Longing for a taste of home.

Purpose This study offers an understanding of the role of food in the adjustment journey of Nigerian students in the UK. Methodology A qualitative approach was used, involving interviews with ten Nigerians studying in the UK. Findings Thematic analysis revealed that participants found the food they ate locally to be bland and fattening, and that they quickly adopted a home country diet, using ingredients bought locally or sent and brought from home to recreate Nigerian dishes. Eating Nigerian food had a positive emotional impact, and it was also a vehicle for social interaction. Limitations It is acknowledged that this is a small scale preliminary study that could be extended across the UK with a more quantitative approach to get a broader picture of the eating habits of Nigerian, students at British Universities. There is also an opportunity to widen it to include other African states who are neglected within the present literature. A more longitudinal study picking up migrants could also explore how adjustments have been made in their eating habits. Participants in this research equated fast food with local, English food due to their limited access to authentic local cuisine. Practical implications There are practical implications of this study whereby actions can be taken to help avoid the negative impacts experienced causing concerns in around mental wellbeing and poor health. Originality This study fills a gap in knowledge on how this important segment of the international student population adapts to a new food culture

Identification of the protein kinases Pyk3 and Phg2 as regulators of the STATc-mediated response to hyperosmolarity

Cellular adaptation to changes in environmental osmolarity is crucial for cell survival. In Dictyostelium, STATc is a key regulator of the transcriptional response to hyperosmotic stress. Its phosphorylation and consequent activation is controlled by two signaling branches, one cGMP- and the other Ca(2+)-dependent, of which many signaling components have yet to be identified. The STATc stress signalling pathway feeds back on itself by upregulating the expression of STATc and STATc-regulated genes. Based on microarray studies we chose two tyrosine-kinase like proteins, Pyk3 and Phg2, as possible modulators of STATc phosphorylation and generated single and double knock-out mutants to them. Transcriptional regulation of STATc and STATc dependent genes was disturbed in pyk3(-), phg2(-), and pyk3(-)/phg2(-) cells. The absence of Pyk3 and/or Phg2 resulted in diminished or completely abolished increased transcription of STATc dependent genes in response to sorbitol, 8-Br-cGMP and the Ca(2+) liberator BHQ. Also, phospho-STATc levels were significantly reduced in pyk3(-) and phg2(-) cells and even further decreased in pyk3(-)/phg2(-) cells. The reduced phosphorylation was mirrored by a significant delay in nuclear translocation of GFP-STATc. The protein tyrosine phosphatase 3 (PTP3), which dephosphorylates and inhibits STATc, is inhibited by stress-induced phosphorylation on S448 and S747. Use of phosphoserine specific antibodies showed that Phg2 but not Pyk3 is involved in the phosphorylation of PTP3 on S747. In pull-down assays Phg2 and PTP3 interact directly, suggesting that Phg2 phosphorylates PTP3 on S747 in vivo. Phosphorylation of S448 was unchanged in phg2(-) cells. We show that Phg2 and an, as yet unknown, S448 protein kinase are responsible for PTP3 phosphorylation and hence its inhibition, and that Pyk3 is involved in the regulation of STATc by either directly or indirectly activating it. Our results add further complexities to the regulation of STATc, which presumably ensure its optimal activation in response to different environmental cues

Visual Acuity Measures Do Not Reliably Detect Childhood Refractive Error - an Epidemiological Study

