Overview and breeding strategies of table potato production in Sweden and the Fennoscandian region

Recent reductions in the public commitment to potato breeding in Sweden, Norway and Finland call for an evaluation of the current situation regarding the commercial basis for, and structure of, potato breeding in these countries. We here review the extent of cultivation, processing and consumption of table potato in Sweden, as well as provide an overview of the potato breeding tools and programmes in the three countries. We then discuss various strategies to provide long-term stability and increase the impact of public potato breeding, based on the similar overall conditions for potato cultivation across the Fennoscandian region. The conclusions are twofold; first, an increased long-term funding of the public potato breeding programmes is necessary to maintain a minimum level of material, and second, a coordination of the breeding activities in the Fennoscandian region would be of great benefit to all involved stakeholders and allow an enhancement of the current national breeding programmes. In addition, we propose a minimum first field year population size for potato breeding

Transcriptional Analysis of Cell-Sorted B-cell Lymphomas From High-throughput to Focused Identification of Molecular Targets

B cell lymphomas (BCLs) are a group of severe cancers, afflicting both men and women at different ages. Gene expression profiling (GEP), have during the latest decades fundamentally contributed to a better classification and biological understanding of the different BCLs. Most studies using GEP have analyzed mRNA from tumor tissue constituted of both tumor cells and non-malignant bystander cells. This thesis is based on four original papers where pure, cell-sorted BCL cells are analyzed by GEP. This procedure allows identification of differences in tumor cells rather than variations due to cellular composition. These studies focus on identifying new prognostic, diagnostic and/or functional markers for BCLs, using four different approaches. In the first study, GEP of pure mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) cells were used to identify MCL-associated targets genes. Subsequent immunohistochemistry (IHC) using antibodies raised against a unique protein epitope signature (PrEST) was performed. Using this high-throughput strategy we were able to identify proteins either uniquely or highly expressed in MCL compared to normal lymphoid tissue. This study confirmed the usage of transcriptional screening to identify molecular tumor-associated targets, as well as suggest the PrEST-approach as a novel efficient technique to identify molecular targets with both a known and unknown identity. The indolent growing follicular lymphoma (FL) cells are dependent on interplay with cells in the microenvironment for survival. We analyzed, in a second study, pure FL cells for highly expressed genes encoding surface bound proteins. An aberrant expression of CX3CR1 on the surface, not only on FL cells but also on tumor cells in several other BCLs was identified. CX3CR1 is suggested to be involved in site-specific dissemination, the possibility to use CX3CR1 as a target for antibody-mediated intervention needs however further investigations. The indolent FL often transforms to diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL-tr). Previous studies analyzing tumor tissue for markers involved in this high-grade transformation have revealed results with low concordance. In a, we analyzed purified FL and DLBCL-tr tumor cells and found that large inter-tumor heterogeneity still was observed. Despite the heterogenous gene expression, this third study identified distinct differences between tumor entities rather than differences due to various composition of bystander cell and two proteins, galectin-3 and NEK2 pinpointing a subgroup of DLBCL-tr over FL were identified. In the last study, we used a unique material of eight different B cell lymphomas and identified for the first time unique transcription factors for each of these highly purified entities. The identified TFs are not only potential new molecular targets but are also partly responsible for the differences in global gene expression in the different BCLs as demonstrated by unsupervised clustering. In conclusion, analyzing pure lymphoma cells, dramatically enhance the resolution of analyses and allowed for identification of tumor-cell related genes using different approaches. Downstream analyzes of these genes allow for identification of proteins with a major biological importance for BCLs and potentially of new biomarkers

”Jag är bra på att rita, du är bra på att skriva och ja, vi kompar ihop" : En intervjustudie om lärares attityder till barns samlärande

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka lärares attityder till barns samlärande. Hur förhåller de sig till detta fenomen, hur beskriver de att de använder sig av samlärande och hur tycker de att det fungerar? Som metod i denna kvalitativa studie har intervjuer använts. Tio lärare har deltagit i studien. I resultatet framkom att lärarna har en positiv attityd till samlärande, men att det finns flera utmaningar som försvårar användandet i den praktiska verksamheten. Vi har kommit fram till att samlärandets utrymme till stor del styrs av lärarens attityder, vilket ofta formats av deras tidigare erfarenheter. Samlärande har stora vinster men är något som kräver träning för att kunna användas på ett givande sätt

”Jag är bra på att rita, du är bra på att skriva och ja, vi kompar ihop" : En intervjustudie om lärares attityder till barns samlärande

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka lärares attityder till barns samlärande. Hur förhåller de sig till detta fenomen, hur beskriver de att de använder sig av samlärande och hur tycker de att det fungerar? Som metod i denna kvalitativa studie har intervjuer använts. Tio lärare har deltagit i studien. I resultatet framkom att lärarna har en positiv attityd till samlärande, men att det finns flera utmaningar som försvårar användandet i den praktiska verksamheten. Vi har kommit fram till att samlärandets utrymme till stor del styrs av lärarens attityder, vilket ofta formats av deras tidigare erfarenheter. Samlärande har stora vinster men är något som kräver träning för att kunna användas på ett givande sätt

Revisorns oberoende - Skillnader mellan män och kvinnor?

