Life-long Programming Implications of Exposure to Tobacco Smoking and Nicotine Before and Soon After Birth: Evidence for Altered Lung Development

Tobacco smoking during pregnancy remains common, especially in indigenous communities, and likely contributes to respiratory illness in exposed offspring. It is now well established that components of tobacco smoke, notably nicotine, can affect multiple organs in the fetus and newborn, potentially with life-long consequences. Recent studies have shown that nicotine can permanently affect the developing lung such that its final structure and function are adversely affected; these changes can increase the risk of respiratory illness and accelerate the decline in lung function with age. In this review we discuss the impact of maternal smoking on the lungs and consider the evidence that smoking can have life-long, programming consequences for exposed offspring. Exposure to maternal tobacco smoking and nicotine intake during pregnancy and lactation changes the genetic program that controls the development and aging of the lungs of the offspring. Changes in the conducting airways and alveoli reduce lung function in exposed offspring, rendering the lungs more susceptible to obstructive lung disease and accelerating lung aging. Although it is generally accepted that prevention of maternal smoking during pregnancy and lactation is essential, current knowledge of the effects of nicotine on lung development does not support the use of nicotine replacement therapy in this group

Scandinavian Private Law: Nationalism, Realism, and Instrumentalist in Private Law

This study focuses on Scandinavian private law to provide a deepened understanding of the European integration of the Scandinavian states. Since the creation of the EU and its predecessors, these states have shown resistance to deepened European integration. Remarkably, in private law, resistance has been assigned primarily to Scandinavian features separate from the Scandinavian states. I examine private law and, in particular, what role the Scandinavian identity in private law has had for the reception of EU private law harmonization in the region. Private law exists in society and the study borrows from political science and identity theory to explain the formation and the success of the Scandinavian identity in private law. At the same time, private law has historically carried far-reaching autonomy relative to the state in the region. Private law theory has sought to maintain such autonomy and provides a way to approach broader questions on the content of Scandinavian private law and the changing role of private law in a post-national world. I examine private law scholarship, statutes, and case law over the past two centuries and place them into their socio-political context. The material provides a narrative of the changing nature by which Scandinavian legal actors have understood private law and its relation to the state and the meaning of the Scandinavian identity. In the context of EU private law harmonization, very few legal writers have challenged the historic state-centralism of private law that existed in the nation states. Instead, they have debated whether the EU should act more or less like a state. In a post-national Europe, however, the role of the state is changing and so is its relationship to private law. Scandinavian private law emerges particular because it has existed beyond the state and raises novel questions for how to deal with conflicting rules and systems of law within the EU. The dissertation highlights the important role of the legal community and its interplay with society for creating private law

Heterogeneity of glycolytic oscillatory behaviour in individual yeast cells.

AbstractThere are many examples of oscillations in biological systems and one of the most investigated is glycolytic oscillations in yeast. These oscillations have been studied since the 1950s in dense, synchronized populations and in cell-free extracts, but it has for long been unknown whether a high cell density is a requirement for oscillations to be induced, or if individual cells can oscillate also in isolation without synchronization. Here we present an experimental method and a detailed kinetic model for studying glycolytic oscillations in individual, isolated yeast cells and compare them to previously reported studies of single-cell oscillations. The importance of single-cell studies of this phenomenon and relevant future research questions are also discussed

Sustained glycolytic oscillations in individual isolated yeast cells

ArticleYeast glycolytic oscillations have been studied since the 1950s in cell-free extracts and intact cells. For intact cells, sustained oscillations have so far only been observed at the population level, i.e. for synchronized cultures at high biomass concentrations. Using optical tweezers to position yeast cells in a microfluidic chamber, we were able to observe sustained oscillations in individual isolated cells. Using a detailed kinetic model for the cellular reactions, we simulated the heterogeneity in the response of the individual cells, assuming small differences in a single internal parameter. This is the first time that sustained limit-cycle oscillations have been demonstrated in isolated yeast cells. © 2012 FEBS