The “Lay State” – a Signifier of Transformations in the Church?

This article explores the renewal lay people initiated at a decisive moment in Church history. In the 16th – 17th century, with the development of the modern school, lay people were given the responsibility to teach religion and to guarantee Christian education in schools. A new type of religious congregation, with exclusively lay members, emerged. They had an impressive impact, worldwide, over the past three centuries. However, as the members of these congregations declined dramatically over the past decades, one wonders whether new generations will succeed in guaranteeing continuity in the near future. Or will ordinary, secular but baptized lay people create new forms of association while taking on responsibility for school education?Michel Sauvage (1923-2001), a French member of the De La Salle religious order, studied the theological identity of the lay “teaching brother” as initiated by J.-B. De La Salle at the end of the 17th century. The present situation, with 1.9 % brothers left and 97.6 % ordinary lay teachers in the educational institutions worldwide, seems to suggest that, once more, a historical mutation is occurring in the church.This article explores the renewal lay people initiated at a decisive moment in Church history. In the 16th – 17th century, with the development of the modern school, lay people were given the responsibility to teach religion and to guarantee Christian education in schools. A new type of religious congregation, with exclusively lay members, emerged. They had an impressive impact, worldwide, over the past three centuries. However, as the members of these congregations declined dramatically over the past decades, one wonders whether new generations will succeed in guaranteeing continuity in the near future. Or will ordinary, secular but baptized lay people create new forms of association while taking on responsibility for school education?Michel Sauvage (1923-2001), a French member of the De La Salle religious order, studied the theological identity of the lay “teaching brother” as initiated by J.-B. De La Salle at the end of the 17th century. The present situation, with 1.9 % brothers left and 97.6 % ordinary lay teachers in the educational institutions worldwide, seems to suggest that, once more, a historical mutation is occurring in the church

Rituals’ Narrative Logics

This article focuses on a double identity of rituals: the origin and main structure of rituals is narrative, and they represent a particular logic which aims at establishing a different quality of life. The narrative structure coincides with a typical characteristic of the human mind: the commemoration of striking dramatic or liberating events. Hence the ongoing concern to remember; the anamnesis intends to prevent that what among people never should be forgotten remains present in the individual and collective memory. Rituals are the most powerful means to keep memory alive. The coincidence of the faithfulness to a living tradition and the authentic commitment to present human concerns guarantees that the ritual anamnesis introduces qualitative change among the people involved

Rituals’ Narrative Logics

This article focuses on a double identity of rituals: the origin and main structure of rituals is narrative, and they represent a particular logic which aims at establishing a different quality of life. The narrative structure coincides with a typical characteristic of the human mind: the commemoration of striking dramatic or liberating events. Hence the ongoing concern to remember; the anamnesis intends to prevent that what among people never should be forgotten remains present in the individual and collective memory. Rituals are the most powerful means to keep memory alive. The coincidence of the faithfulness to a living tradition and the authentic commitment to present human concerns guarantees that the ritual anamnesis introduces qualitative change among the people involved

Differential splicing of COL4A5 mRNA in kidney and white blood cells: A complex mutation in the COL4A5 gene of an Alport patient deletes the NC1 domain

Differential splicing of COL4A5 mRNA in kidney and white blood cells: A complex mutation in the COL4A5 gene of an Alport patient deletes the NC1 domain. PCR conditions were optimized to amplify the COL4A5 cDNA from lymphoblasts and kidney tissue. Sequencing of the COL4A5 mRNA isolated from the kidney of an Alport syndrome patient revealed two differences with the published sequence. One divergence, the insertion of an 18 bp sequence between exon 11 and 10 of the COL4A5 mRNA added two Gly-X-Y triplets to the COL4A5 sequence and was subsequently found in the mRNA of four normal kidney mRNA samples. This sequence was absent in all white blood cell RNA samples sequenced by us, indicating tissue specific splicing with the presence of an additional exon in kidney COL4A5 mRNA. This finding of differential splicing of COL4A5 mRNA in kidney and white blood cells might affect the use of white blood cell mRNA for the analysis of Alport mutations. Second, a complex mutation was detected in the mRNA from the AS patient introducing a premature stop codon in the message, deleting part of the triple helical domain and the complete NC domain. The mother of the patient was shown to be heterozygous for this mutation

CDH1 promoter hypermethylation and E-cadherin protein expression in infiltrating breast cancer

BACKGROUND: The E-cadherin gene (CDH1) maps, at chromosome 16q22.1, a region often associated with loss of heterozygosity (LOH) in human breast cancer. LOH at this site is thought to lead to loss of function of this tumor suppressor gene and was correlated with decreased disease-free survival, poor prognosis, and metastasis. Differential CpG island methylation in the promoter region of the CDH1 gene might be an alternative way for the loss of expression and function of E-cadherin, leading to loss of tissue integrity, an essential step in tumor progression. METHODS: The aim of our study was to assess, by Methylation-Specific Polymerase Chain Reaction (MSP), the methylation pattern of the CDH1 gene and its possible correlation with the expression of E-cadherin and other standard immunohistochemical parameters (Her-2, ER, PgR, p53, and K-67) in a series of 79 primary breast cancers (71 infiltrating ductal, 5 infiltrating lobular, 1 metaplastic, 1 apocrine, and 1 papillary carcinoma). RESULTS: CDH1 hypermethylation was observed in 72% of the cases including 52/71 ductal, 4/5 lobular carcinomas and 1 apocrine carcinoma. Reduced levels of E-cadherin protein were observed in 85% of our samples. Although not statistically significant, the levels of E-cadherin expression tended to diminish with the CDH1 promoter region methylation. In the group of 71 ductal cancinomas, most of the cases of showing CDH1 hypermethylation also presented reduced levels of expression of ER and PgR proteins, and a possible association was observed between CDH1 methylation and ER expression (p = 0.0301, Fisher's exact test). However, this finding was not considered significant after Bonferroni correction of p-value. CONCLUSION: Our preliminary findings suggested that abnormal CDH1 methylation occurs in high frequencies in infiltrating breast cancers associated with a decrease in E-cadherin expression in a subgroup of cases characterized by loss of expression of other important genes to the mammary carcinogenesis process, probably due to the disruption of the mechanism of maintenance of DNA methylation in tumoral cells

DNA methylation patterns in bladder cancer and washing cell sediments: a perspective for tumor recurrence detection

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Epigenetic alterations are a hallmark of human cancer. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether aberrant DNA methylation of cancer-associated genes is related to urinary bladder cancer recurrence.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A set of 4 genes, including <it>CDH1 </it>(E-cadherin), <it>SFN </it>(stratifin), <it>RARB </it>(retinoic acid receptor, beta) and <it>RASSF1A </it>(Ras association (RalGDS/AF-6) domain family 1), had their methylation patterns evaluated by MSP (Methylation-Specific Polymerase Chain Reaction) analysis in 49 fresh urinary bladder carcinoma tissues (including 14 cases paired with adjacent normal bladder epithelium, 3 squamous cell carcinomas and 2 adenocarcinomas) and 24 cell sediment samples from bladder washings of patients classified as cancer-free by cytological analysis (control group). A third set of samples included 39 archived tumor fragments and 23 matched washouts from 20 urinary bladder cancer patients in post-surgical monitoring. After genomic DNA isolation and sodium bisulfite modification, methylation patterns were determined and correlated with standard clinic-histopathological parameters.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><it>CDH1 </it>and <it>SFN </it>genes were methylated at high frequencies in bladder cancer as well as in paired normal adjacent tissue and exfoliated cells from cancer-free patients. Although no statistically significant differences were found between <it>RARB </it>and <it>RASSF1A </it>methylation and the clinical and histopathological parameters in bladder cancer, a sensitivity of 95% and a specificity of 71% were observed for <it>RARB </it>methylation (Fisher's Exact test (p < 0.0001; OR = 48.89) and, 58% and 17% (p < 0.05; OR = 0.29) for <it>RASSF1A </it>gene, respectively, in relation to the control group.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Indistinct DNA hypermethylation of <it>CDH1 </it>and <it>SFN </it>genes between tumoral and normal urinary bladder samples suggests that these epigenetic features are not suitable biomarkers for urinary bladder cancer. However, <it>RARB </it>and <it>RASSF1A </it>gene methylation appears to be an initial event in urinary bladder carcinogenesis and should be considered as defining a panel of differentially methylated genes in this neoplasia in order to maximize the diagnostic coverage of epigenetic markers, especially in studies aiming at early recurrence detection.</p