Risk assessment of war wrecks – a comprehensive approach investigating four wrecks containing munitions in the German Bight/North Sea

Shipwrecks and dumped munition continue to be a major hazard, both in the North Sea but also on a global scale. Research within the EU Interreg project North Sea Wrecks (NSW), in cooperation with the German Aerospace Centre, Institute for the Protection of Maritime Infrastructures (DLR), is generating new insights into the status of wrecks, the potential leakage of pollutants from remaining munitions loads and the effects of contamination on exposed marine organisms in the North Sea environment. Further, historical documents are generated from archives to describe ship’s history and sinking scenario. These historical findings were compared to models and images of the visual inspections of the wrecks. Further, samples of water, sediment and organisms are being analysed for traces of explosives. Combining the results of these different fields of research allows for a better understanding of the environmental risks deriving from these wrecks. This process is shown below by focusing on the wreck of the German light cruiser SMS MAINZ, which sank in 1914. Data were compared to three additional wrecks situated also within the southern German Bight. Available data about the wrecks were preliminary assessed using a wreck risk model. Finally, wrecks were ranked according to their potential environmental risk

Collagen XVI is a neural component of the developing and regenerating dorsal root ganglia extracellular matrix.

International audienceCollagen XVI is a homotrimeric molecule harbouring similarities to the FACIT (fibril-associated collagens with interrupted triple helices) family of collagens (Grassel et al., 1996). Collagen XVI is expressed in skin and cartilage where it is integrated into tissue specific aggregates (Grassel et al., 1999; Kassner et al., 2003). In the nervous system, collagen XVI has been detected at lowlevel in the brain and a strong expression was also reported in spinal root fibers during development (Lai and Chu, 1996). In dorsal root ganglia (DRG), analysis of SAGE banks performed by our group during development and after nerve injury (Mechaly et al., 2006) shows a fluctuation of collagen XVI expression between the different conditions and prompted us to study it further. DRGs contain the cell bodies of neurons, the axons of which transmit sensory information from the periphery to the central nervous system. While it is well known that during development and regeneration, neurites require extracellular matrix molecules for growth and guidance (Hari et al., 2004), the composition and the role of the matrix surrounding neurons in the ganglia itself have solicited little interest. Here, we show that collagen XVI is a component of the developingDRG extracellular matrix, that following nerve injury, its expression is increased around neuronal cell bodies and that neurons express collagen XVI in the peripheral nervous system