Norge etter 22. juli

"At the time of this book’s publication, almost seven years have passed since the dramatic and brutal terror attacks at Norway’s Government Headquarters in Oslo and the island of Utøya on 22 July 2011. How have we coped during this time? Which values have been important? Have we managed to protect the ideals of democracy, openness and humanity? And not least: Who is this ""we"" that we are referring to? This scholarly anthology includes articles from researchers associated with the project NECORE (Negotiating Values: Collective Identities and Resilience after 22 July) and other researchers whose work is closely associated with the project. They give us insights, opinions and sharp perspectives on not just 22 July, but also about Norway today, about values, identities and resilience in Norwegian society in the wake of the terror attacks. An important backdrop for the book and the project is the assertion that, as the events themselves recede into the past, it is even more important to focus on what the terror events have led to and how we can learn from them. In a world where terrorism has become an all too common part of political reality, it is crucial that we understand how we ought to think about terror, and how we as a society encounter it.

The Pseudomonas fluorescens AlgG Protein, but Not Its Mannuronan C-5-Epimerase Activity, Is Needed for Alginate Polymer Formation

Bacterial alginates are produced as 1-4-linked β-d-mannuronan, followed by epimerization of some of the mannuronic acid residues to α-l-guluronic acid. Here we report the isolation of four different epimerization-defective point mutants of the periplasmic Pseudomonas fluorescens mannuronan C-5-epimerase AlgG. All mutations affected amino acids conserved among AlgG-epimerases and were clustered in a part of the enzyme also sharing some sequence similarity to a group of secreted epimerases previously reported in Azotobacter vinelandii. An algG-deletion mutant was constructed and found to produce predominantly a dimer containing a 4-deoxy-l-erythro-hex-4-enepyranosyluronate residue at the nonreducing end and a mannuronic acid residue at the reducing end. The production of this dimer is the result of the activity of an alginate lyase, AlgL, whose in vivo activity is much more limited in the presence of AlgG. A strain expressing both an epimerase-defective (point mutation) and a wild-type epimerase was constructed and shown to produce two types of alginate molecules: one class being pure mannuronan and the other having the wild-type content of guluronic acid residues. This formation of two distinct classes of polymers in a genetically pure cell line can be explained by assuming that AlgG is part of a periplasmic protein complex

Norge etter 22. juli

"At the time of this book’s publication, almost seven years have passed since the dramatic and brutal terror attacks at Norway’s Government Headquarters in Oslo and the island of Utøya on 22 July 2011. How have we coped during this time? Which values have been important? Have we managed to protect the ideals of democracy, openness and humanity? And not least: Who is this ""we"" that we are referring to? This scholarly anthology includes articles from researchers associated with the project NECORE (Negotiating Values: Collective Identities and Resilience after 22 July) and other researchers whose work is closely associated with the project. They give us insights, opinions and sharp perspectives on not just 22 July, but also about Norway today, about values, identities and resilience in Norwegian society in the wake of the terror attacks. An important backdrop for the book and the project is the assertion that, as the events themselves recede into the past, it is even more important to focus on what the terror events have led to and how we can learn from them. In a world where terrorism has become an all too common part of political reality, it is crucial that we understand how we ought to think about terror, and how we as a society encounter it.

Continuous Control of the Flow in Biochemical Pathways through 5′ Untranslated Region Sequence Modifications in mRNA Expressed from the Broad-Host-Range Promoter Pm ▿ †

The inducible Pm promoter integrated into broad-host-range plasmid RK2 replicons can be fine-tuned continuously between the uninduced and maximally induced levels by varying the inducer concentrations. To lower the uninduced background level while still maintaining the inducibility for applications in, for example, metabolic engineering and synthetic (systems) biology, we report here the use of mutations in the Pm DNA region corresponding to the 5′ untranslated region of mRNA (UTR). Five UTR variants obtained by doped oligonucleotide mutagenesis and selection, apparently reducing the efficiency of translation, were all found to display strongly reduced uninduced expression of three different reporter genes (encoding β-lactamase, luciferase, and phosphoglucomutase) in Escherichia coli. The ratio between induced and uninduced expression remained the same or higher compared to cells containing a corresponding plasmid with the wild-type UTR. Interestingly, the UTR variants also displayed similar effects on expression when substituted for the native UTR in another and constitutive promoter, P1 (Pantitet), indicating a broad application potential of these UTR variants. Two of the selected variants were used to control the production of the C50 carotenoid sarcinaxanthin in an engineered strain of E. coli that produces the precursor lycopene. Sarcinaxanthin is produced in this particular strain by expressing three Micrococcus luteus derived genes from the promoter Pm. The results indicated that UTR variants can be used to eliminate sarcinaxanthin production under uninduced conditions, whereas cells containing the corresponding plasmid with a wild-type UTR produced ca. 25% of the level observed under induced conditions