Iron Behaving Badly: Inappropriate Iron Chelation as a Major Contributor to the Aetiology of Vascular and Other Progressive Inflammatory and Degenerative Diseases

The production of peroxide and superoxide is an inevitable consequence of aerobic metabolism, and while these particular "reactive oxygen species" (ROSs) can exhibit a number of biological effects, they are not of themselves excessively reactive and thus they are not especially damaging at physiological concentrations. However, their reactions with poorly liganded iron species can lead to the catalytic production of the very reactive and dangerous hydroxyl radical, which is exceptionally damaging, and a major cause of chronic inflammation. We review the considerable and wide-ranging evidence for the involvement of this combination of (su)peroxide and poorly liganded iron in a large number of physiological and indeed pathological processes and inflammatory disorders, especially those involving the progressive degradation of cellular and organismal performance. These diseases share a great many similarities and thus might be considered to have a common cause (i.e. iron-catalysed free radical and especially hydroxyl radical generation). The studies reviewed include those focused on a series of cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological diseases, where iron can be found at the sites of plaques and lesions, as well as studies showing the significance of iron to aging and longevity. The effective chelation of iron by natural or synthetic ligands is thus of major physiological (and potentially therapeutic) importance. As systems properties, we need to recognise that physiological observables have multiple molecular causes, and studying them in isolation leads to inconsistent patterns of apparent causality when it is the simultaneous combination of multiple factors that is responsible. This explains, for instance, the decidedly mixed effects of antioxidants that have been observed, etc...Comment: 159 pages, including 9 Figs and 2184 reference

Erecting a statue in the land of the fallen: gendered dynamics of the making of Tunceli and commemorating Seyyid Rıza in Dersim

This article analyses the gendered, spatial and emotional dynamics of the Dersim Genocide (1937/38) and attempts to commemorate the genocidal violence. It traces the transition initiated by pro-Kurdish municipalities in Turkey’s public sphere during the relatively liberal political atmosphere of the early 2000s, which switched from the spatial politics of denial to that of mourning. In illustrating the role of gendered military violence both in the destruction of Dersim and in the formation of Tunceli, the article underlines the role of spatial militarisation in upholding a regime of denial. It specifically focusses on the gendered aesthetic framing of the statue of Seyyid Rıza (1863–1937, inaugurated in 2010), who became a symbol of resistance after being executed as part of genocidal violence. The statue of Seyyid Rıza challenges the Turkish denial regime by turning a previously ungrievable dead body into an object of pride. However, Seyyid Rıza’s statue could preserve its precarious place and remained within the ‘limits of sayable’ by not offering a future prospect that competes with the military masculinist aesthetic regime of the statues of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk