77 research outputs found
Chemical and carnival : Fiona McGregor's 'Chemical palace' and Sydney's radical queer dance party scene
Chemical and carnival : Fiona McGregor's 'Chemical palace' and Sydney's radical queer dance party scene
Maria Banyer to Peter Kean, June 29, 1818
Maria Banyer wrote from Bedford to Peter Kean addressed to Ursino. Her sister, Sarah Louisa Jay, had recently died and she thanked Peter for keeping her memory alive by naming his daughter after her.
People Included: Sarah Louisa Jay Kean, Sarah Sabina Kean, Jacob Morris, Jay Familyhttps://digitalcommons.kean.edu/lhc_1810s/1102/thumbnail.jp
Maria Banyer to Sarah Sabina Kean, May 11, 1827
Maria Banyer wrote to Sarah Sabina Kean, address not included. She wrote that she and he sister Mary regret that they could not visit Sarah and Susan Ursin Niemcewicz, but will try on Monday if the weather is favorable. Their brother has to go to court, but sends is best to her, Susan, and Peter.https://digitalcommons.kean.edu/lhc_1820s/1085/thumbnail.jp
Molecular basis of C4 protein deficiency in Aboriginal Australians, and a molecular C4 allotyping technique
Since the initial discovery of the association between C4 protein
deficiency and autoimmune disease, much effort has been devoted to
the characterisation of C4 protein and its molecular composition
(Dawkins et al., 1983). From the outset, researchers have found the
C4 protein difficult to work with as it is unstable and degrades
rapidly. However, with the advent of molecular techniques, studies of
the C4 gene have accelerated, uncovering a very complicated and
large duplicated gene region.
This thesis reviews the literature on complement component C4, and
reports on three interrelated research areas involving protein and
DNA analysis of complement C4. Contributions to the molecular
characterisation of the C4 complement gene region and population
genetics are discussed in relation to current knowledge, and direction
for further research is provided.
This study set out to establish whether indigenous people of PNG and
Aboriginal Australians have shared a common gene pool. By
analysing the distribution of polymorphic C4 alleles these studies
found the Aboriginal Australian and PNG populations to be distinctly
different. Analysis of the distribution of C4 alleles in the two ethnic
groups indicated that the two Aboriginal populations showed
significant similarities but the three geographically distinct PNG
populations were significantly different. Studies here suggested these
ethnic populations are more reliably distinguished from each other
by differences in the frequencies of the most frequently occurring
C4 alleles, than by the incidence of rare alleles.
The high frequency of C4 null alleles in northern located Darwin
Aboriginal's reported by Ranford et al. (1987), is not an isolated
incident as this study also found the highest frequencies of C4 null
alleles in northern located Aboriginal Australian's compared to any
ethnic group studied. This could be associated with the high
occurrence of the autoimmune disease Systemic Lupus
Erythematosus (SLE) in Aboriginal Australians, and strong susceptibility of Aboriginal Australians to this disease (Anstey et al.,
1993).
Accurate identification of C4 alleles including C4 null alleles is
essential both for investigating gene-linked disease associations, as
well as for advancing future population genetics studies. Studies here
demonstrate that C4 protein allotyping does not accurately identify
the C4 genotype of an individual. This was highlighted by the lack of
Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium with respect to C4 allele frequencies of
the East Cape York Aboriginal population as well as the identification
of a number of alleles by molecular analysis which could not be
identified by protein typing. The difficulties associated with
determining C4 allotypes by C4 protein gel electrophoresis include
instability of the C4 protein, high degree of technical expertise for
interpretation of allotypes, and limitations of this technique in
distinguishing overlapping alleles.
It was established in these studies that the polymorphic C4d region
of C4 genes may be used by molecular means to identify and type
C4 alleles. With the advent of molecular biological techniques such
as protein and DNA sequencing, and RFLP analysis of the C4 gene
region, information required for development of a molecular-based
typing protocol has become available. Some of the previously
described C4A and C4B alleles have been found to have unique
combinations of polymorphic amino acid residues distributed within
a short stretch of DNA, otherwise known as the C4d region. This
region of the gene is highly polymorphic encoding amino acid
residues known to be involved in immune-complex binding, and also
encodes antigenic determinants. Therefore the C4d region was
considered an ideal candidate for the development of a molecularbased
allotyping protocol. The molecular-based C4 typing technique
developed here is based on PCR-RFLP analysis of the C4d region.
Protein and DNA sequence information, C4 protein allotyping data,
and computer analysis which estimates the predicted isoelectric
value of a protein were used to develop this protocol. Application of
the molecular C4 typing protocol enabled the identification of C4
alleles which co-migrate by C4 protein gel electrophoresis as well as
a number of rare and novel C4 alleles. The molecular basis of C4 null alleles has been extensively studied
in Caucasians, however, very little is known about the genetic basis
of C4 null alleles in other ethnic populations. C4 null alleles from
Aboriginal Australians were investigated here in order to identify
the genetic basis of these alleles compared to those in Caucasians.
