An equal right to inherit? Women's land rights, customary law and constitutional reform in Tanzania

This article explores contemporary contestations surrounding women’s inheritance of land in Africa. Legal activism has gained momentum, both in agendas for law reform and in test case litigation, which reached United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in ES and SC v. United Republic of Tanzania. Comparing the approach of Tanzania to that of its neighbours, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda, this article explores patterns of resistance and omission towards enshrining an equal right to inherit in land and succession laws. It identifies two main reasons: neoliberal drivers for land law reform of the 1990s and sociopolitical sensitivity surrounding inheritance of land. It argues that a progressive approach to constitutional and law reform on women’s land rights requires understanding of the realities of claims to family land based on kinship relations. It calls for a holistic approach to land, marriage and inheritance law reform underpinned with constitutional rights to equality and progressive interpretations of living customary law

Correlations of differentially expressed gap junction connexins cx26, cx30, cx32, cx43 and cx46 with breast cancer progression and prognosis.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Connexins and their cell membrane channels contribute to the control of cell proliferation and compartmental functions in breast glands and their deregulation is linked to breast carcinogenesis. Our aim was to correlate connexin expression with tumor progression and prognosis in primary breast cancers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Meta-analysis of connexin isotype expression data of 1809 and 1899 breast cancers from the Affymetrix and Illumina array platforms, respectively, was performed. Expressed connexins were also monitored at the protein level in tissue microarrays of 127 patients equally representing all tumor grades, using immunofluorescence and multilayer, multichannel digital microscopy. Prognostic correlations were plotted in Kaplan-Meier curves and tested using the log-rank test and cox-regression analysis in univariate and multivariate models. RESULTS: The expression of GJA1/Cx43, GJA3/Cx46 and GJB2/Cx26 and, for the first time, GJA6/Cx30 and GJB1/Cx32 was revealed both in normal human mammary glands and breast carcinomas. Within their subfamilies these connexins can form homo- and heterocellular epithelial channels. In cancer, the array datasets cross-validated each other's prognostic results. In line with the significant correlations found at mRNA level, elevated Cx43 protein levels were linked with significantly improved breast cancer outcome, offering Cx43 protein detection as an independent prognostic marker stronger than vascular invasion or necrosis. As a contrary, elevated Cx30 mRNA and protein levels were associated with a reduced disease outcome offering Cx30 protein detection as an independent prognostic marker outperforming mitotic index and necrosis. Elevated versus low Cx43 protein levels allowed the stratification of grade 2 tumors into good and poor relapse free survival subgroups, respectively. Also, elevated versus low Cx30 levels stratified grade 3 patients into poor and good overall survival subgroups, respectively. CONCLUSION: Differential expression of Cx43 and Cx30 may serve as potential positive and negative prognostic markers, respectively, for a clinically relevant stratification of breast cancers

A review of elliptical and disc galaxy structure, and modern scaling laws

A century ago, in 1911 and 1913, Plummer and then Reynolds introduced their models to describe the radial distribution of stars in `nebulae'. This article reviews the progress since then, providing both an historical perspective and a contemporary review of the stellar structure of bulges, discs and elliptical galaxies. The quantification of galaxy nuclei, such as central mass deficits and excess nuclear light, plus the structure of dark matter halos and cD galaxy envelopes, are discussed. Issues pertaining to spiral galaxies including dust, bulge-to-disc ratios, bulgeless galaxies, bars and the identification of pseudobulges are also reviewed. An array of modern scaling relations involving sizes, luminosities, surface brightnesses and stellar concentrations are presented, many of which are shown to be curved. These 'redshift zero' relations not only quantify the behavior and nature of galaxies in the Universe today, but are the modern benchmark for evolutionary studies of galaxies, whether based on observations, N-body-simulations or semi-analytical modelling. For example, it is shown that some of the recently discovered compact elliptical galaxies at 1.5 < z < 2.5 may be the bulges of modern disc galaxies.Comment: Condensed version (due to Contract) of an invited review article to appear in "Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems"(www.springer.com/astronomy/book/978-90-481-8818-5). 500+ references incl. many somewhat forgotten, pioneer papers. Original submission to Springer: 07-June-201

Level of Arterial Ligation in Rectal Cancer Surgery: Low Tie Preferred over High Tie. A Review

Consensus does not exist on the level of arterial ligation in rectal cancer surgery. From oncologic considerations, many surgeons apply high tie arterial ligation (level of inferior mesenteric artery). Other strategies include ligation at the level of the superior rectal artery, just caudally to the origin of the left colic artery (low tie), and ligation at a level without any intraoperative definition of the inferior mesenteric or superior rectal arteries

Proline-rich antimicrobial peptide, PR-39 gene transduction altered invasive activity and actin structure in human hepatocellular carcinoma cells

PR-39 is an endogenous proline-rich antimicrobial peptide which induces the synthesis of syndecan-1, a transmembrane heparan sulphate proteoglycan involved in cell-to-matrix interactions and wound healing. Previously, we revealed that the expression of syndecan-1 was reduced in human hepatocellular carcinomas with high metastatic potential and speculated that syndecan-1 played an important role in inhibition of invasion and metastasis. It is assumed that a modification of this process with PR-39 and syndecan-1 may result in a new strategy by which it can inhibit the invasion and metastasis. Therefore, we transduced a gene of PR-39 into human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line HLF, which shows a low expression of syndecan-1 and a high in vitro invasive activity, and examined whether this procedure could reduce the invasive activity of tumour cells. In two transfectants with PR-39 gene, the syndecan-1 expression was induced and the invasive activity in type I collagen-coated chamber was inhibited. Moreover, these transfectants showed the suppression of motile activity assayed by phagokinetic tracks in addition to the disorganization of actin filaments observed by a confocal imaging system. In contrast, five transfectants with syndecan-1 gene in the HLF cells revealed suppression of invasive activity but did not alter the motile activity and actin structures of the cell. These results suggest that PR-39 has functions involved in the suppression of motile activity and alteration of actin structure on human hepatocellular carcinoma cells in addition to the suppression of invasive activity which might result from the induction of syndecan-1 expression. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaig

