Proceedings of the Japan Academy. Series B, Physical and Biological Sciences

In the late 1970s, crude interferon samples were found to exhibit anti-tumour activity. This discovery led to the interferon as a "magic drug" for cancer patients. Many groups, including those in Tokyo, Zürich, and San Francisco, attempted to identify human interferon cDNAs. Tadatsugu Taniguchi was the first to announce the cloning of human interferon-β cDNA in the December 1979 issue of Proc. Jpn. Acad. Ser. B. This was followed by the cloning of human interferon-α by a Zürich group and interferon-γ by a group in Genentech in San Francisco...

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Rikō Majima published seven papers in this journal, and seeing these papers and their surrounding contexts allows us to glance at the birth of a galaxy of scientists.

A paper titled "On the Synthesis of Hinokitiol" appeared in this journal in 1950 and marked the beginning of a new research field of novel aromatics.

Cancer comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) is a fundamental tool for promoting precision oncology in advanced solid tumors. In 2015, we launched the SCRUM-Japan platform for CGP test screening followed by enrollment in genomically-matched clinical trials. More than 30,000 tissue-based and 10,000 liquid-based CGP tests have already been performed for enrollment in a total of 127 industry-/investigator-initiated registration trials. So far, 12 new agents with 14 indications have achieved regulatory approval for health care coverage in Japan...

The aromaticity and synthetic application of "heavy benzenes", i.e., benzenes containing a heavier Group 14 element (Si, Ge, Sn, and Pb) in place of skeletal carbon, have been the targets of many theoretical and synthetic studies. Although the introduction of a sterically demanding substituent enabled us to synthesize and isolate heavy aromatic species as a stable compound by suppressing their high reactivity and tendency to polymerize, the existence of a protection group is an obstruction to the development of functional materials based on heavy aromatics...

Core collapse supernovae are among the most powerful explosions in the Universe, which emit thermal neutrinos that carry away most of the gravitational binding energy released. These neutrinos produce a diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB), which is one of the largest energy budgets among all radiation backgrounds. Detecting the DSNB is an important goal of modern high-energy astrophysics and particle physics, which provides valuable insights into core collapse modeling, neutrino physics, and cosmic supernova rate history...

The present paper reviews recent activities on inverse analysis strategies in geotechnical engineering using Kalman filters, nonlinear Kalman filters, and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)/Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) methods. Nonlinear Kalman filters with finite element method (FEM) broaden the choices of unknowns to be determined for not only parameters but also initial and/or boundary conditions, and the use of the posterior probability of the state variables can be widely applied to, for example, the decision making for design changes...

Recent research extends our understanding of brain processes beyond just action potentials and chemical transmissions within neural circuits, emphasizing the mechanical forces generated by excitatory synapses on dendritic spines to modulate presynaptic function. From in vivo and in vitro studies, we outline five central principles of synaptic mechanics in brain function: P1: Stability - Underpinning the integral relationship between the structure and function of the spine synapses. P2: Extrinsic dynamics - Highlighting synapse-selective structural plasticity which plays a crucial role in Hebbian associative learning, distinct from pathway-selective long-term potentiation (LTP) and depression (LTD)...

A catalog of 13,591 papers published by the Japan Academy in three phases over a century in the Proceedings of the Imperial Academy (1913-1945), the Proceedings of the Japan Academy (1945-1977), and Proceedings of the Japan Academy, divided in Series A and B (1977-2022), is made available for public access. The catalog contains information about the authors, the title of the paper, published year, volume, issue, start page, end page, the field of sciences, and the academy member who introduced the paper in the monthly academy meeting...

Inflammation is a host defense response to various invading stimuli, but an excessive and persistent inflammatory response can cause tissue injury, which can lead to irreversible organ damage and dysfunction. Excessive inflammatory responses are believed to link to most human diseases. A specific type of leukocyte infiltration into invaded tissues is required for inflammation. Historically, the underlying molecular mechanisms of this process during inflammation were an enigma, compromising research in the fields of inflammation, immunology, and pathology...

