Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) is an enzyme that inactivates catecholamines, including levodopa. An amino acid change (Val-108-Met) in the COMT protein has been found to result in a change from high to low enzyme activity. In the present study, we genotyped 121 Japanese patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and 100 controls. Comparison of the allele frequencies revealed that homozygosity for the low-activity allele was significantly more common among PD patients than the controls (p = 0.047, odds ratio = 3.23). In addition, homozygosity for the low-activity allele was overrepresented in PD patients that exhibited the ‘wearing-off’ phenomenon (p = 0.045, odds ratio = 3.82) or dyskinesia (p = 0.030, odds ratio = 4.80) compared with controls, although these differences were not significant after Bonferroni’s correction. Our results may help understand the mechanism that cause complications of levodopa therapy in PD patients.

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The Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan A novel facultatively anaerobic bacterium, strain HC45 T , was isolated from sediment of a brackish meromictic lake in Japan, Lake Harutori. Cells were pleomorphic, and filamentous bodies were 5-100 mm in length. For growth, the optimum pH was 7.0 and the optimum temperature was 45-50 8C. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 71 mol%. iso-C 15 : 0 and anteiso-C 15 : 0 were the major components in the cellular fatty acid profile. The predominant respiratory quinone was MK-7. Strain HC45 T shared very low 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity with cultivated strains (#85 %). Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that the isolate was distantly related to members of the family Symbiobacteriaceae and family XVII Incertae Sedis in the class Clostridia, and they formed a cluster separate from canonical species of the phylum Firmicutes. These results indicated that strain HC45 T should not be placed in any existing class of the phylum Firmicutes. On the basis of phylogenetic and phenotypic characterization, Limnochorda pilosa gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed with HC45 T (5NBRC 110152 T 5DSM 28787 T ) as the type strain, as the first representative of novel taxa, Limnochordales ord. nov., Limnochordaceae fam. nov. in Limnochordia classis. nov.

The genus Desulfotomaculumis a heterogeneous group of spore-forming sulfate-reducing bacteria. The type species of the genus is Desulfotomaculum nigrificans (Approved Lists 1980) emend. Visser et al. 2014. The results of phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that the genus Desulfotomaculum already has lost the clustering monophyly and was segregated into some distinct groups with low sequence similarity. Major features of the type strains in these groups were compared, and four novel genera, Desulfallas gen. nov., Desulfofundulus gen. nov., Desulfofarcimen gen. nov. and Desulfohalotomaculum gen. nov. were proposed to accommodate species transferred from the genus Desulfotomaculum.