Intermolecular interactions in the chiral and racemic forms of 3-hydroxy-2-(1-oxoisoindolin-2-yl)butanoic acid derived from threonine

The title compounds, C₁₂H₁₃NO₄, are derived from L-threonine and DL-threonine, respectively. Hydrogen bonding in the chiral derivative, (2S/3R)-3-hydroxy-2-(1-oxoisoindolin-2-yl)butanoic acid, consists of O-Hacid...Oalkyl-H...O=Cindole chains [O...O 2.659 (3) and 2.718 (3) Å], Csp³-H...O and three C-H...πarene interactions. In the (2R,3S/2S,3R) racemate, conventional carboxylic acid hydrogen bonding as cyclical (O-H...O=C)₂ [graph set R₂²(8)] is present, with Oalkyl-H...O=Cindole, Csp³-H...O and C-H...πarene interactions. The COOH group geometry differs between the two forms, with C-O, C=O, C-C-O and C-C=O bond lengths and angles of 1.322 (3) and 1.193 (3) Å, and 109.7 (2) and 125.4 (3)°, respectively, in the chiral structure, and 1.2961 (17) and 1.2210 (18) Å, and 113.29 (12) and 122.63 (13)°, respectively, in the racemate structure. The O-C=O angles of 124.9 (3) and 124.05 (14)° are similar. The differences arise from the contrasting COOH hydrogen-bonding environments in the two structures

Publishing and sharing data papers can increase impact and benefits researchers, publishers, funders and libraries

The process of compiling and submitting data papers to journals has long been a frustrating one to the minority of researchers that have tried. Fiona Murphy, part of a project team working to automate this process, outlines why publishing data papers is important and how open data can be of benefit to all stakeholders across scholarly communications and higher education

Book review: Yaya’s story: the quest for well-being in the world by Paul Stoller

Combining memoir, ethnography, and philosophy through a series of interconnected narratives, Paul Stoller aims to tell a story of remarkable friendship and the quest for well-being. Whether interested in a study of well-being, of transnational African traders, of spirit possession, of anthropology, or simply of the friendship of two very different men, Yaya’s Story is a book offering much to a wide readership. It is without doubt a book with a soul, writes Fiona Murphy

Book review: childhood and consumer culture edited by David Buckingham and Vebjorg Tingstad

Childhood and Consumer Culture is a laudable collection, one that is realistic about the goals of understanding the child consumer. It gives a reading of the historical development of the child consumer and the advent of new marketing technologies, and makes a much needed contribution to the study of the child consumer in very varied contexts, writes Fiona Murphy

Seeking solidarity through food: the growth of asylum seeker and refugee food initiatives in Ireland

This article seeks to understand how asylum seeker and refugee food movements in Ireland are engendering a new politics of solidarity and empathy whilst also building strong pathways to labour integration. It examines how such projects also serve as a critique of the treatment of Ireland’s asylum seeker and refugee communities, particularly with respect to the system of direct provision. In so doing, the piece examines a mix of asylum seeker and refugee-led food projects such as Cooking for Freedom, entrepreneurial projects such as Our Table and the Sligo Global Kitchen and collaborative food projects such as the Clonakilty community garden and the Refugee Food Festival

Jagged1 and notch1 involvement in haematopoietic stem cell development

Previous studies have identified the Notch signalling pathway as an important regulator of haematopoietic development. However its role in definitive haematopoietic stem cell (dHSC) development is still unclear mainly due to the fact that Notch mutants die around mid- gestation before the emergence of the first dHSC. Here I investigated the role of the Notch signalling pathway in dHSC development focusing on the ligand Jaggedl and the receptor Notchl. I carried out a detailed characterisation of the expression pattern of Notchl and Jaggedl in the aorta-gonad-mesonephros (AGM) region, where dHSCs first emerge in the embryo, by immunocytochemistry and immunohistochemistry. I then determined, by sorting cells from the AGM region based on their level of Notchl, that Notchl was highly expressed in endothelial cells, precursors of dHSCs (called pre -HSC) and dHSCs, and its expression then decreases in haematopoietic progenitors.I also generated a Jaggedl dtTomato knock -in reporter mouse using a combination of recombineering and traditional cloning to produce a targeting vector, followed by targeting a B16 ES cell line, and producing a mouse line from a correctly targeted ES cell clonal line. This mouse line allowed me to visualise Jagged1 expression during dHSC development. With the line I showed that pre-HSCs express both Jagged1 and Notch1 and that Jagged1⁺Notch1⁺ cell surface marker phenotype can enrich the pre-HSC population 1 in 8.To further investigate the implication of Jagged1 in dHSC development the gene was conditionally deleted in the HSC lineage using a CD41-Cre. Our result indicated that Jagged1 is not required for HSC development in a cell autonomous manner. Furthermore, I carried out experiments with a conventional Jagged1 knock -out mouse line. It has previously been shown that Jagged1 null embryos die around E10.5 and contain fewer intra-haematopoietic progenitors. I used an explant culture system to culture E10.5 AGM regions from Jagged1⁻/⁻ embryos past the point of embryo lethality and in culture HSCs were produced. This result indicates that Jagged1⁻/⁻ embryos contain pre-HSCs that can mature efficiently into dHSC in vitro

The role of carbon nanotube structure in their retention and pathogenicity in the pleural cavity