Leptin Resistance in Vagal Afferent Neurons Inhibits Cholecystokinin Signaling and Satiation in Diet Induced Obese Rats

Background and Aims: The gastrointestinal hormone cholecystokinin (CCK) plays an important role in regulating meal size and duration by activating CCK1 receptors on vagal afferent neurons (VAN). Leptin enhances CCK signaling in VAN via an early growth response 1 (EGR1) dependent pathway thereby increasing their sensitivity to CCK. In response to a chronic ingestion of a high fat diet, VAN develop leptin resistance and the satiating effects of CCK are reduced. We tested the hypothesis that leptin resistance in VAN is responsible for reducing CCK signaling and satiation. Results: Lean Zucker rats sensitive to leptin signaling, significantly reduced their food intake following administration of CCK8S (0.22 nmol/kg, i.p.), while obese Zucker rats, insensitive to leptin, did not. CCK signaling in VAN of obese Zucker rats was reduced, preventing CCK-induced up-regulation of Y2 receptor and down-regulation of melanin concentrating hormone 1 receptor (MCH1R) and cannabinoid receptor (CB1). In VAN from diet-induced obese (DIO) Sprague Dawley rats, previously shown to become leptin resistant, we demonstrated that the reduction in EGR1 expression resulted in decreased sensitivity of VAN to CCK and reduced CCK-induced inhibition of food intake. The lowered sensitivity of VAN to CCK in DIO rats resulted in a decrease in Y2 expression and increased CB1 and MCH1R expression. These effects coincided with the onset of hyperphagia in DIO rats. Conclusions: Leptin signaling in VAN is required for appropriate CCK signaling and satiation. In response to high fat feeding

A novel translational assay of response inhibition and impulsivity: effects of prefrontal cortex lesions, drugs used in ADHD, and serotonin 2C receptor antagonism

Animal models are making an increasing contribution to our understanding of the psychology and brain mechanisms underlying behavioral inhibition and impulsivity. The aim here was to develop, for the first time, a mouse analogue of the stop-signal reaction time task with high translational validity in order to be able to exploit this species in genetic and molecular investigations of impulsive behaviours. Cohorts of mice were trained to nose-poke to presentations of visual stimuli. Control of responding was manipulated by altering the onset of an auditory ‘stop-signal’ during the go response. The anticipated systematic changes in action cancellation were observed as stopping was made more difficult by placing the stop-signal closer to the execution of the action. Excitotoxic lesions of medial prefrontal cortex resulted in impaired stopping, whilst the clinically effective drugs methylphenidate and atomoxetine enhanced stopping abilities. The specific 5-HT2C receptor antagonist SB242084 also led to enhanced response control in this task. We conclude that stop-signal reaction time task performance can be successfully modelled in mice and is sensitive to prefrontal cortex dysfunction and drug treatments in a qualitatively similar manner to humans and previous rat models. Additionally, using the model we show novel and highly discrete effects of 5-HT2C receptor antagonism that suggest manipulation of 5-HT2C receptor function may be of use in correcting maladaptive impulsive behaviors and provide further evidence for dissociable contributions of serotonergic transmission to response control

The influence of glycosaminoglycans and cross-linking agents on the phenotype of hepatocytes cultured on collagen gels

The use of primary hepatocyte cultures as in vitro models for studying xenobiotic metabolism and toxicity is limited by the loss of liver-specific differentiated functions with time in culture and the inability of the cells to proliferate. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of incorporating 20% chondroitin-6-sulphate (Ch6SO4), a glycosaminoglycan (GAG), into collagen gels (0.3% w/v) and crosslinking the gels with either 1-ethyl-3-(3-di methylaminopropyl) carbodiimide (EDAC) or 1,6-diaminohexane (DAH) on the expression of glutathione-Stransferases (GSTs) and the activity of cytochrome P450 in hepatocytes cultured for 48 hours and 7 days. Hepatocytes were isolated from male Sprague-Dawley rats by collagenase perfusion. Cell homogenates were immunoblotted against class {alpha} and {pi} GST subunits. To measure cytochrome P450 activity, testosterone hydroxylation was assessed. Viability of the cultured cells was assessed by confocal laser scanning microscopy using the vital stain carboxyfluorescein diacetate (CFDA). Cells cultured on gels crosslinked with EDAC were dead by 48 hours as judged by lack of CFDA-derived fluorescence and absence of GST bands on the immunoblots. The viability and morphology of the cells were unaffected by any of the other components of the substrata tested. Expression of GSTs indicated that the hepatocyte phenotype was stable for at least 48 hours. The addition of GAG did not improve the phenotype at either 48 hours or 7 days in culture, but the combination of GAG and DAH crosslinking improved GST expression in the 7-day cultures. However, the hepatocyte cytochrome P450 activity did not show any improvement on any of the gels. The combination of GAG and DAH crosslinking provided the most stable substratum environment in terms of GST expression in hepatocytes