Mémoires berlinoises, ou « l’heure zéro » de Billy Wilder

L’auteur du présent article examine le contexte dans lequel Billy Wilder, en mission à Berlin pour l’armée américaine en 1945, est amené à inaugurer un genre nouveau, une « comédie de ruines » qui croise les représentations des vainqueurs et celles des vaincus. A Foreign Affair (1948), mettant en scène Marlène Dietrich en tant qu’« ancienne nazie », sera sa réponse cinématographique à « l’heure zéro » allemande. C’est en travaillant à partir des images documentaires et des genres déjà existants que le film acquiert paradoxalement une dimension de témoignage mémoriel unique.The author analyses the context in which Billy Wilder, sent to Berlin in 1945 with the US Army, became the creator of the “comedy of ruins,” a new genre that mixes the portrayal of the victorious with that of the vanquished. Starring Marlene Dietrich as a former Nazi, A Foreign Affair (1948) is Wilder’s filmic answer to Germany’s “year zero.” Working with both documentary images and pre-existing genres, the film paradoxically becomes a unique memorial testament

Patagons et Polynésiens. Premières estampes du Pacifique : un nouveau régime de l’image imprimée

Symbolisant un nouveau type d’exploration, les relations officielles des voyages autour du monde des années 1770-1780 comprennent un grand nombre de gravures illustrant la rencontre avec les indigènes inconnus des « Mers du Sud ». Le plus souvent gravées d’après les dessins des savants et artistes à bord, les représentations des Patagons, réduits à leur taille réelle par une rhétorique de la mesure, et celles des Polynésiens, magnifiés par le canon néoclassique, montrent de manière exemplaire combien les savoirs anthropologiques, pour être opérants, dépendent des techniques et médias de reproduction.Symbolizing a new type of exploration, official accounts of voyages around the world in the 1770s and 1780s include many prints illustrating encounters with indigenous people of the South Seas. Engraved mostly based on drawings made by on-board scientists and artists, depictions of Patagonians (reduced to their actual size by a rhetoric of accuracy) and Polynesians (magnified by a neoclassical canon) illustrate how anthropological knowledge hinges on graphical means and techniques

NGF Inhibits M/KCNQ Currents and Selectively Alters Neuronal Excitability in Subsets of Sympathetic Neurons Depending on their M/KCNQ Current Background

M/KCNQ currents play a critical role in the determination of neuronal excitability. Many neurotransmitters and peptides modulate M/KCNQ current and neuronal excitability through their G protein–coupled receptors. Nerve growth factor (NGF) activates its receptor, a member of receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) superfamily, and crucially modulates neuronal cell survival, proliferation, and differentiation. In this study, we studied the effect of NGF on the neuronal (rat superior cervical ganglion, SCG) M/KCNQ currents and excitability. As reported before, subpopulation SCG neurons with distinct firing properties could be classified into tonic, phasic-1, and phasic-2 neurons. NGF inhibited M/KCNQ currents by similar proportion in all three classes of SCG neurons but increased the excitability only significantly in tonic SCG neurons. The effect of NGF on excitability correlated with a smaller M-current density in tonic neurons. The present study indicates that NGF is an M/KCNQ channel modulator and the characteristic modulation of the neuronal excitability by NGF may have important physiological implications

Fractalkine Expression Induces Endothelial Progenitor Cell Lysis by Natural Killer Cells

BACKGROUND: Circulating CD34(+) cells, a population that includes endothelial progenitors, participate in the maintenance of endothelial integrity. Better understanding of the mechanisms that regulate their survival is crucial to improve their regenerative activity in cardiovascular and renal diseases. Chemokine-receptor cross talk is critical in regulating cell homeostasis. We hypothesized that cell surface expression of the chemokine fractalkine (FKN) could target progenitor cell injury by Natural Killer (NK) cells, thereby limiting their availability for vascular repair. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We show that CD34(+)-derived Endothelial Colony Forming Cells (ECFC) can express FKN in response to TNF-α and IFN-γ inflammatory cytokines and that FKN expression by ECFC stimulates NK cell adhesion, NK cell-mediated ECFC lysis and microparticles release in vitro. The specific involvement of membrane FKN in these processes was demonstrated using FKN-transfected ECFC and anti-FKN blocking antibody. FKN expression was also evidenced on circulating CD34(+) progenitor cells and was detected at higher frequency in kidney transplant recipients, when compared to healthy controls. The proportion of CD34(+) cells expressing FKN was identified as an independent variable inversely correlated to CD34(+) progenitor cell count. We further showed that treatment of CD34(+) circulating cells isolated from adult blood donors with transplant serum or TNF-α/IFN-γ can induce FKN expression. CONCLUSIONS: Our data highlights a novel mechanism by which FKN expression on CD34(+) progenitor cells may target their NK cell mediated killing and participate to their immune depletion in transplant recipients. Considering the numerous diseased contexts shown to promote FKN expression, our data identify FKN as a hallmark of altered progenitor cell homeostasis with potential implications in better evaluation of vascular repair in patients