Regulation of cell proliferation is crucial for establishing the shape of plant leaves. We have identified (), a loss-of-function mutant of which exhibits a narrowed- and rolled-leaf phenotype in rice. was found to be an ortholog of (), which positively regulates cell proliferation. The reduced leaf size of plants with enlarged cells and the increased size ofoverexpressing leaves with normal-sized cells indicate that is a positive regulator of leaf proliferation and that mutation triggers a compensation syndrome, as does Expression analysis revealed that is predominantly expressed on the epidermis of leaf primordia, which is different from the location of A protein movement assay demonstrated that MKB3 moves from anexpressing domain to a non-expressing domain, which is required for normal leaf development. Our results suggest that rice and have conserved functions and effects on leaf development. However, the expression pattern of and direction of protein movement are different between rice and, which might reflect differences in leaf primordia development in these two species.

The results of this study suggest that patients with bipolar disorder may exhibit preattentive auditory dysfunction indexed by reduced pitch-MMNm responses. Pitch-MMNm could be a potential trait marker reflecting the global severity of bipolar disorder.

Aim: Neurocognitive impairment is one of the core symptoms of bipolar disorder (BD). The MATRICS Cognitive Consensus Battery (MCCB) is a potential consensus assessment tool to evaluate cognitive function in patients with BD. Here, we report on cognitive deficits evaluated using the MCCB Japanese version (MCCB-J) in euthymic Japanese patients with BD, and compare them with scores in previous studies. Methods:We compared neurocognitive function in 25 patients with euthymic BD and 53 healthy controls (HC). Additionally, we searched all available databases for studies that have evaluated cognitive function in BD using the MCCB, and conducted a meta-analysis.Results: Canonical discriminant analysis revealed significant differences in MCCB-J domain scores between BD and HC. Patients with BD performed significantly worse on visual learning, social cognition, speed of processing, and MCCB composite scores. Our meta-analysis revealed that patients with BD performed worse than HC, as reflected by MCCB composite scores and scores on all seven cognitive domains. However, there are differences in the cognitive deficits identified in previous studies compared with our participants, particularly social cognition. Conclusion:As reported in previous studies, neurocognitive deficits were observed in Japanese euthymic BD patients assessed using the MCCB-J. Further study is needed to clarify whether differences in social cognition between this study and previous studies are a result of coping mechanisms for social settings in Japanese populations.