Complete Genome Sequences of Four Bacteria Isolated from the Gut of a Spiny Ant (Polyrhachis lamellidens).

We isolated and sequenced the complete genomes of four bacteria from the gut contents of a spiny ant (Polyrhachis lamellidens) sampled from a primeval beech forest in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. The isolates belong to the genera Tsukamurella, Enterococcus, Lysinibacillus, and Streptomyces and provide insights into the functional roles of microbiomes of ants.

Initial parasitic behaviour of the temporary social parasitic ant Polyrhachis lamellidens can be induced by host-like cuticles in laboratory environment.

Polyrhachis lamellidens is a temporary social parasitic species. When a newly mated queen encounters a host worker, it opens its jaws and then mounts and rubs the body of the host worker, called rubbing behaviour. This behaviour is different from aggressive behaviour and is considered to be a preparatory action before invasion of the host colony. However, it is unclear what cues trigger rubbing behaviour. Therefore, in this study, we used glass beads that imitated the insect body surfaces and searched for triggers. Although P. lamellidens did not respond to the cuticular compounds only, cuticular compounds and chitin coatings on glass beads elicited responses that were similar to those towards live samples. The rubbing behaviour of P. lamellidens was elicited in response to a cuticle-like surface that mimicked a procuticle by combining the compounds with chitin. These results suggest that host recognition and nest-mate recognition are supported by different mechanisms. This article has an associated First Person interview with the first author of the paper.

Complete Genome Sequence of Halomonas meridiana Strain Eplume2, Isolated from a Hydrothermal Plume in the Northeast Pacific Ocean.

Halomonas meridiana strain Eplume2 (ATCC BAA-804) is a Gram-negative bacterium isolated from hydrothermal plume seawater in the Northeast Pacific Ocean at a depth of 2,000 m. Here, we report the complete genome sequence of this strain, which has a total size of 4.12 Mbp and a 56.6% G+C content.

Access to Chiral Silicon Centers for Application to Circularly Polarized Luminescence Materials.

Asymmetric arylation of secondary silanes catalyzed by a Pd-chiral phosphoramidite complex was developed for application to low-molecular-weight circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) materials. The asymmetric arylation provided a convenient, efficient synthetic method for a variety of chiral tertiary silanes (2-21), which were key intermediates for preparing the quaternary silicon center. A stepwise, one-pot procedure was used to transform the appropriate aryl iodide to the quaternary silane (22) with good yield and enantioselectivity. Among compounds synthesized in this work, four optically pure tertiary silanes (18-21) were selected to investigate the relationship between the structure and optical properties. Optically pure (S,S)-21 displayed the highest CPL emission with a high fluorescence quantum yield (glum: +0.008, ΦF: 0.42). This simple molecular design provides new strategies for developing small organic CPL dyes.

Pd-catalyzed synthesis of symmetrical and unsymmetrical siloxanes.

A palladium-catalyzed arylation of hydrosiloxanes was developed for the synthesis of symmetrical and unsymmetrical siloxanes. Reactive functional moieties such as hydroxy or cyano groups were able to tolerate the reaction conditions and several novel unsymmetrical siloxanes were synthesized in moderate to high yield.

Synthesis of optically active tertiary silanes via Pd-catalyzed enantioselective arylation of secondary silanes.

We herein describe the development of an efficient enantioselective catalytic system that promotes the arylation of secondary silanes. Our method involves treatment of secondary silanes and aryl iodides with a Pd(2)(dba)(3)-asymmetric phosphoramidite ligand system to afford optically active tertiary silanes with good enantioselectivities.