Bacterial urea production and decomposition were studied in samples from coastal waters in the Southern California Bight (the Bight), USA, and an estuarine system of the Mankyung and Dongjin rivers (MD estuary) in Korea. Bacterial urea production ranged from undetectable to 139 nM d-', and the mean value of bacterial urea production (58 nM d", n = 6) was equivalent to 35-91 % of the estimated phytoplankton N demand in the Bight. The rates of bacterial production of urea were 2 orders of magnitude higher than the bacterial urea decomposition rates. Consequently, bacteria were consistently net producers of urea in the euphotic zone. The concentration-dependence of urea decomposition showed the presence of a high affinity but low capacity system (K,+S,,: 26 to 33 nM, V,,,: 3 to 11 nM d-l). The low K, values indicate that in typical seawater samples, which have >l00 nM urea, the bacterial ureolysis system is always near-saturated. The significance of bacteria as urea producers should be incorporated into models of nitrogen regeneration in surface waters.

Our study showed that children with CIDP have some distinguishing features from adults in terms of clinical course and response to treatment.

Jagged1 (JAG1) is a Notch ligand that contact-dependently activates Notch receptors and regulates cancer progression. The JAG1 intracellular domain (JICD1) is generated from JAG1, such as the formation of NOTCH1 intracellular domain (NICD1), however, the role of JICD1 in tumorigenicity has not been comprehensively elucidated. Herein, we revealed that JICD1 induced astrocytes to acquire several cancer stem cell properties, including tumor formation, invasiveness, stemness, and resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The transcriptome, ChIP-sequencing, and proteomic analyses revealed that JICD1 increased SOX2 expression by forming a transcriptional complex with DDX17, SMAD3, and TGIF2. Furthermore, JICD1-driven tumorigenicity was directly regulated by SOX2. Therefore, our results demonstrated that, like NICD1, JICD1 acts as a transcriptional cofactor in the formation of the DDX17/SMAD3/TGIF2 transcriptional complex, leading to oncogenic transformation.

The effect of the pretreatment of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate on the growth of transparent conducting Ga-doped ZnO (GZO) thin film was investigated. Because of its high gas and moisture absorption and easy gas permeation, PET substrate was annealed at 100 degrees C in a vacuum chamber prior to the sputtering growth of GZO thin film for the outgassing of impurity gases. GZO thin film was deposited on the pretreated PET substrate by rf-magnetron sputtering and significantly improved electrical properties of GZO thin film was achieved. Electrical and structural characterizations of the GZO thin films were carried out by 4-point probe, Hall measurement, and scanning electron microscopy, and the effects of the pretreatment on the improved properties of GZO thin films were discussed. This result is not only useful to PET substrate, but also could be applicable to other plastic substrates which inevitably containing the moisture and impurity gases.