This review presents a summary and evaluations of the superconducting properties of the layered ruthenate Sr 2 RuO 4 as they are known in the autumn of 2011. This paper appends the main progress that has been made since the preceding review by Mackenzie and Maeno was published in 2003. Here, special focus is placed on the critical evaluation of the spin-triplet, odd-parity pairing scenario applied to Sr 2 RuO 4 . After an introduction to superconductors with possible odd-parity pairing, accumulated evidence for the pairing symmetry of Sr 2 RuO 4 is examined. Then, significant recent progress on the theoretical approaches to the superconducting pairing by Coulomb repulsion is reviewed. A section is devoted to some experimental properties of Sr 2 RuO 4 that seem to defy simple explanations in terms of currently available spin-triplet scenario. The next section deals with some new developments using eutectic boundaries and micro-crystals, which reveals novel superconducting phenomena related to chiral edge states, odd-frequency pairing states, and half-fluxoid states. Some of these properties are intimately connected with the properties as a topological superconductor. The article concludes with a summary of knowledge emerged from the study of Sr 2 RuO 4 that are now more widely applied to understand the physics of other unconventional superconductors, as well as with a brief discussion of relatively unexplored but promising areas of ongoing and future studies of Sr 2 RuO 4 .KEYWORDS: Sr 2 RuO 4 , ruthenate, spin-triplet superconductivity, topological superconductor Spin-Triplet Superconductors Candidates of spin-triplet superconductorsIn the last three decades, and particularly since the discovery of high-transition-temperature (high-T c ) superconductivity of the cuprates, 1) studies of ''unconventional'' superconductivity have been one of the main topics in condensed-matter physics. Here we designate the term ''unconventional'' as the pairing based on non-phonon mechanisms.2) The unconventional superconductivity is mainly found in heavy-fermion superconductors (since 1978), 3) Unconventional superconductivity is characterized by the anisotropic gap function or order parameter which is integrated to be zero or a small value due to the variations of the wave function ''phase'', in contrast to an ordinary s-wave state. In many of them, including high-T c cuprates and iron pnictides, the electrons are clearly paired in spinsinglet states. In this point of view, they are similar to conventional s-wave superconductors, in which the spindegrees of freedom is lost in the charged superfluids. Spintriplet superfluid states are fully established in the Fermi liquid 3 He, 7,8) for which spin and mass supercurrents emerge in the charge-neutral superfluids. The question is then whether or not spin-triplet superconductors exist, and what novel superconducting properties they may exhibit due to their charge and spin supercurrents.There are several classes of candidates of spin-triplet superconductors represented in Table I. W...

In this article we review essential natures of superconductivity in strongly correlated electron systems (SCES) from a universal point of view. First we summarize experimental results on SCES by focusing on typical materials such as cuprates, BEDT-TTF organic superconductors, and ruthenate Sr 2 RuO 4 . Experimental results on other important SCES, heavy-fermion systems, will be reviewed separately. The formalism to discuss superconducting properties of SCES is shown based on the Dyson-Gor'kov equations. Here two typical methods to evaluate the vertex function are introduced: One is the perturbation calculation up to the third-order terms with respect to electron correlation. Another is the fluctuationexchange (FLEX) method based on the Baym-Kadanoff conserving approximation. The results obtained by the FLEX method are in good agreement with those obtained by the perturbation calculation. In fact, a reasonable value of T c for spin-singlet d-wave superconductivity is successfully reproduced by using both methods for SCES such as cuprates and BEDT-TTF organic superconductors. As for Sr 2 RuO 4 exhibiting spin-triplet superconductivity, it is quite difficult to describe the superconducting transition by using the FLEX calculation. However, the superconductivity can be naturally explained by the perturbation calculation, since the third-order terms in the anomalous self-energy play the essential role to realize the triplet superconductivity. Another important purpose of this article is to review anomalous electronic properties of SCES near the Mott transition, since the nature of the normal state in SCES has been one of main issues to be discussed. Especially, we focus on pseudogap phenomena observed in under-doped cuprates and organic superconductors. A variety of scenarios to explain the pseudogap phenomena based on the superconducting and/or spin fluctuations are critically reviewed and examined in comparison with experimental results. According to the recent theory, superconducting fluctuations, inherent in the quasi-two-dimensional and strong-coupling superconductors, are the origin of the pseudogap formation. In these compounds, superconducting fluctuations induce a kind of resonance between the Fermi-liquid quasi-particle and the Cooper-pairing states. This resonance gives rise to a large damping effect of quasi-particles and reduces the spectral weight near the Fermi energy. We discuss the magnetic and transport properties as well as the single-particle spectra in the pseudogap state by the microscopic theory of the superconducting fluctuations. As for heavy-fermion superconductors, experimental results are reviewed and several theoretical analyses on the mechanism are provided based on the same viewpoint as explained above.

