Wide-field fluorescent nanodiamond spin measurements toward real-time large-area intracellular thermometry.

Measuring optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) of diamond nitrogen vacancy centers significantly depends on the photon detectors used. We study camera-based wide-field ODMR measurements to examine the performance in thermometry by comparing the results to those of the confocal-based ODMR detection. We show that the temperature sensitivity of the camera-based measurements can be as high as that of the confocal detection and that possible artifacts of the ODMR shift are produced owing to the complexity of the camera-based measurements. Although measurements from wide-field ODMR of nanodiamonds in living cells can provide temperature precisions consistent with those of confocal detection, the technique requires the integration of rapid ODMR measurement protocols for better precisions. Our results can aid the development of camera-based real-time large-area spin-based thermometry of living cells.

Real-time nanodiamond thermometry probing in vivo thermogenic responses.

Real-time temperature monitoring inside living organisms provides a direct measure of their biological activities. However, it is challenging to reduce the size of biocompatible thermometers down to submicrometers, despite their potential applications for the thermal imaging of subtissue structures with single-cell resolution. Here, using quantum nanothermometers based on optically accessible electron spins in nanodiamonds, we demonstrate in vivo real-time temperature monitoring inside Caenorhabditis elegans worms. We developed a microscope system that integrates a quick-docking sample chamber, particle tracking, and an error correction filter for temperature monitoring of mobile nanodiamonds inside live adult worms with a precision of ±0.22°C. With this system, we determined temperature increases based on the worms' thermogenic responses during the chemical stimuli of mitochondrial uncouplers. Our technique demonstrates the submicrometer localization of temperature information in living animals and direct identification of their pharmacological thermogenesis, which may allow for quantification of their biological activities based on temperature.

A quantum thermometric sensing and analysis system using fluorescent nanodiamonds for the evaluation of living stem cell functions according to intracellular temperature.

Intracellular thermometry techniques play an important role in elucidating the relationship between the intracellular temperature and stem cell functions. However, there have been few reports on thermometry techniques that can detect the intracellular temperature of cells during several days of incubation. In this study, we developed a novel quantum thermometric sensing and analysis system (QTAS) using fluorescent nanodiamonds (FNDs). FNDs could label adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ASCs) at high efficiency with 24 h of incubation, and no cytotoxicity was observed in ASCs labeled with less than 500 µg mL-1 of FNDs. The peak of FNDs was confirmed at approximately 2.87 GHz with the characteristic fluorescence spectra of NV centers that could be optically detected (optically detected magnetic resonance [ODMR]). The ODMR peak clearly shifted to the high-frequency side as the temperature decreased and gave a mean temperature dependence of -(77.6 ± 11.0) kHz °C-1, thus the intracellular temperature of living ASCs during several days of culturing could be precisely measured using the QTAS. Moreover, the intracellular temperature was found to influence the production of growth factors and the degree of differentiation into adipocytes and osteocytes. These data suggest that the QTAS can be used to investigate the relationship between intracellular temperature and cellular functions.

Speciation of two gobioid species, Pterogobius elapoides and Pterogobius zonoleucus revealed by multi-locus nuclear and mitochondrial DNA analyses.

To understand how geographical differentiation of gobioid fish species led to speciation, two populations of the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Japan for each of the two gobioid species, Pterogobius elapoides and Pterogobius zonoleucus, were studied in both morphological and molecular features. Analyzing mitochondrial genes, Akihito et al. (2008) suggested that P. zonoleucus does not form a monophyletic clade relative to P. elapoides, indicating that "Sea of Japan P. zonoleucus" and P. elapoides form a clade excluding "Pacific P. zonoleucus" as an outgroup. Because morphological classification clearly distinguish these two species and a gene tree may differ from a population tree, we examined three nuclear genes, S7RP, RAG1, and TBR1, in this work, in order to determine whether nuclear and mitochondrial trees are concordant, thus shedding light on the evolutionary history of this group of fishes. Importantly, nuclear trees were based on exactly the same individuals that were used for the previously published mtDNA trees. The tree based on RAG1 exon sequences suggested a closer relationship of P. elapoides with "Sea of Japan P. zonoleucus", which was in agreement with the mitochondrial tree. In contrast, S7RP and TBR1 introns recovered a monophyletic P. zonoleucus. If the mitochondrial tree represents the population tree in which P. elapoides evolved from "Sea of Japan P. zonoleucus", the population size of P. elapoides is expected to be smaller than that of "Sea of Japan P. zonoleucus". This is because a smaller population of the new species is usually differentiated from a larger population of the ancestral species when the speciation occurred. However, we found no evidence of such a small population size during the evolution of P. elapoides. Therefore, we conclude that the monophyletic P. zonoleucus as suggested by S7RP and TBR1 most likely represents the population tree, which is consistent with the morphological classification. In this case, it is possible that the incongruent mitochondrial and RAG1 trees are either due to incomplete lineage sorting of ancestral polymorphisms or to introgression by hybridization. Because of a smaller effective population size of mitochondria compared with nuclear genes, the introgression might be a more likely scenario in explaining the incongruent mitochondrial tree than the incomplete lineage sorting. Because of smaller effective population size of "Sea of Japan P. zonoleucus" than that of P. elapoides, the direction of the introgression was likely to be from the latter to the former. This evolutionary work of the two gobioid species highlights the need of analyzing multiple gene trees for both nuclear and mitochondrial genes as well as scrutinization of morphological characteristics to obtain a population tree representing the organismal evolutionary history.

