Resilient Pedagogy: Practical Teaching Strategies to Overcome Distance, Disruption, and Distraction

Resilient Pedagogy offers a comprehensive collection on the topics and issues surrounding resilient pedagogy framed in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the social justice movements that have swept the globe. As a collection, Resilient Pedagogy is a multi-disciplinary and multi-perspective response to actions taken in different classrooms, across different institution types, and from individuals in different institutional roles with the purpose of allowing readers to explore the topics to improve their own teaching practice and support their own students through distance, disruption, and distraction

Cooperation of hTERT, SV40 T Antigen and Oncogenic Ras in Tumorigenesis: A Cell Transplantation Model Using Bovine Adrenocortical Cells

Expression of TERT, the reverse transcriptase component of telomerase, is necessary to convert normal human cells to cancer cells. Despite this, “telomerization” by hTERT does not appear to alter the normal properties of cells. In a cell transplantation model in which bovine adrenocortical cells form vascularized tissue structures beneath the kidney capsule in scid mice, telomerization does not perturb the functional tissue-forming capacity of the cells. This cell transplantation model was used to study the cooperation of hTERT with SV40 T antigen (SV40 TAg) and oncogenic Ras in tumorigenesis. Only cells expressing all three genes were tumorigenic; this required large T, but not small t, antigen. These cells produced a continuously expanding tissue mass; they were invasive with respect to adjacent organs and eventually destroyed the kidney. Cells expressing only hTERT or only Ras produced minimally altered tissues. In contrast, SV40 TAg alone produced noninvasive nodules beneath the kidney capsule that had high proliferation rates balanced by high rates of apoptosis. The use of cell transplantation techniques in a cell type that is able to form tissue structures with or without full neoplastic conversion allows the phenotypes produced by individual cooperating oncogenes to be observed

The Minimal Set of Genetic Alterations Required for Conversion of Primary Human Fibroblasts to Cancer Cells in the Subrenal Capsule Assay

Based on previous studies, a minimal set of genetic alterations that is required to convert normal human fibroblasts into cancer cells has been defined. Essential roles for telomere maintenance and alterations in phosphatase 2A activity were inferred from experiments in which tumorigenicity was tested by injecting cells under the skin of immunodeficient mice. However, in the present experiments, the combination of SV40 large T antigen and activated Ras, without hTERT or SV40 small t antigen, was sufficient to convert nine different primary human fibroblast cell strains to a fully malignant state. The malignant behavior of the cells was demonstrated by growth of the cells into invasive tumors when the cells were injected beneath the kidney capsule of immunodeficient mice. Lung metastases and circulating tumor cells were also detected. These tumors were not immortal; cells entered crisis, from which they could be rescued by expression of hTERT. However, the same cell populations were not tumorigenic when they were injected under the skin. In this site, tumorigenicity required the expression of hTERT and SV40 small t antigen as well as SV40 large T antigen and Ras. The cellular pathways targeted by SV40 large T antigen (p53 and pRb) and those targeted by activated Ras represent a minimal set of genetic alterations required for the conversion of normal human fibroblasts into cancer cells