Dietary fiber, with intake of soluble fibers in particular, has been reported to lower the risk for developing inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). This is at least partly attributable to the ...fermentation of dietary fiber by the colonic microbiota to produce short chain fatty acids. Pectin, a widely consumed soluble fiber, is known to exert a protective effect in murine models of IBD, but the underlying mechanism remains elusive. Apart from having a prebiotic effect, it has been suggested that pectin direct influences host cells by modulating the inflammatory response in a manner dependent on its neutral sugar side chains. Here we examined the effect of the side chain content of pectin on the pathogenesis of experimental colitis in mice. Male C57BL/6 mice were fed a pectin-free diet, or a diet supplemented with characteristically high (5% orange pectin) or low (5% citrus pectin) side chain content for 10-14 days, and then administered 2,4,6-trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid or dextran sulfate sodium to induce colitis. We found that the clinical symptoms and tissue damage in the colon were ameliorated in mice that were pre-fed with orange pectin, but not in those pre-fed with citrus pectin. Although the population of CD4
Foxp
regulatory T cells and CD4
RORγt
inflammatory T cells in the colon were comparable between citrus and orange pectin-fed mice, colonic interleukin (IL)-1β and IL-6 levels in orange pectin-fed mice were significantly decreased. The fecal concentration of propionic acid in orange pectin-fed mice was slightly but significantly higher than that in control and citrus pectin-fed mice but the cecal concentration of propionic acid after the induction of TNBS colitis was comparable between orange and citrus pectin-fed mice. Furthermore, the protective effect of orange pectin against colitis was observed even in mice treated with antibiotics. IL-6 production from RAW264.7 cells stimulated with the toll-like receptor agonist Pam3CSK4 or lipopolysaccharide was suppressed by pre-treatment with orange pectin
. Taken together, these results suggest that the side chains of pectin not only augment prebiotic effects but also directly regulate IL-6 production from intestinal host cells in a microbiota-independent fashion to attenuate colitis.
It is known that a class of special solutions of the Garnier system is expressed by a determinant formula in terms of a certain specialization of the Schur functions with rectangular-shape ...partitions. Y Yamada showed that such a determinant formula for rational solutions of Riccati type can be derived by making use of the Padé approximation. In this paper, we extend Yamada's method. We derive a determinant formula for transcendental solutions of Riccati type by showing that the Padé approximation can be utilized in order to construct a Schlesinger transformation between isomonodromic deformations. In addition, we show that this method is effective in generic solutions of the Garnier system and derive a determinant structure of them.
We develop an underlying relationship between the theory of rational approximations and that of isomonodromic deformations. We show that a certain duality in Hermite’s two approximation problems for ...functions leads to the Schlesinger transformations, i.e. transformations of a linear differential equation shifting its characteristic exponents by integers while keeping its monodromy invariant. Since approximants and remainders are described by block-Toeplitz determinants, one can clearly understand the determinantal structure in isomonodromic deformations. We demonstrate our method in a certain family of Hamiltonian systems of isomonodromy type including the sixth Painlevé equation and Garnier systems; particularly, we present their solutions written in terms of iterated hypergeometric integrals. An algorithm for constructing the Schlesinger transformations is also discussed through vector continued fractions.
Flat structure was introduced by K. Saito and his collaborators at the end of 1970's. Independently the WDVV equation arose from the 2D topological field theory. B. Dubrovin unified these two notions ...as Frobenius manifold structure. In this paper, we study isomonodromic deformations of an Okubo system, which is a special kind of systems of linear differential equations. We show that the space of independent variables of such isomonodromic deformations can be equipped with a Saito structure (without a metric), which was introduced by C. Sabbah as a generalization of Frobenius manifold. As its consequence, we introduce flat basic invariants of well-generated finite complex reflection groups and give explicit descriptions of Saito structures (without metrics) obtained from algebraic solutions to the sixth Painlevé equation.
