[en] Short communication

No abstract available

[en] In view of the situation where Japan has been increasingly expected to make a greater contribution to the international community through the supply of not only manufactured product but also of new technologies developed by herself, Ministries of International Trade and Industry; Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery; Health and Welfare; and Education have been coordinating varieties of biotechnology-related projects in co-operation with industries and academia. Through the Japanese biotechnology projects, many Japanese companies have achieved functioning systems in biotechnology, These systems combine many relevant component technologies and human connections in order to efficiently convert a scientific findings into a business. For this reason, it is to say that large part of the biotechnonogical activities of Japan derive from company institutions. Since this has been sometimes criticized for crippling biotechnological advances in the country, both Government and industries start to support to enhance biotechnological research activities in universities

[en] Four main aspects of embryo technology are dealt with in this paper. The first analyses the reasons for the poor selection of recipients for embryo transfer, the second relates to inaccurate evaluation of embryos at least under tropical conditions, the third proposes alternative methods to evaluate embryos for selection and freezing, and the fourth analyses the feasibility of establishing this technique as a biotechnology approach for improving production in small community tropical farms. (author)

[en] Short communication

[en] In this topical review, we will focus our discussion on the engineering of nanogenerators-related wearable bioelectronics and biodevices for diagnostic and therapeutic technologies. In the beginning, two most widely used nanogenerators, piezoelectric nanogenerator and triboelectric nanogenerator will be introduced, with a brief discussion of other power harvesting technologies. Subsequently, the design, fabrication and application guidelines for various nanogenerators will be presented and such information will allow one to conveniently engineer wearable, portable or implantable nanogenerator-based devices for specific detection or biomolecules delivery applications. In the third part of the review, we will discuss an array of examples of using different designed nanogenerators-related electronics and devices for pressure sensing, bio-sensing, motion monitoring, electrical treatment, cell/tissue/organ stimulation and drug delivery. Lastly, perspectives and challenges in further studies will be discussed. (topical review)

[en] Biotechnology industry is now a global 'Mega-Trend' and metabolic engineering technology has important role is this area. Therefore, many countries has made efforts in this field to produce top value added bio-products efficiently using microorganisms. It has been applied to increase the production of chemicals that are already produced by the host organism, to produce desired chemical substances from less expensive feedstock, and to generate products that are new to the host organism. Recent experimental advances, the so-called '-omics' technologies, mainly functional genomics, proteomics and metabolomics, have enabled wholesale generation of new genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic data. This report provides the insights of the integrated view of metabolism generated by metabolic engineering for biotechnological applications of microbial metabolic engineering

[en] Stroke is one of the leading causes for serious long-term neurological disability. LncRNAs have been investigated to be dysregulated in ischemic stroke. However, the underlying mechanisms of some specific lncRNAs have not been clearly clarified. To determine lncRNA-mediated regulatory mechanism in ischemic stroke, we constructed OGD/R injury model of cerebral microglial cells. Microarray analysis was carried out and analyzed that lncRNA functional intergenic repeating RNA element (FIRRE) was associated with OGD/R injury. Based on the molecular biotechnology, we demonstrated that FIRRE could activate NF-kB signal pathway. Meanwhile, the activated NF-kB promoted FIRRE expression in OGD/R-treated cerebral microglial cells. Therefore, FIRRE and NF-kB formed a positive feedback loop to promote the transcription of NLRP3 inflammasome, thus contributed to the OGD/R injury of cerebral microglial cells. All findings in this study may help to explore novel and specific therapeutic target for ischemic stroke.

[en] The analysis and separation of cells including rare cell populations from a heterogeneous population has become an important tool in scientific research and medicine. The last two decades have seen tremendous progress in the field of cell separation, as a result of which various methods have been available which utilize different physiochemical and immunological characteristics of cells. A brief overview of methods of cell separation used in the past and a detailed description of methods being used presently as well as prospective methods are discussed in the paper. Chromatography has come into the picture as the apparent solution for the limitations of various cell separation methods. In recent years, a new and promising affinity-based cell separation chromatography technique has been developed using highly interconnected supermacroporous cryogels, and this new method is discussed in detail. Due to the importance and relevance of cell-based therapy and stem cell separation in the present scenario, cryogels present a new tool for preparative scale cell separation

[en] Highlights: • The homoplastomic rice plant was firstly obtained by plastid transformation. • The results was confirmed by both molecular evidences and detecting localization of GFP. • The results will be helpful to transform plastid genome of monocotyledonous crops with recalcitrant nature. Rice is one of the most important cereal crops and its biotechnology has been pursued to meet the food demand of ever-growing global population. Rice plastid transformation has been a great challenge to achieve homoplastomic plants due to its low efficiency of regeneration. In this experiment, Japonica rice line 19 was chosen to be the receptor for plastid transformation. A vector harboring smGFP gene was constructed and transferred into rice plastid genome by bombardment. The resistant callus was obtained after long-lasting multiple selections and proved to be in homoplastomic status by molecular testing. The plantlet was regenerated from homoplastomic callus and grown to seeding stage. This is the first case so far to achieve the homoplastomic rice and will be helpful to transform plastid genome of monocotyledonous crops with recalcitrant nature.