in detail.[more…]


Mitophagy visualization fluorescent sensor, mito-SRAI (2021/05/13 N.N.)

  • Mitophagy is a selective autophagy degrading stress-damaged mitochondria.
  • Dr. Miyawaki Atsushi and Dr. Katayama Hiroyuki of RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS) and Dr. Hioki Hiroyuki of Juntendo University and their colleagues have recently developed mito-SRAI, a fluorescent sensor that can quantitatively visualize mitophagy both in live and fixed conditions. The mito-SRAI is composed of TOLLES (cyan) fluorescent protein that is resistant to acidic condition and protein degradation in lysosomes, and YPet (yellow) fluorescent protein whose fluorescence intensity changes according to pH. The mito-SRAI is specifically localized in mitochondria and has been genetically engineered to confer tolerance of fluorescence in fixed conditions.[more…]


Oncogenic effects of evolutionarily conserved noncoding RNAs “ECONEXIN” on glioma formation (2020/11/10 K.N.)

  • It has been shown that long noncording RNAs (lncRNAs) play significant roles on oncogenic transformation. However, the function of most lncRNAs is uncharacterized and it is very tough to find new candidates of cancer-associated lncRNAs. [more…]


The substrate specificity of deubiquitinase “USP -25” that recognizes the polyubiquitin chain linked to Lys 48 is determined by the tandem ubiquitin interacting motif (UIM) region (2020/11/10 K.N.)

  • Ubiquitin not only modifies other proteins to promote their degradation in proteosomes, but also plays various roles. There are two different structure of polyubiquitin chain, “Lys48-link” and “Lys63-link”, based on the binding residue. [more…]


Development of a method using CRISPR-Cas9 to delete the desired large genomic region (2020/11/10 K.N.)

  • Genome-editing technology using CRISPR-Cas9 has made it possible to establish mice lacking the desired genome, for example exons. However, it is still difficult to eliminate regions that exceed the megabases and have the desired break points. [more…]


Long noncoding RNAs “TUG1” regulated by Notch signals are targets for glioma therapy. (2020/11/10 K.N.)

  • Notch signaling promotes self-renewal of glioma stem cells (GSC). The detailed mechanism through the activity of SOX2, MYC and NESTIN etc. is not clearly understood. Screened a long noncoding RNA by genome informatics analysis and expression analysis, the authors identified “TUG1 (taurine upregulated gene 1)” as one of the genes expressing on Notch signal dependent manner. [more…]


Achilles, a novel fluorescent protein.(2020/3/24 N.N.)

  • For live-cell imaging using fluorescent proteins, it is important to use a fluorescent protein having short maturation time. Dr. Yusuke Niino and Dr. Atsushi Miyawaki of RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS) have developed Achilles which has shorter maturation time than Venus. Achilles is available now from DNA Bank. [more…]


Glucocorticoid up-regulates PD-1 on T cells.(2020/2/18 N.N.)

  • T cell activation is known to be suppressed by an immunosuppressant Glucocorticoid (GC) and inductively expressed PD-1. [more…]

Novel vectors for efficient PCR cloning (2019/10/11 N.N.)

  • Novel vectors for efficient cloning of PCR products by TA-cloning, blunt-end cloning and both cloning methods were recently developed and published in April of this year as described below, by Dr. Ken Motohashi of the Kyoto Sangyo University and are now available from us. We are looking forward to hearing your order![more…]

Elucidation of control system for regulating the morphology and orientation of cells in animal tissues. (2019/9/6 N.N.)

  • The morphology and orientation of cells in tissues are determined by structural dynamics of the cytoskeleton and polarity of cells. It has been suggested that the structural dynamics of the cytoskeleton is induced during the exchange of signal transduction molecules. However, controlling the structural dynamics by the molecules remained to be elucidated.
    [more…]

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Distribution of BAC clones (2020/2/18 N.N.)

  • RIKEN BRC DNA Bank distributes the following Bacterial Artificial Chromosomes (BAC) clones; Mouse (C57BL/6N and MSM/Ms strains), Rat (F344/Stm and LE/Stm strains), Japanese macaque (M. fuscacta), and Drosophila flies (5 species, including D. melanogaster).[more…]


Atg2 mediates direct lipid transfer between membranes for autophagosome formation. (2019/12/16 N.K.)

  • Autophagy is one of the intracellular recycling systems of protein. Unrequired proteins to be degraded are first isolated in the organelle “autophagosome” formed by phospholipid membrane. [more…]


Function of transcription coactivator TAZ on the regulation of IL1B expression. (2019/5/13 T.M.)

  • Involvement of YAP on the phenotype of malignant mesothelioma (MM) has been demonstrated. However, the function of TAZ, a paralog of YAP, in MM cells has not been clarified. [more…]


HMGA1 influences urokinase plasminogen activator system throught the regulation of PLAU and SERPINE1 gene. (2019/4/12 T.M.)

  • HMGA1 is a oncofetal architectural transcription factor and has a role in controling genes in many of aspects of neoplastic transformation. [more…]

Quantitative evaluation of autophagic activity(2019/2/1 N.N.)

  • In order to visualize autophagosome and observe autophagy, MAP1LC3 (LC3) fused with fluorescent proteins as a probe are used. However, the fluorescence of the probe attenuates during autophagy progresses and it is not suitable for quantitative assay of autophagy.
  • Dr. Noboru Mizushima and his colleagues at the University of Tokyo developed a new probe that can expresses GFP-LC3 and RFP-LC3ΔG (lacking glycine (G) at the LC 3 end) simultaneously at equimolar amounts.[more…]


Akaluc luciferase providing brighter and red-shifted luminescence (2018/5/7 N.N.)

  • Firefly bioluminescence systems have been commonly used as a imaging tool of biological phenomena. However, it have not been strong enough for imaging signals in deep tissues, because of low permeabilization of substrates. Recently, Dr. Atsushi Miyawaki and Dr. Satoshi Iwano of the RIKEN Center for Brain Science, and Dr. Shojiro Maki of the University of Electro-Communications developed a system of artificial bioluminescence AkaBLI that enables noninvasive signal observation in deep tissue of living animals. [more]

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