Evolution of Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Japan populations of the gobiid species, Pterogobius elapoides and Pterogobius zonoleucus, based on molecular and morphological analyses.

Pterogobius elapoides and Pterogobius zonoleucus are common free-swimming gobies found in rocky and weedy shores along the temperate coast of Japan. We collected individuals of both species from 23 locations around the coast of Japan and compared the mitochondrial nucleotide sequences of two gene regions, CytB and ND2. Phylogenetic trees constructed using the neighbor-joining, maximum parsimony, and maximum likelihood methods consistently indicated that all 125 samples of the two species, which are collected from a variety of locations in Japan, can be clearly divided into the following four clades: "Pacific P. elapoides" (Pa-ela), "Sea of Japan P. elapoides" (SJ-ela), "Pacific P. zonoleucus" (Pa-zon), and "Sea of Japan P. zonoleucus" (SJ-zon). These four monophyletic clades were supported with very high bootstrap values. Although Pa-ela and SJ-ela composed a monophyletic clade, it is noteworthy that the two clades of P. elapoides also formed a monophyletic group together with SJ-zon with a bootstrap value of 95% and 97% by the maximum likelihood and neighbor-joining methods, respectively. We observed several morphological differences between Pa-ela and SJ-ela, including; 1) six dark bands on the body in the former versus seven dark bands in the latter and 2) more pectoral-fin rays numbering 21-24 (mode 22) in the latter compared to the former (19-22, mode 21). Furthermore, the scatter plots of scores on principal components 1 and 2 based on the morphometric characters roughly separated the populations from each other. Moreover, we documented the following morphological differences between Pa-zon and SJ-zon for the first time; 1) six light bands on the body in the former versus five light bands in the latter and 2) the light bands from both eyes forming a complete U-shaped marking on the occipital region occurred in 55% of the specimens in the former versus 16% in the latter. However, no significant differences were found in the morphometric characters between the two populations of P. zonoleucus. The estimated divergence time of the two P. zonoleucus populations was 15.06+/-2.72 (mean+/-1 S.E.) times earlier than that of the two P. elapoides populations. However, the morphological differences between the two populations of the former were much smaller than those of the latter. An explanation for this obvious discrepancy between morphological and molecular features is proposed from an evolutionary point of view.

Rapid evolution of major histocompatibility complex class I genes in primates generates new disease alleles in humans via hitchhiking diversity.

A plausible explanation for many MHC-linked diseases is lacking. Sequencing of the MHC class I region (coding units or full contigs) in several human and nonhuman primate haplotypes allowed an analysis of single nucleotide variations (SNV) across this entire segment. This diversity was not evenly distributed. It was rather concentrated within two gene-rich clusters. These were each centered, but importantly not limited to, the antigen-presenting HLA-A and HLA-B/-C loci. Rapid evolution of MHC-I alleles, as evidenced by an unusually high number of haplotype-specific (hs) and hypervariable (hv) (which could not be traced to a single species or haplotype) SNVs within the classical MHC-I, seems to have not only hitchhiked alleles within nearby genes, but also hitchhiked deleterious mutations in these same unrelated loci. The overrepresentation of a fraction of these hvSNV (hv1SNV) along with hsSNV, as compared to those that appear to have been maintained throughout primate evolution (trans-species diversity; tsSNV; included within hv2SNV) tends to establish that the majority of the MHC polymorphism is de novo (species specific). This is most likely reminiscent of the fact that these hsSNV and hv1SNV have been selected in adaptation to the constantly evolving microbial antigenic repertoire.

Comparative sequencing of human and chimpanzee MHC class I regions unveils insertions/deletions as the major path to genomic divergence.

Despite their high degree of genomic similarity, reminiscent of their relatively recent separation from each other ( approximately 6 million years ago), the molecular basis of traits unique to humans vs. their closest relative, the chimpanzee, is largely unknown. This report describes a large-scale single-contig comparison between human and chimpanzee genomes via the sequence analysis of almost one-half of the immunologically critical MHC. This 1,750,601-bp stretch of DNA, which encompasses the entire class I along with the telomeric part of the MHC class III regions, corresponds to an orthologous 1,870,955 bp of the human HLA region. Sequence analysis confirms the existence of a high degree of sequence similarity between the two species. However, and importantly, this 98.6% sequence identity drops to only 86.7% taking into account the multiple insertions/deletions (indels) dispersed throughout the region. This is functionally exemplified by a large deletion of 95 kb between the virtual locations of human MICA and MICB genes, which results in a single hybrid chimpanzee MIC gene, in a segment of the MHC genetically linked to species-specific handling of several viral infections (HIV/SIV, hepatitis B and C) as well as susceptibility to various autoimmune diseases. Finally, if generalized, these data suggest that evolution may have used the mechanistically more drastic indels instead of the more subtle single-nucleotide substitutions for shaping the recently emerged primate species.