Transgenic technology has been widely applied to a variety of freshwater fish species. However there are few reports on the use of this technology in commercially important marine species. In this study, the construction of expression vectors containing the b-actin promoter region for use in the red sea bream Pagrus major, a species of considerable importance to the aquaculture industry in Japan is reported. The b-actin gene was cloned from a red sea bream genomic DNA library. Recombinant plasmids were constructed by linking the 5′ flanking region of the b-actin gene to the green fluorescent protein reporter gene, followed by the poly A signal sequence of simian virus 40 or the 3′ flanking region the b-actin gene. Expression of these constructs was examined following microinjection into zebrafish and red sea bream embryos, and compared to that of the expression vector pXI-GFP driven by the Xenopus elongation factor 1a. The results indicated that the construct consisting of the b-actin 5′-and 3′ flanking regions was the most efficacious. In future studies, it is planned to investigate the efficient condition for integration into chromosomes of the transgene.

Pottasium iodate, KIO 3 , belongs to the perovskite structure and undergoes successive phase transitions at T 1 = 212 • C, T 2 = 72.5 • C, T 3 = −15 • C, T 4 = −160 • C and T 5 = −240 • C, respectively. The temperature dependences of the dielectric, elastic and piezoelectic properties have been measured in the temperature range from −263 • C to 330 • C. The superionic conductivity was found in the temperature range above T 2 . Pronounced dielectric dispersions in the frequency range below 10 kHz were observed around −160 • C and −240 • C and the data were analyzed by fitting to the Davidson-Cole and Havriliak-Negami dispersion formulas, respectively. Both dielectric anomalies are ascribed to the taional glass-transitions. The piezoelectric and elastic properties have been investigsated by the resonance-antiresonance method. The piezoelectric and elastic anomalies were observed at T 2 and T 3 .Pottasium iodate, KIO 3 , is one of the most facinating member of the perovskite family owing to its non-linerar optical properites. 1) It undergoes successive phase transitions at T 1 = 212 • C, T 2 = 72.5 • C, T 3 = −15 • C and T 4 = −160 • C and T 5 = −240 • C, respectively, and is ferroelectric in all phases below 212 • C. 2) The phases are denoted here I, II, III, IV, V and VI-phases in decending order of the temperature.It has been reported that the space group in each phase is R3m(C 5 3v ) (T > T 1 ), Cm(Cs 3 ) (T 1 > T > T 2 ), and P1(C 1 1 ) (T 2 > T > T 3 ), respectively.3) The results of structural studies on KIO 3 until 1971 were summarized by Crane. 4) The structural details of the I-, II-and III-phases and their relation to the cubic prototype were discussed by Hamid. 2) The structural changes induced by the transitions at T 3 = −15 • C, T 4 = −160 • C and T 5 = −240 • C are not yet known. The phase transition at T 5 was found in the present investigastion. The phase transition at 130 • C reported by several authors is still questionable. 4)Investigations on the physical properties such as dielectric, 2, 5) elelctro-optical, 6, 7) piezoelectric properties, 6, 7) NQR 2) and Raman scatterng experiments 8, 9) of KIO 3 have been reported. Although much data have been reported especially on the temperature dependences of dielectric constants, still there has been some discrepancies between them. The ferroelectric properties of KIO 3 crystals at the successive phase transitions have been investigated in detail by Herlach 2) and Helg, 5) however, the behavior of KIO 3 has not been fully understood. Systematic measurements on the physical properties of KIO 3 have been required to understand the origin of the as 267 successive phase trnsitions.In this paper, dielectric, elastic and piezoelectric measurements have been performed in the temperature range between −263 • C and 330 • C and the mechanism of the successive phase transition has been investigated. §2. ExperimentalThe KIO 3 single crystals used in our experiment were grown from the aqueous solution containg KIO 3 and HIO 3 by the temperature lowering method. 10, ...

The α-β and β-γ phase transitions of KIO3 crystals have been studied by Raman scattering. The two lowest optical modes of 32 cm-1 and 38 cm-1 at -180°C show remarkable softening towards the β-γ transition temperature of 72°C. The third lowest mode of 63 cm-1 at -180°C also softens markedly towards the α-β transition temperature of 212°C. This mode shows a kink near the β-γ phase transition and a strong polarization dependence. These three soft modes strongly suggest that these two phase transitions have a displacive nature.