N-CoR (nuclear hormone receptor corepressor) was identified originally as a corepressor that binds to, and mediates transcriptional repression by, nuclear hormone receptors (Hö rlein et al. 1995). Thyroid-hormone and retinoic-acid receptors (TR and RAR) of the nuclear hormone receptor family actively repress the transcription of target genes in the absence of ligand (Chambon 1994;Mangelsdorf et al. 1995). Transcriptional repression is mediated by a conserved region in the aminoterminal part of the ligand-binding domain of TR (Baniahmad et al. 1995). N-CoR binds to the ligand-binding domain, termed the Co-R box, and, thereby, mediates transcriptional repression (Hö rlein et al. 1995). N-CoR is a large protein with a molecular mass of 270,000 (Mr 270K), and contains three repressor domains in its amino-terminal region (Hö rlein et al. 1995). Another corepressor, SMRT, which also binds to the Co-R box, shows striking homology to N-CoR (Chen and Evans 1995). N-CoR also forms a complex with mammalian Sin3 orthologs (mSin3A and mSin3B), which bind to another repressor, Mad (Alland et al. 1997;Hassing et al. 1997;Heinzel et al. 1997;Laherty et al. 1997;Nagy et al. 1997). The basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) proteins of the Mad family act as transcriptional repressors after heterodimerization with Max (Ayer et al. 1993). N-CoR is required for Mad-induced transcriptional repression. The same target sequence of Mad/Max, the so-called E-box, is also recognized by a heterodimer of Myc/Max that activates transcription. It is believed that transcriptional activation of a group of target genes by Myc/Max enhances cellular proliferation or transformation, whereas transcriptional repression of the same target genes by Mad/Max leads to suppression of proliferation or induction of terminal differentiation in a wide range of cell types Chin et al. 1995;Roussel et al. 1996)

[Keywords: Myb; HIPK2; NLK; TAK1; phosphorylation; degradation] Supplemental material is available at http://www.genesdev.org.

Adipocyte differentiation is an important component of obesity, but how hormonal cues mediate adipocyte differentiation remains elusive. BMP stimulates in vitro adipocyte differentiation, but the role of BMP in adipogenesis in vivo is unknown. Drosophila Schnurri (Shn) is required for the signaling of Decapentaplegic, a Drosophila BMP homolog, via interaction with the Mad/Medea transcription factors. Vertebrates have three Shn orthologs, Shn-1, -2, and -3. Here, we report that Shn-2(-/-) mice have reduced white adipose tissue and that Shn-2(-/-) mouse embryonic fibroblasts cannot efficiently differentiate into adipocytes in vitro. Shn-2 enters the nucleus upon BMP-2 stimulation and, in cooperation with Smad1/4 and C/EBPalpha, induces the expression of PPARgamma2, a key transcription factor for adipocyte differentiation. Shn-2 directly interacts with both Smad1/4 and C/EBPalpha on the PPARgamma2 promoter. These results indicate that Shn-2-mediated BMP signaling has a critical role in adipogenesis.