Many Caucasian C4 null alleles result from large deletions. However,
this study found that the C4B null allele in Aboriginal Australians
results from either duplication of C4A genes on a single haplotype,
or possession of a hybrid C4A/C4B type of novel allele, which was
denoted as C4A *CAN1. These findings have considerable
significance in relation to the high frequency of C4 null alleles found
in Aboriginal Australian populations. Many of these "null alleles" may
indeed be functional alleles which have been misinterpreted by C 4
protein typing. The molecular basis of C4A null alleles remains
unresolved, however, this study indicates that the defect is likely to
be due to post-transcriptional processing of the allele.
This thesis describes a detailed investigation into the molecular basis
of C4 alleles including rare and null alleles. This information
together with the vast amount of molecular data available on C 4
enabled the development of a molecular-based C4 typing protocol.
This protocol is considered to be a more reliable and accurate typing
method than the traditional protein typing method, and can be easily
adopted in any laboratory for routine allotyping
Complementary activation of peripheral natural killer cell immunity in nasopharyngeal carcinoma
NK cells and αβ- and γδ-CTL play important roles in cellular immunity against tumors. We previously demonstrated that NPC patients have a quantitative and qualitative deficit in γδ-CTL and EBV-specific αβ-CTL when compared to normal subjects and NPC long-term survivors. In this study we report further observations of a complementary activation of peripheral NK cells in NPC patients. The NK cells in these patients, compared to those of healthy subjects and NPC survivors, were preferentially activated in response to the stimulation of myeloma cell line XG-7 and expanded in the presence of exogenous IL-2. The production of IFN-γ was lowest in the patient group, whereas IL-12, IL-15 and TNF-α were produced in higher levels in patients than in the donors and survivors. The cytolytic effect of the NK cells against NPC cells in the patient group was also higher than that of the donors and survivors. Furthermore, the patients at later stages of NPC had lower γδ-CTL activity but higher NK cytotoxicity towards NPC targets, with higher production of IL-12, IL-15 and TNF-α but lower production of IFN-γ than in patients at earlier stages. This might be part of a triggered compensatory re-activation of the innate immunity, believed to be mediated through various cytokines and chemokines when adaptive T cell immunity is breached. Together, these data suggest complementary roles of innate and adaptive immune response in tumor immunity where NK cells, γδ- and αβ-CTL compensate for the deficits of one another at different stages of tumor invasion. © 2006 Japanese Cancer Association.published_or_final_versio
VAST: An ASKAP Survey for Variables and Slow Transients
The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) will give us an
unprecedented opportunity to investigate the transient sky at radio
wavelengths. In this paper we present VAST, an ASKAP survey for Variables and
Slow Transients. VAST will exploit the wide-field survey capabilities of ASKAP
to enable the discovery and investigation of variable and transient phenomena
from the local to the cosmological, including flare stars, intermittent
pulsars, X-ray binaries, magnetars, extreme scattering events, interstellar
scintillation, radio supernovae and orphan afterglows of gamma ray bursts. In
addition, it will allow us to probe unexplored regions of parameter space where
new classes of transient sources may be detected. In this paper we review the
known radio transient and variable populations and the current results from
blind radio surveys. We outline a comprehensive program based on a multi-tiered
survey strategy to characterise the radio transient sky through detection and
monitoring of transient and variable sources on the ASKAP imaging timescales of
five seconds and greater. We also present an analysis of the expected source
populations that we will be able to detect with VAST.Comment: 29 pages, 8 figures. Submitted for publication in Pub. Astron. Soc.
Australi
A pilot ASKAP survey of radio transient events in the region around the intermittent pulsar PSR J1107-5907
Conditional Stat1 Ablation Reveals the Importance of Interferon Signaling for Immunity to Listeria monocytogenes Infection
Signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 (Stat1) is a key player in responses to interferons (IFN). Mutations of Stat1 cause severe immune deficiencies in humans and mice. Here we investigate the importance of Stat1 signaling for the innate and secondary immune response to the intracellular bacterial pathogen Listeria monocytogenes (Lm). Cell type-restricted ablation of the Stat1 gene in naïve animals revealed unique roles in three cell types: macrophage Stat1 signaling protected against lethal Lm infection, whereas Stat1 ablation in dendritic cells (DC) did not affect survival. T lymphocyte Stat1 reduced survival. Type I IFN (IFN-I) signaling in T lymphocytes reportedly weakens innate resistance to Lm. Surprisingly, the effect of Stat1 signaling was much more pronounced, indicating a contribution of Stat1 to pathways other than the IFN-I pathway. In stark contrast, Stat1 activity in both DC and T cells contributed positively to secondary immune responses against Lm in immunized animals, while macrophage Stat1 was dispensable. Our findings provide the first genetic evidence that Stat1 signaling in different cell types produces antagonistic effects on innate protection against Lm that are obscured in mice with complete Stat1 deficiency. They further demonstrate a drastic change in the cell type-dependent Stat1 requirement for memory responses to Lm infection
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