In 2002, Terao showed that every reflection multi-arrangement of a real reflection group with constant multiplicity is free by providing a basis of the module of derivations. We first generalize ...Terao's result to multi-arrangements stemming from well-generated unitary reflection groups, where the multiplicity of a hyperplane depends on the order of its stabilizer. Here the exponents depend on the exponents of the dual reflection representation. We then extend our results further to all imprimitive irreducible unitary reflection groups. In this case the exponents turn out to depend on the exponents of a certain Galois twist of the dual reflection representation that comes from a Beynon-Lusztig type semi-palindromicity of the fake degrees.
distinct points with coefficients in a certain local system of rank one. This local system comes from the integrand of the Riemann-Wirtinger integral introduced by Mano. We construct bases of ...non-vanishing cohomology and homology groups, give an interpretation as a pairing of a cohomology class and a homology class to the Riemann-Wirtinger integral, and finally describe briefly the Gauss-Manin connection on the cohomology groups.>
Abstract Objective: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) lactate and pyruvate concentrations in identifying children with mitochondrial diseases (MD) affecting ...the central nervous system (CNS). Methods: We studied lactate and pyruvate concentrations in paired samples of blood and CSF collected concurrently from 17 patients with MD (Leigh encephalomyelopathy 10, MELAS 5, Pearson disease 1, PDH deficiency 1) and those from control patients ( n = 49). Results: Although blood and CSF variables (lactate, pyruvate concentrations and lactate/pyruvate ratio) were significantly higher in the mitochondrial group than in the control group, there was considerable overlap of individual values between these two groups. The maximum value of the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) was observed for the CSF lactate concentration (0.994, optimal cut-off value 19.9 mg/dl, sensitivity 0.941 and specificity 1.00), followed by the CSF pyruvate level (0.983). There was an inverse relationship between blood lactate and lactate CSF/blood ratio. For blood lactate concentrations between 20 and 40 mg/dl, a significant difference was also noted in the lactate CSF/blood ratio between the two groups (AUC 1.0, optimal cut-off value 0.91, sensitivity 1.0 and specificity 1.0). Conclusions: Our study suggests that that CSF lactate level > 19.9 mg/dl is the most reliable variable for identifying patients with MD affecting the CNS. When blood lactate concentrations are marginally elevated (20–40 mg/dl), lactate CSF/blood ratio > 0.91 may also provide diagnostic information.
A potential vector field is a solution of an extended WDVV equation which is a generalization of a WDVV equation. It is expected that potential vector fields corresponding to algebraic solutions of ...Painlevé VI equation can be written by using polynomials or algebraic functions explicitly. The purpose of this paper is to construct potential vector fields corresponding to more than thirty non-equivalent algebraic solutions.
Bardet-Biedl syndrome (BBS) is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by central obesity, mental impairment, rod-cone dystrophy, polydactyly, hypogonadism in males, and renal abnormalities. ...The causative genes have been identified as BBS1-19. In Western countries, this disease is often reported, but remains undiagnosed in many patients until later in life, while only a few patients with no mutations identified have been reported in Japan. We thus conducted the first nationwide survey of BBS in Japan by sending questionnaires to 2,166 clinical departments with board-certified specialists and found 7 patients with clinically definite BBS. We performed exome analyses combined with analyses of mRNA and protein in these patients. We identified 2 novel mutations in the BBS5 gene (p.R89X and IVS7-27 T>G) in 2 sibling patients. The latter mutation that resided far from the authentic splicing site was associated with skipping of exon 8. We also found 3 previously reported mutations in the BBS2 (p.R413X and p.R480X) and BBS7 (p.C243Y) genes in 2 patients. To our knowledge, a nationwide survey of BBS has not been reported in any other country. In addition, this is the first study to identify genetic alterations in Japanese patients with BBS. Our results indicate that BBS in Japan is genetically heterogeneous and at least partly shares genetic features with BBS in other countries.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
We study a relationship between regular flat structures and generalized Okubo systems. We show that the space of variables of isomonodromic deformations of a regular generalized Okubo system can be ...equipped with a flat structure. As its consequence, we introduce flat structures on the spaces of independent variables of generic solutions to (classical) Painlevé equations (except for PI). In our framework, the Painlevé equations PVI–PII can be treated uniformly as just one system of differential equations called the four-dimensional extended WDVV equation. Then the well-known coalescence cascade of the Painlevé equations corresponds to the degeneration scheme of the Jordan normal forms of a square matrix of rank four.
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