Examensarbetets titel: Revisorns oberoende – skillnader mellan män och kvinnor? Seminariedatum: 2012-05-28 Ämne/kurs: FEKN90 Examensarbete magisternivå, företagsekonomi: revision, 30 hp Författare: Sofie Oddsson, Ulrika Andreasson Handledare: Kristina Artsberg Fem nyckelord: könsskillnader, revisor, Revisorsnämnden, disciplinärende och oberoende. Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur tidigare påvisade könsskillnader visar sig inom revisionsyrket. Metod: Uppsatsen bygger på en kvantitativ forskningsstrategi med kvalitativa inslag. Den empiriska studien utgår från framtagna undersökningsområden, utifrån presenterad teori. En deduktiv ansats har tillämpats. Teoretiskt perspektiv: Uppsatsen utgår från aktuell psykologisk- och ekonomisk teori som behandlar det valda uppsatsämnet. Empiri: Empirin består av kvalitativ data som översatts i numeriska tal för att undersöka generella skillnader mellan könen i revisionsbranschen. Underlag till studien har varit disciplinärenden från Revisorsnämnden. Resultat: Studien visar på skillnader till en viss del mellan kvinnor och män. Författarna kan dock inte signifikant säkerställa att det finns generella skillnader mellan könen inom revisionsbranschen

Delineating diversity and specificity of an IgE-encoding transcriptome

IgE is a minor component of the humoral immune response but one that is of extensive medical importance as it is a major mediator of type 1 hypersensitivity or allergy. Allergy affects up to 30% of the population in the industrialized countries, consequently affecting the quality of life of millions of people. In this study we sought to investigate the IgE repertoire and its evolution as it occurs in grass pollen allergic subjects. For this purpose, a human IgE library was constructed by combining the IgE heavy chain genes with kappa and lambda light chain genes, which were isolated from peripheral blood B-cells of an individual with timothy allergy. The library was screened, using phage display, against a panel of six different timothy allergens. This procedure allowed us to delineate the specificity of more than 25% of the IgE-producing transcripts in this allergic individual. Apart from providing valuable insights into the diversity and specificity of allergy-inducing repertoires, we have established a range of antibodies that can aid us in the quest to define ways how human IgE antibodies recognize grass pollen allergens, which in turn can provide important clues in the design of new allergy vaccines

Knock-down of SOX11 induces autotaxin-dependent increase in proliferation in vitro and more aggressive tumors in vivo

Abstract in UndeterminedThe transcription factor SOX11 is a novel diagnostic marker for mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), distinguishing this aggressive tumor from potential simulators. Recent data also show that the level of SOX11 correlates to in vitro growth properties in MCL, as well as the clinical progression. We have previously shown that MCL-associated pathways, such as Rb-E2F, are dysregulated leading to decreased proliferation upon overexpression of SOX11, emphasizing the impact of SOX11 on MCL-specific gene expression and growth control. However, it remains to be determined which growth regulatory pathways that are induced upon SOX11 knock-down, leading to an increased cellular growth. Consequently, we established a model cell line with constitutive down-regulation of SOX11. The highly proliferative features of this cell line were investigated by gene expression analysis, proliferation assay, cell cycle distribution and potential to induce tumors in NOD-SCID mice. Our in vitro studies demonstrated a SOX11-dependent regulation of MCL-specific gene expression. In addition, we identified autotaxin (ATX) to be regulated by SOX11. Our results clearly showed a correlation between SOX11 level and cellular growth rate, which was dependent on ATX, as well as a direct relation between the level of SOX11 in tumorigenic cells and the growth rate of these tumors in NOD-SCID mice

Expanded clinical and experimental use of SOX11-using a monoclonal antibody

Background: The transcription factor SOX11 is of diagnostic and prognostic importance in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) and epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), respectively. Thus, there is an unmet clinical and experimental need for SOX11-targeting assays with low background, high specificity and robust performance in multiple applications, including immunohistochemistry (IHC-P) and flow cytometry, which until now has been lacking. Methods: We have developed SOX11-C1, a monoclonal mouse antibody targeting SOX11, and successfully evaluated its performance in western blots (WB), IHC-P, fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry. Results: We confirm the importance of SOX11 as a diagnostic antigen in MCL as 100% of tissue micro array (TMA) cases show bright nuclear staining, using the SOX11-C1 antibody in IHC-P. We also show that previous reports of weak SOX11 immunostaining in a fraction of hairy cell leukemias (HCL) are not confirmed using SOX11-C1, which is consistent with the lack of transcription. Thus, high sensitivity and improved specificity are demonstrated using the monoclonal SOX11-C1 antibody. Furthermore, we show for the first time that flow cytometry can be used to separate SOX11 positive and negative cell lines and primary tumors. Of note, SOX11-C1 shows no nonspecific binding to primary B or T cells in blood and thus, can be used for analysis of B and T cell lymphomas from complex clinical samples. Dilution experiments showed that low frequencies of malignant cells (similar to 1%) are detectable above background using SOX11 as a discriminant antigen in flow cytometry. Conclusions: The novel monoclonal SOX11-specific antibody offers high sensitivity and improved specificity in IHC-P based detection of MCL and its expanded use in flow cytometry analysis of blood and tissue samples may allow a convenient approach to early diagnosis and follow-up of MCL patients