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) are hexagonal arrangements of carbon atoms built up to form fibres with diameters in the nanometre range but lengths which may extend up to hundreds of microns. The physiochemical properties of CNT are advantageous for a variety of industrial applications leading to CNT becoming one of the major products in the burgeoning field of nanotcchnology. However their structural similarity to asbestos has raised concerns that they may also pose an occupational inhalation hazard and cause diseases of the lung or pleura. Several decades of fibre toxicology have lead to the development of a robust structure/activity model, the fibre pathogenicity paradigm (FPP), which identifies length, thinness and biopersistence as the critical properties a fibrous particle must possess if it is to be pathogenic. The purpose of this study was to examine the pathogenicity of CNT in relation to the FPP by examining the effect of CNT in the pleural space, a target tissue for asbestosrelated disease.In order to address this aim a method of injection directly into the pleura cavity of mice was employed. Direct instillation of long and short CNT into the pleural cavity produced length-dependent responses characterized by acute inflammation leading to progressive fibrosis on the parietal pleura which mirrored the pleura response to asbestos. Furthermore examination of the size-restricted clearance mechanisms from the pleural cavity confirmed the hypothesis that the pathogenicity of long CNT and other fibres, arises as a result of length-dependent retention at the stomata on the parietal pleura.The cellular interactions leading to an inflammatory response in the pleural cavity were also examined in an in vitro study which tested the CNT for their ability to stimulate the release of the acute phase cytokines from both mesothelial cells and macrophages. Direct exposure to CNT resulted in significant cytokine release from the macrophages but not mesothelial cells. This pro-inflammatory response was length dependent but modest and was shown to be a function of frustrated phagocytosis. Furthermore the indirect actions of the CNT were examined by treating the mesothelial cells with conditioned media from CNT-treated macrophages. This resulted in dramatic amplification of cytokine release from the mesothelial cells. We therefore hypothesise that long fibres elicit an inflammatory response in the pleural cavity via frustrated phagocytosis in pleural macrophages. The activated macrophages then stimulate an amplified pro-inflammatory cytokine response from the adjacent pleural mesothelial cells.A further aim was to investigate the relationship between the length-dependent pathogenicity of a fibre sample and the surface of the fibre. By using different forms of functional groups attached to the surface of a pathogenic CNT we tested if the level of inflammation and fibrosis triggered in vivo can be altered by simple alteration of the surface. Our results showed that, although the surface modification of CNT did not alter the acute inflammogenicity of the CNT, the chronic fibrotic response was significantly attenuated. The specific role surface chemistry played in the modification of the CNT pathogenicity however was obfuscated by the apparent lack of biopersistcncc of the functionalised CNT compared with the pristine sample.Although direct injection into the pleural space is a convenient model to assess the hazard of fibres to the mesothelium it is not a physiologically relevant route by which workers may be exposed to CNT. Therefore we examined the inflammatory potential of CNT on the lungs and pleural cavity following pharyngeal aspiration into the airspaces. A length-dependent inflammatory response in the lungs was observed where only the long CNT sample caused acute neutrophilic inflammation at one week and progressive interstitial thickening of the alveolar septa by six weeks post exposure. Furthermore we report the induction of a length-dependent inflammatory response in the pleural cavity after exposure to CNT via the lung airspaces with concomitant evidence for the translocation of CNT from the lung into in the pleural cavity and subsequent retention along the parietal pleura.In summary the results presented here demonstrate the length-dependent pathogenicity of CNT in the pleural cavity and highlights the necessity for risk assessment for people likely to be exposed in the workplace. We also explored mechanistic aspects of the inflammatory response to long CNT which has implications for the general understanding of fibre-related pleural disease and may prove useful for the design of safe nanofibres

Managing Migration? The Politics of truth and Life Itself, a special issue

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From Bluebeard's castle to the white world of dreams : constrictions and constructions in Angela Carter's prose fiction

Angela Carter's death in 1992 heralded a surge of popularity and tributes. These latter tended to cast her as a "fairy godmother" or "white witch", labels which this thesis takes as starting points in its examination of the roles of author, narrator, hero, environment and reader; their interchangeability; and mutual affect. It focuses on the construction of the subject and her or his environment in Carter's fiction, measuring their interaction by way of generic filters, criticism, interviews and journalism. The introduction examines Carter's strategies and agenda within this context by way of a historical exploration of the Western subject's perception of her/his surroundings, with particular regard to the postmodern and feminist viewpoints. This is followed by an account of Carter's own publishing history envisaged as a landscaped, picaresque journey which typifies her characteristic blend of idealism and pragmatics. Her juxtaposition of the fantastical with the familiar continues to resurface as part of the debate in subsequent chapters, which use a succession of literary and cultural tools to illumine her texts in the light of the main project. Thus: her short fictions, radio plays and the film The Company of Wolves are examined as fairy tales; The Magic Toyshop and Heroes and Villainsexplored using theories of the Gothic and the dystopia; Love and The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman assessed in light of pornography and the picaresque; The Passion of New Eve viewed in terms of constructions of gender; and Nights at the Circus and Wise Children seen alongside theories carnival and of time. Elements of film theory, urban studies and architecture are threaded throughout, and some conclusions are offered through a reading of the important tropes of dream and labyrinth in American Ghosts and Old World Wonders. Always, subversive and unpredictable, Carter's writing can nevertheless be viewed as a succession of rewritings depicting an evolution of a subject initially vulnerable to but ultimately able to manipulate history. This is signalled most clearly by the early figure of the witch-hysteric. She is gradually transformed into the sibyl-prophetess of the later texts, while in a parallel dynamic, the environment's external threatening constructions have been dismantled in favour of a self-fashioning world full of possibility