Hitachi, Ltd.

Other

Chugai Seiyaku Kabushiki Kaisha

Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Company, Ltd.

Helix Research Institute

Astellas Pharma Gmbh

Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Company Ltd.

Research Association for Biotechnology

Tetsuo Nishikawa

Takao Isogai

Toshio Ota

Keiichi Nagai

Hideki Kambara

Koji Hayashi

Tomoyasu Sugiyama

Shin-Ichi Funahashi

Ai Wakamatsu

Shoji Miyata

Tetsuji Otsuki

Shizuko Ishii

Jun-Ichi Yamamoto

Kaoru Otsuka

Kenji Sobue

Yuri Kawai

Jun Takasaki

Susumu Satoh

Masazumi Kamohara

Tetsu Saito

Mitsuyuki Matsumoto

Tomoaki Sumitani

Yuri Hio

Hiroyuki Arakawa

Mayako Yamazaki

Masahiko Morita

Tohru Sugimoto

Satoshi Takahashi

Kazunori Okano

Yoshitoshi Ito

Yoshihiro Ohta

Makoto Iwayama

Masakazu Fujio

Sigeo Ihara

Osamu Imaichi

Tomohiro Yasuda

Toru Hisamitsu

Tamotu Simada

Yoshiko Katayama

A cDNA fragment participating in the maintenance of smooth muscle differentiation was isolated using a culture system of chicken gizzard smooth muscle cells, the differential display method and the subtracted hybridization method. Using the obtained cDNA sequence as a query, cDNA sequences of Helix Research Institute (Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-118776) were retrieved, and thus, a novel gene 'C-NT2RP3001495' was obtained. The protein encoded by this gene has two WW domains that participate in protein interactions in the N-terminal domain. Evidence suggests that this protein binds to other proteins, and thus regulates the intracellular signal transduction, gene expression, and so on, thereby participating in the maintenance of the differentiation of smooth muscle cells. This protein and compounds regulating the expression thereof are markedly useful in developing drugs for various diseases associated with abnormality in the maintenance of smooth muscle cell differentiation.

Antibody directed to protein involved in maintaining differentiation of smooth muscle cells

Genes associated with the maintenance of differentiation of smooth muscle cells

A cDNA encoding a novel LTCreceptor has been isolated. Provision of the novel protein, an LTCreceptor, enabled binding experiments using the LTC. By screening for compounds that modulate LTCreceptor activity based on these binding experiments, development of drugs targeting the LTCreceptor becomes possible.

Peptide leukotriene receptor

Human cDNA encoding a secretory or membrane protein useful as a candidate for developing medicine or as a target molecule for developing medicine. The expression level of the polynucleotide of the present invention increased in NT2 cells after retinoic acid-treatment. Accordingly, this cDNA is associated neurological disease.

Secretory protein or membrane protein

An object of the present invention is to perform the clustering and assembling of nucleic acid base sequences at a high speed. Partial sequencesare extracted from each input sequenceand entered into a fixed-length partial sequence table. In the case where a sequence overlapping with a consensus sequenceis searched while making reference to the fixed-length partial sequence tableand consequently a partial sequence, which exactly matches with a sequence defined by a fixed length windowscanning along the consensus sequence, is found to be present, whether the whole input sequence can be assembled or not is determined by comparing the sequences. If it is possible to assemble the sequences, they are assembled into a consensus sequence and also joined into the same cluster. The clustering and assembling are performed by repeatedly processing this procedure based on greedy method until no unprocessed input nucleic acid base sequence is left.

Method and device for assembling nucleic acid base sequences

The present invention visualizes the contents of a plurality of documents without a lack of the listing property. Two document units are extracted from a document database and relevance degrees between individual elements of a group of the document units are calculated. The results are displayed on a two-dimensional coordinate plane depending on the relevance degree.

Document information display system and method, and document search method

The present invention provides: proteins suppressing or promoting the aggregation or deposition of amyloid-&#x3b2; protein; polynucleotides encoding the proteins; a method for screening a compound suppressing or promoting the aggregation or deposition of amyloid-&#x3b2; protein; and therapeutic agents for treating or preventing Alzheimer's diseases comprising a compound that regulates the activity of a protein suppressing or promoting the aggregation or deposition of amyloid-&#x3b2; protein.

Amyloid-&#x3b2; protein aggregation-regulating factors

Amyloid &#x3b2; protein agglutination-controlling factor

Disclosed is means capable of solving trouble in managing data formats and procedures and capable of carrying out advanced preprocessing more intuitively. A data aggregate to be inputted to a mining engine is converted into hierarchical unit trees, and node conditions of the hierarchical unit trees are changed, whereby the data aggregate and a data structure are subjected to dynamic conversion/edition processing. Thus, a system is constructed, in which preprocessing for data mining is unitarily managed/semi-automated.

Production and preprocessing system for data mining

DNA molecule length can be measured with high precision and efficiency by 1) using such means as electrophoresis gel migration to orient a DNA molecule having a fluorescence label at both its termini into a straight line by its passing through a migration path having in a portion of it an area not more than several micrometers in diameter, detecting the fluorescence label at both the termini at a predetermined location and measuring the interval between the detection of the fluorescence coming from one terminus and that of the fluorescence from the other or by 2) a DNA molecule bound to a fluorescence label at one terminus and to a particle at the other being led as a whole by such means as electric field application into an aperture smaller in diameter than the particle, leaving the particle fixed at the mouth of the aperture to stretch the DNA molecule and detecting the fluorescence position to measure the distance between the bound particle and the bound fluorescence label.

DNA measuring method

A multicolor fluorescence detection type electrophoresis apparatus comprises an electrophoretic device having migration lanes in which fragment groups specifically labeled by fluorophores of different light emission peak wavelengths are mixed, added, and migrated. It identifies and detects the fragment groups. It uses laser beams of different wavelengths for exciting the fluorophores in the migration lanes. The laser beams are irradiated to separate positions on the migration lanes for detection of a few kinds of fluorophores at irradiation positions. For the purpose, multicolor optical filters are arranged near the irradiation positions to identify and detect lights emitted from the fluorophores excited by wavelength at every irradiation position.

Fluorescence detection type electrophoresis apparatus

In a fluorescence detection type electrophoresis apparatus, comprising an electrophoresis separation gel plate (2, 102, 205), an excitation laser beam source (3, 201, 201) for emitting fluorescent light, and a fluorescent light detector (9, 109, 212) for detecting the emitted fluorescent light, a fluorescent light images are divided into a plurality of virtual images by an image divider (5, 7.sub.2, 104, 105, 209) and at the same time, the lights corresponding to the individual divided images are wavelength-selected by bandpass filters (8, 8.sub.3, 107, 108, 120, 227-230), thereby providing highly accurate, sensitive separation and detection of DNA fragments and the like and determination of base sequence of DNA and the like.

In an electrophoresis apparatus for separating and detecting a sample of DNA or RNA labelled with fluorescence, use is made of a gel plate having a polyacrylamide concentration of 2 to 6% in order to greatly shorten the time required for the measurement.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Tetsuo Nishikawa