| Budget Amount *help |
¥4,420,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,020,000)
Fiscal Year 2013: ¥2,730,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥630,000)
Fiscal Year 2012: ¥1,690,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000、Indirect Cost: ¥390,000)
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| Research Abstract |
Caenorhabditis elegans, a model organism has four genes that encode the enzymes degrading D-amino acids oxidatively. One of them encodes D-amino acid oxidase, which degrades neutral and basic D-amino acids, while the other three are D-aspartate oxidases, which degrade acidic D-amino acids. In the mutants defective in each gene, several phenotypic changes are observed such as decreased brood size, along with an increase in D-amino acid contents in the body. In this work, the quality of germ cells and the neurotransmission in the mutants were investigated and compared with those in the wild-type strain. In addition, several genes those expressions are altered in the mutants were identified by DNA microarray analysis, and subsequently the contents of metabolites in the metabolic pathway involved in the identified genes were determined and compared with those of the wild-type. Based on these results, the physiological roles of D-amino acids and their degradative enzymes were discussed.
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