Archbishop John Ireland and the German National Parishes in St. Paul

Archbishop John Ireland dominated the national debate on German language use in parochial schools at the turn of the century. Because of his outspoken desire that Catholics not be viewed as foreigners on American soil, Ireland has been portrayed by critics as a rabid Americanizer who was insensitive to the cultural heritage of non-English speaking Catholic immigrants. A review of Ireland\u27s correspondence and papers, interviews with individuals who knew him, and a search of the historical records of six German-Catholic national parishes in St. Paul reveal that Ireland\u27s public statements on Americanization and his archdiocesan policies regarding the German national parishes were often contradictory. In contrast to his public statements, John Ireland\u27s educational policies were pragmatic, culturally sensitive, and consistent. The archbishop not only tolerated widespread use of German language in parish schoolrooms, he promoted its growth by encouraging the development of national parishes and schools and by providing German-speaking priests and nuns to the congregations

Southeast Asian Adolescents’ Perceptions of Immigrant Parenting Practices

In their countries of origin, immigrant youth are unlikely to question the age-old child-rearing practices of their elders; however, the parenting of adolescents in an adopted country can become a major source of family conflict. The purpose of this study is to investigate how Southeast Asian adolescents growing up in the United States perceive their parents’ practices in six areas of parenting responsibility identified by the National Extension Parent Education Model: caring for self, understanding, guiding, nurturing, motivating, and advocating. Four focus groups were conducted with 37 Southeast Asian (Cambodian, Hmong, Lao, and Vietnamese) adolescent boys and girls between the ages of 14 to 19 years to ascertain how they perceived parenting behaviors. An analytic induction procedure was used to analyze transcripts from in-depth focus group discussions. Results indicate wide divergence between the idealized practices of the model, the parents’ actual practices, and adolescents’ perceptions of parenting practices. The study has important implications for the growing number of immigrant families from diverse cultures who are parenting adolescents in unfamiliar cultural contexts and for the educators, human service providers, and others who work with them

Modeling Native EHEC Outer Membrane Vesicles by Creating Synthetic Surrogates

Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) is a zoonotic pathogen responsible for life-threating diseases such as hemolytic uremic syndrome. While its major virulence factor, the Shiga toxin (Stx), is known to exert its cytotoxic effect on various endothelial and epithelial cells when in its free, soluble form, Stx was also recently found to be associated with EHEC outer membrane vesicles (OMVs). However, depending on the strain background, other toxins can also be associated with native OMVs (nOMVs), and nOMVs are also made up of immunomodulatory agents such as lipopolysaccharides and flagellin. Thus, it is difficult to determine to which extent a single virulence factor in nOMVs, such as Stx, contributes to the molecular pathogenesis of EHEC. To reduce this complexity, we successfully developed a protocol for the preparation of synthetic OMVs (sOMVs) with a defined lipid composition resembling the E. coli outer membrane and loaded with specific proteins, i.e., bovine serum albumin (BSA) as a proxy for functional Stx2a. Using BSA for parameter evaluation, we found that (1) functional sOMVs can be prepared at room temperature instead of potentially detrimental higher temperatures (e.g., 45 °C), (2) a 1:10 ratio of protein to lipid, i.e., 100 µg protein with 1 mg of lipid mixture, yields homogenously sized sOMVs, and (3) long-term storage for up to one year at 4 °C is possible without losing structural integrity. Accordingly, we reproducibly generated Stx2a-loaded sOMVs with an average diameter of 132.4 ± 9.6 nm that preserve Stx2a’s injuring activity, as determined by cytotoxicity assays with Vero cells. Overall, we successfully created sOMVs and loaded them with an EHEC toxin, which opens the door for future studies on the degree of virulence associated with individual toxins from EHEC and other bacterial pathogens

Shiga Toxin (Stx)-Binding Glycosphingolipids of Primary Human Renal Cortical Epithelial Cells (pHRCEpiCs) and Stx-Mediated Cytotoxicity

Human kidney epithelial cells are supposed to be directly involved in the pathogenesis of the hemolytic–uremic syndrome (HUS) caused by Shiga toxin (Stx)-producing enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC). The characterization of the major and minor Stx-binding glycosphingolipids (GSLs) globotriaosylceramide (Gb3Cer) and globotetraosylceramide (Gb4Cer), respectively, of primary human renal cortical epithelial cells (pHRCEpiCs) revealed GSLs with Cer (d18:1, C16:0), Cer (d18:1, C22:0), and Cer (d18:1, C24:1/C24:0) as the dominant lipoforms. Using detergent-resistant membranes (DRMs) and non-DRMs, Gb3Cer and Gb4Cer prevailed in the DRM fractions, suggesting their association with microdomains in the liquid-ordered membrane phase. A preference of Gb3Cer and Gb4Cer endowed with C24:0 fatty acid accompanied by minor monounsaturated C24:1-harboring counterparts was observed in DRMs, whereas the C24:1 fatty acid increased in relation to the saturated equivalents in non-DRMs. A shift of the dominant phospholipid phosphatidylcholine with saturated fatty acids in the DRM to unsaturated species in the non-DRM fractions correlated with the GSL distribution. Cytotoxicity assays gave a moderate susceptibility of pHRCEpiCs to the Stx1a and Stx2a subtypes when compared to highly sensitive Vero-B4 cells. The results indicate that presence of Stx-binding GSLs per se and preferred occurrence in microdomains do not necessarily lead to a high cellular susceptibility towards Stx

Shiga Toxin (Stx)-Binding Glycosphingolipids of Primary Human Renal Cortical Epithelial Cells (pHRCEpiCs) and Stx-Mediated Cytotoxicity

Human kidney epithelial cells are supposed to be directly involved in the pathogenesis of the hemolytic–uremic syndrome (HUS) caused by Shiga toxin (Stx)-producing enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC). The characterization of the major and minor Stx-binding glycosphingolipids (GSLs) globotriaosylceramide (Gb3Cer) and globotetraosylceramide (Gb4Cer), respectively, of primary human renal cortical epithelial cells (pHRCEpiCs) revealed GSLs with Cer (d18:1, C16:0), Cer (d18:1, C22:0), and Cer (d18:1, C24:1/C24:0) as the dominant lipoforms. Using detergent-resistant membranes (DRMs) and non-DRMs, Gb3Cer and Gb4Cer prevailed in the DRM fractions, suggesting their association with microdomains in the liquid-ordered membrane phase. A preference of Gb3Cer and Gb4Cer endowed with C24:0 fatty acid accompanied by minor monounsaturated C24:1-harboring counterparts was observed in DRMs, whereas the C24:1 fatty acid increased in relation to the saturated equivalents in non-DRMs. A shift of the dominant phospholipid phosphatidylcholine with saturated fatty acids in the DRM to unsaturated species in the non-DRM fractions correlated with the GSL distribution. Cytotoxicity assays gave a moderate susceptibility of pHRCEpiCs to the Stx1a and Stx2a subtypes when compared to highly sensitive Vero-B4 cells. The results indicate that presence of Stx-binding GSLs per se and preferred occurrence in microdomains do not necessarily lead to a high cellular susceptibility towards Stx