William Gemill and South African expansion, 1920-1950

Paper presented at the Wits History Workshop: The Making of Class, 9-14 February, 198

White farms, black labour: agrarian transition in rural South Africa, 1930 - 1970

Paper presented at the Wits History Workshop: Structure and Experience in the Making of Apartheid, 6-10 February, 1990

Crosstalk between AML and stromal cells triggers acetate secretion through the metabolic rewiring of stromal cells

Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) cells interact and modulate components of their surrounding microenvironment into their own benefit. Stromal cells have been shown to support AML survival and progression through various mechanisms. Nonetheless, whether AML cells could establish beneficial metabolic interactions with stromal cells is underexplored. By using a combination of human AML cell lines and AML patient samples together with mouse stromal cells and a MLL-AF9 mouse model, here we identify a novel metabolic crosstalk between AML and stromal cells where AML cells prompt stromal cells to secrete acetate for their own consumption to feed the tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA) and lipid biosynthesis. By performing transcriptome analysis and tracer-based metabolic NMR analysis, we observe that stromal cells present a higher rate of glycolysis when co-cultured with AML cells. We also find that acetate in stromal cells is derived from pyruvate via chemical conversion under the influence of reactive oxygen species (ROS) following ROS transfer from AML to stromal cells via gap junctions. Overall, we present a unique metabolic communication between AML and stromal cells and propose two different molecular targets, ACSS2 and gap junctions, that could potentially be exploited for adjuvant therapy

South Africa's 1940s: worlds of possibilities

The 1940s was a turbulent period in the history of South Africa. It opened with parliament's bitterly contested decision to enter the war; was rocked by political turmoil; and ended with a bang, as well as a whimper, as the National Party captured political power in 1948. Most see it as a decade that led inexorably towards apartheid but the coming of Afrikaner nationalism was only one of several competing visions of the future. The decade was in fact marked by a general sense of expectancy and optimism that the end of the war would usher in a brave new world. New worlds of possibilities were envisioned on all sides. Reform, social and political, was in the air. But in the end it turned out to be a Prague spring, and the kinds of reforms that many envisaged were dealt a deathblow, only to be resurrected 40 years later with the demise of Afrikaner nationalism. These worlds of possibilities are explored more fully in this volume

Crosstalk between AML and stromal cells triggers acetate secretion through the metabolic rewiring of stromal cells

Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) cells interact and modulate components of their surrounding microenvironment into their own benefit. Stromal cells have been shown to support AML survival and progression through various mechanisms. Nonetheless, whether AML cells could establish beneficial metabolic interactions with stromal cells is underexplored. By using a combination of human AML cell lines and AML patient samples together with mouse stromal cells and a MLL-AF9 mouse model, here we identify a novel metabolic crosstalk between AML and stromal cells where AML cells prompt stromal cells to secrete acetate for their own consumption to feed the tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA) and lipid biosynthesis. By performing transcriptome analysis and tracer-based metabolic NMR analysis, we observe that stromal cells present a higher rate of glycolysis when co-cultured with AML cells. We also find that acetate in stromal cells is derived from pyruvate via chemical conversion under the influence of reactive oxygen species (ROS) following ROS transfer from AML to stromal cells via gap junctions. Overall, we present a unique metabolic communication between AML and stromal cells and propose two different molecular targets, ACSS2 and gap junctions, that could potentially be exploited for adjuvant therapy