The recent industrial growth has made our lives more comfortable; however, it has led to an increase in the concentration of harmful compounds, such as carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds (e.g., toluene), and phenolic compounds (e.g., phenol and cresol), in the environment. Catalytic oxidation using environmental catalysts is an important method for the removal of harmful compounds. To date, novel environmental catalysts have been developed from unique concepts based on solid-state ionics. In particular, the oxygen supply ability of a promoter can supply active oxygen from inside the lattice to the catalytically active site...

The mushroom, Pleurocybella porrigens, is widely consumed in Japan; however, in autumn 2004, acute encephalopathy due to ingestion of the mushroom in a large group of patients was reported in Japan. We have continued working on the mushroom to clarify the mechanisms underlying the acute encephalopathy that occurred due to its consumption. The data collected to date have shown that three compounds, pleurocybelline (PC), a Pleurocybella porrigens lectin (PPL), and pleurocybellaziridine (PA), in the mushroom are potentially responsible for the onset of the disease; PC that exhibit lethal activity in mice and PPL formed a complex, and the complex of the two components exhibited proteolytic activity and disrupted the blood-brain barrier...

Gustatory and olfactory receptors receive multiple chemical substances of different types simultaneously, but they can barely discriminate one chemical species from others. In this article, we describe a device used to measure taste, i.e., taste sensors. Toko and colleagues developed a taste sensor equipped with multiarray electrodes using a lipid/polymer membrane as the transducer in 1989. This sensor has a concept of global selectivity to decompose the characteristics of a chemical substance into taste qualities and to quantify them...

Catalytic antibodies possess unique features capable of both recognizing and enzymatically degrading antigens. Therefore, they are more beneficial than monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). Catalytic antibodies exhibit the ability to degrade peptides, antigenic proteins, DNA, and physiologically active molecules. However, they have a significant drawback in terms of their production. The production of a desired catalytic antibody has extensive costs, in terms of time and effort. We herein describe an evolutionary method to produce a desired catalytic antibody via conversion of a general antibody by the deletion of Pro95, which resides in complementarity-determining region-3...

Food web research is rapidly expanding through study of natural fractional abundance of 15 N in individual amino acids. This paper overviews the principles of this isotope approach, and from my perspective, reanalyzes applications, and further extends the discussion. It applies kinetic isotope effects that enriches 15 N in certain amino acids associated with the metabolic processes, which was clearly demonstrated by observations of both natural ecosystem and laboratory experiments. In trophic processes 'trophic amino acids' such as glutamic acid that significantly enrich 15 N, whereas 'source amino acids' such as phenylalanine and methionine show little 15 N enrichment...

Molecular clouds (MCs) in space are the birthplace of various molecular species. Chemical reactions occurring on the cryogenic surfaces of cosmic icy dust grains have been considered to play important roles in the formation of these species. Radical reactions are crucial because they often have low barriers and thus proceed even at low temperatures such as ∼10 K. Since the 2000s, laboratory experiments conducted under low-temperature, high-vacuum conditions that mimic MC environments have revealed the elementary physicochemical processes on icy dust grains...

L-DOPA is an amino acid that is used as a treatment for Parkinson's disease. A simple enzymatic synthesis method of L-DOPA had been developed using bacterial L-tyrosine phenol-lyase (Tpl). This review describes research on screening of bacterial strains, culture conditions, properties of the enzyme, reaction mechanism of the enzyme, and the reaction conditions for the production of L-DOPA. Furthermore, molecular bleeding of constitutively Tpl-overproducing strains is described, which were developed based on mutations in a DNA binding protein, TyrR, which controls the induction of tpl gene expression...

Cohesin is a heteropentameric protein complex that contributes to various aspects of chromosome structure and function, such as sister chromatid cohesion, genome compaction, and DNA damage response. Previous studies have provided abundant information on architecture and regional structures of the cohesin complex, but the configuration and structural dynamics of the whole cohesin complex are still largely unknown, partly due to flexibility of its coiled coils. We studied cohesin organization and dynamics using in vivo functional mutation compensation...

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