PURPOSE: To investigate the utility of uncorrected visual acuity measures in screening for refractive error in white school children aged 6-7-years and 12-13-years. METHODS: The Northern Ireland Childhood Errors of Refraction (NICER) study used a stratified random cluster design to recruit children from schools in Northern Ireland. Detailed eye examinations included assessment of logMAR visual acuity and cycloplegic autorefraction. Spherical equivalent refractive data from the right eye were used to classify significant refractive error as myopia of at least 1DS, hyperopia as greater than +3.50DS and astigmatism as greater than 1.50DC, whether it occurred in isolation or in association with myopia or hyperopia. RESULTS: Results are presented from 661 white 12-13-year-old and 392 white 6-7-year-old school-children. Using a cut-off of uncorrected visual acuity poorer than 0.20 logMAR to detect significant refractive error gave a sensitivity of 50% and specificity of 92% in 6-7-year-olds and 73% and 93% respectively in 12-13-year-olds. In 12-13-year-old children a cut-off of poorer than 0.20 logMAR had a sensitivity of 92% and a specificity of 91% in detecting myopia and a sensitivity of 41% and a specificity of 84% in detecting hyperopia. CONCLUSIONS: Vision screening using logMAR acuity can reliably detect myopia, but not hyperopia or astigmatism in school-age children. Providers of vision screening programs should be cognisant that where detection of uncorrected hyperopic and/or astigmatic refractive error is an aspiration, current UK protocols will not effectively deliver

Two <em>Dictyostelium</em> Tyrosine Kinase-Like kinases function in parallel, stress-induced STAT activation pathways

When Dictyostelium cells are hyperosmotically stressed, STATc is activated by tyrosine phosphorylation. Unusually, activation is regulated by serine phosphorylation and consequent inhibition of a tyrosine phosphatase: PTP3. The identity of the cognate tyrosine kinase is unknown, and we show that two tyrosine kinase–like (TKL) enzymes, Pyk2 and Pyk3, share this function; thus, for stress-induced STATc activation, single null mutants are only marginally impaired, but the double mutant is nonactivatable. When cells are stressed, Pyk2 and Pyk3 undergo increased autocatalytic tyrosine phosphorylation. The site(s) that are generated bind the SH2 domain of STATc, and then STATc becomes the target of further kinase action. The signaling pathways that activate Pyk2 and Pyk3 are only partially overlapping, and there may be a structural basis for this difference because Pyk3 contains both a TKL domain and a pseudokinase domain. The latter functions, like the JH2 domain of metazoan JAKs, as a negative regulator of the kinase domain. The fact that two differently regulated kinases catalyze the same phosphorylation event may facilitate specific targeting because under stress, Pyk3 and Pyk2 accumulate in different parts of the cell; Pyk3 moves from the cytosol to the cortex, whereas Pyk2 accumulates in cytosolic granules that colocalize with PTP3

The Carboxy-Terminal Domain of Dictyostelium C-Module-Binding Factor Is an Independent Gene Regulatory Entity

The C-module-binding factor (CbfA) is a multidomain protein that belongs to the family of jumonji-type (JmjC) transcription regulators. In the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, CbfA regulates gene expression during the unicellular growth phase and multicellular development. CbfA and a related D. discoideum CbfA-like protein, CbfB, share a paralogous domain arrangement that includes the JmjC domain, presumably a chromatin-remodeling activity, and two zinc finger-like (ZF) motifs. On the other hand, the CbfA and CbfB proteins have completely different carboxy-terminal domains, suggesting that the plasticity of such domains may have contributed to the adaptation of the CbfA-like transcription factors to the rapid genome evolution in the dictyostelid clade. To support this hypothesis we performed DNA microarray and real-time RT-PCR measurements and found that CbfA regulates at least 160 genes during the vegetative growth of D. discoideum cells. Functional annotation of these genes revealed that CbfA predominantly controls the expression of gene products involved in housekeeping functions, such as carbohydrate, purine nucleoside/nucleotide, and amino acid metabolism. The CbfA protein displays two different mechanisms of gene regulation. The expression of one set of CbfA-dependent genes requires at least the JmjC/ZF domain of the CbfA protein and thus may depend on chromatin modulation. Regulation of the larger group of genes, however, does not depend on the entire CbfA protein and requires only the carboxy-terminal domain of CbfA (CbfA-CTD). An AT-hook motif located in CbfA-CTD, which is known to mediate DNA binding to A+T-rich sequences in vitro, contributed to CbfA-CTD-dependent gene regulatory functions in vivo

PAX6 Haplotypes Are Associated with High Myopia in Han Chinese

Author name used in this publication: Maurice K. H. Yap2010-2011 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalpublished_fina

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology&apos;s Technology &amp; Entrepreneurial Development Program

Abstrac