-Inhibitors of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase occasionally cause myopathy characterized by weakness, pain, and elevated serum creatine phosphokinase (CK). In this study, we investigated the effects of simvastatin, an HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor, on the viability and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) signaling in differentiating C2C12 mouse myoblast cells. Simvastatin decreased cell viability and CK activity, a marker of myogenesis, in differentiating cells in a dosedependent manner. Although the simvastatin-induced decrease in viability in proliferating and differentiated cells was completely abolished by mevalonate or geranylgeranyl-pyrophosphate, the inhibitory effects of simvastatin in differentiating cells were not abolished by mevalonate or isoprenoid derivatives of mevalonate. Moreover, the sensitivity of differentiating cells to simvastatin regarding cell viability was about 7 times higher than that of proliferating cells. After induction of differentiation in the presence of 1 μM simvastatin for 2 days, IGF-1-induced activation of ERK1/2 and Akt was significantly decreased. Although mRNA expression of the IGF-1 receptor β-chain (IGF-1Rβ) did not change, protein level of the 200 kDa IGF-1Rβ precursor was significantly increased by simvastatin in a dose-dependent manner. Mevalonate did not abolish the effect of simvastatin on IGF-1Rβ expression. These results suggest that simvastatin decreases IGF-1 signaling via a regulation of the post-translational modification of IGF-1Rβ in an HMG-CoA reductase inhibition-independent manner.

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The World Robot Summit is a robot Olympics and aims to be held in a different country every four years from 2020. The concept of the Plant Disaster Prevention challenge is daily inspections, checks, and emergency response in industrial plants, and in this competition, robots must carry out these types of missions in a mock-up plant. The concept of the Tunnel Disaster Response and Recovery challenge is emergency response to tunnel disasters, and is a simulation competition whereby teams compete to show their ability to deal with disasters, by collecting information and removing debris. The Standard Disaster Robotics challenge assesses, in the form of a contest, the standard performance levels of a robot that are necessary for disaster prevention and emergency response. The World Robot Summit Preliminary Competition was held at Tokyo Big Sight in October 2018, and 36 teams participated in the Disaster Robotics Category. UGVs and UAVs contended the merits of new technology for solving complex problems, using core technologies such as mobility, sensing, recognition, performing operations, human interface, autonomous intelligence etc., as well as system integration and implementation of strategies for completing missions, gaining high-level results.

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