Our daily life is realized by the complex orchestrations of diverse brain functions, including perception, decision-making, and action. The essential goal of cognitive neuroscience is to reveal the complete representations underlying these functions. Recent studies have characterised perceptual experiences using encoding models. However, few attempts have been made to build a quantitative model describing the cortical organization of multiple active, cognitive processes. Here, we measure brain activity using fMRI, while subjects perform 103 cognitive tasks, and examine cortical representations with two voxel-wise encoding models. A sparse task-type model reveals a hierarchical organization of cognitive tasks, together with their representation in cognitive space and cortical mapping. A cognitive factor model utilizing continuous, metadata-based intermediate features predicts brain activity and decodes tasks, even under novel conditions. Collectively, our results show the usability of quantitative models of cognitive processes, thus providing a framework for the comprehensive cortical organization of human cognition.

Higher plants efficiently conserve energy ATP in cellulose biosynthesis by expression of sucrose synthase, in which the high free energy between glucose and fructose in sucrose can be conserved and used for the synthesis of UDP-glucose. A mixture of sucrose synthase and bacterial cellulose synthase proceeded to form UDP-glucose from sucrose plus UDP and to synthesize 1,4-␤-glucan from the sugar nucleotide. The mutant sucrose synthase, which mimics phosphorylated sucrose synthase, enhanced the reaction efficiency (V max ͞K m ) on 1,4-␤-glucan synthesis, in which the incorporation of glucose from sucrose was increased at low concentrations of UDP. Because UDP formed after glucosyl transfer can be directly recycled with sucrose synthase, UDPglucose formed appears to show high turnover with cellulose synthase in the coupled reaction. The expression of sucrose synthase in Acetobacter xylinum not only changed sucrose metabolism but also enhanced cellulose production, in which UDP-glucose was efficiently formed from sucrose. Although the level of UDP-glucose in the transformant with mutant sucrose synthase cDNA was only 1.6-fold higher than that in plasmid-free cells, the level of UDP was markedly decreased in the transformant. The results show that sucrose synthase serves to channel carbon directly from sucrose to cellulose and recycles UDP, which prevents UDP build-up in cellulose biosynthesis.

Two xyloglucan-specific endo-␤-1,4-glucanases (xyloglucanases [XEGs]), XEG5 and XEG74, with molecular masses of 40 kDa and 105 kDa, respectively, were isolated from the gram-positive bacterium Paenibacillus sp. strain KM21, which degrades tamarind seed xyloglucan. The genes encoding these XEGs were cloned and sequenced. Based on their amino acid sequences, the catalytic domains of XEG5 and XEG74 were classified in the glycoside hydrolase families 5 and 74, respectively. XEG5 is the first xyloglucanase belonging to glycoside hydrolase family 5. XEG5 lacks a carbohydrate-binding module, while XEG74 has an X2 module and a family 3 type carbohydrate-binding module at its C terminus. The two XEGs were expressed in Escherichia coli, and recombinant forms of the enzymes were purified and characterized. Both XEGs had endoglucanase active only toward xyloglucan and not toward Avicel, carboxymethylcellulose, barley ␤-1,3/1,4-glucan, or xylan. XEG5 is a typical endo-type enzyme that randomly cleaves the xyloglucan main chain, while XEG74 has dual endo-and exo-mode activities or processive endo-mode activity. XEG5 digested the xyloglucan oligosaccharide XXXG XXXG to produce XXXG, whereas XEG74 digestion of XXXGXXXG resulted in XXX, XXXG, and GXXXG, suggesting that this enzyme cleaves the glycosidic bond of unbranched Glc residues. Analyses using various oligosaccharide structures revealed that unique structures of xyloglucan oligosaccharides can be prepared with XEG74.

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e Cellulases are enzymes that normally digest cellulose; however, some are known to play essential roles in cellulose biosynthesis. Although some endogenous cellulases of plants and cellulose-producing bacteria are reportedly involved in cellulose production, their functions in cellulose production are unknown. In this study, we demonstrated that disruption of the cellulase (carboxymethylcellulase) gene causes irregular packing of de novo-synthesized fibrils in Gluconacetobacter xylinus, a cellulose-producing bacterium. Cellulose production was remarkably reduced and small amounts of particulate material were accumulated in the culture of a cmcax-disrupted G. xylinus strain (F2-2). The particulate material was shown to contain cellulose by both solid-state 13 C nuclear magnetic resonance analysis and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis. Electron microscopy revealed that the cellulose fibrils produced by the F2-2 cells were highly twisted compared with those produced by control cells. This hypertwisting of the fibrils may reduce cellulose synthesis in the F2-2 strains.

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