A New Labor Movement in the Shell of the Old?

[Excerpt] A lot has changed since the formation of the AFL-CIO 40 years ago. A regulated national economy has been transformed into a global economy — one in which American workers can be put into competition with others anywhere in the world. Corporations have decentralized their activities, downsized their in-house operations, and outsourced their production even while concentrating their power around the globe. Large urban industrial complexes like Detroit and Pittsburgh have been replaced by small, highly mobile production units, which can easily be relocated. White men have become the minority of the U.S. workforce and women and people of color the majority

Re-structuring of marine communities exposed to environmental change

Species richness is the most commonly used but controversial biodiversity metric in studies on aspects of community stability such as structural composition or productivity. The apparent ambiguity of theoretical and experimental findings may in part be due to experimental shortcomings and/or heterogeneity of scales and methods in earlier studies. This has led to an urgent call for improved and more realistic experiments. In a series of experiments replicated at a global scale we translocated several hundred marine hard bottom communities to new environments simulating a rapid but moderate environmental change. Subsequently, we measured their rate of compositional change (re-structuring) which in the great majority of cases represented a compositional convergence towards local communities. Re-structuring is driven by mortality of community components (original species) and establishment of new species in the changed environmental context. The rate of this re-structuring was then related to various system properties. We show that availability of free substratum relates negatively while taxon richness relates positively to structural persistence (i.e., no or slow re-structuring). Thus, when faced with environmental change, taxon-rich communities retain their original composition longer than taxon-poor communities. The effect of taxon richness, however, interacts with another aspect of diversity, functional richness. Indeed, taxon richness relates positively to persistence in functionally depauperate communities, but not in functionally diverse communities. The interaction between taxonomic and functional diversity with regard to the behaviour of communities exposed to environmental stress may help understand some of the seemingly contrasting findings of past research

The psychological aftermath of prostate cancer treatment choices : A comparison of depression, anxiety and quality of life outcomes over the 12 months following diagnosis

Objective: To assess the psychological impact of the different treatments for localised prostate cancer (PCA). Design, participants and setting: Observational, prospective study of consecutive patients with PCA attending clinics in public hospitals and private practices in metropolitan Melbourne between 1 April 2001 and 30 December 2005. Data were collected at initial diagnosis of histologically confirmed localised PCA, and close to the commencement of definitive treatment (Time 1), and 12 months later (Time 2). Patients were stratified according to treatment type (radical prostatectomy [RP], hormone therapy [HT] or other early treatment including radiation therapies [OET]). Patients who elected to undergo active surveillance/ watchful waiting (WW) rather than active treatment were treated as a naturalistic control group. Main outcome measures: Levels of depression and anxiety were assessed by the Brief Symptom Inventory, and physical and psychosocial aspects of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) were assessed by the 36-item Short-Form Health Survey. Results: 211 patients with PCA were recruited; 193 completed the Time 1 questionnaires (38 RP, 56 HT, 38 OET and 61 WW); and 172 completed the Time 2 questionnaires (33 RP, 51 HT, 33 OET and 55 WW). At Time 1, the three active treatment groups all reported greater dysfunction in work role and daily activities compared with the WW group. The RP group also reported worse social and emotional role functioning, while the HT and OET groups reported poorer vitality levels. The HT group reported significantly higher depression scores. At Time 2, the RP and OET groups did not differ from the WW group on either HRQOL or psychological status. By contrast, the HT group reported significantly worse HRQOL (physical functioning, role-physical and vitality domains) and greater psychological distress compared with the WW group. Conclusions: Compared with the other active treatments for localised PCA, HT appears to be associated with poorer HRQOL and greater psychological distress 12 months after commencing treatment

Hereditary leukoencephalopathy with axonal spheroids: a spectrum of phenotypes from CNS vasculitis to parkinsonism in an adult onset leukodystrophy series

Background: Hereditary diffuse leukoencephalopathy with neuroaxonal spheroids (HDLS) is a hereditary, adult onset leukodystrophy which is characterised by the presence of axonal loss, axonal spheroids and variably present pigmented macrophages on pathological examination. It most frequently presents in adulthood with dementia and personality change. HDLS has recently been found to be caused by mutations in the colony stimulating factor-1 receptor (CSF1R) gene. Methods: In this study, we sequenced the CSF1R gene in a cohort of 48 patients from the UK, Greece and Ireland with adult onset leukodystrophy of unknown cause. Results: Five pathogenic mutations were found, including three novel mutations. The presentations ranged from suspected central nervous system (CNS) vasculitis to extrapyramidal to cognitive phenotypes. The case histories and imaging are presented here, in addition to neuropathological findings from two cases with novel mutations. Conclusion: We estimate that CSF1R mutations account for 10% of idiopathic adult onset leukodystrophies and that genetic testing for CSF1R mutations is essential in adult patients presenting with undefined CNS vasculitis or a leukodystrophy with prominent neuropsychiatric signs or dementia

A role for MIRO1 in motility and membrane dynamics of peroxisomes

Peroxisomes are dynamic organelles which fulfil essential roles in lipid and ROS metabolism. Peroxisome movement and positioning allows interaction with other organelles and is crucial for their cellular function. In mammalian cells, such movement is microtubule-dependent and mediated by kinesin and dynein motors. The mechanisms of motor recruitment to peroxisomes are largely unknown, as well as the role this plays in peroxisome membrane dynamics and proliferation. Here, using a combination of microscopy, live-cell imaging analysis and mathematical modelling, we identify a role for Mitochondrial Rho GTPase 1 (MIRO1) as an adaptor for microtubule-dependent peroxisome motility in mammalian cells. We show that MIRO1 is targeted to peroxisomes and alters their distribution and motility. Using a peroxisome-targeted MIRO1 fusion protein, we demonstrate that MIRO1-mediated pulling forces contribute to peroxisome membrane elongation and proliferation in cellular models of peroxisome disease. Our findings reveal a molecular mechanism for establishing peroxisome-motor protein associations in mammalian cells and provide new insights into peroxisome membrane dynamics in health and disease

Environmental DNA sequencing primers for eutardigrades and bdelloid rotifers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The time it takes to isolate individuals from environmental samples and then extract DNA from each individual is one of the problems with generating molecular data from meiofauna such as eutardigrades and bdelloid rotifers. The lack of consistent morphological information and the extreme abundance of these classes makes morphological identification of rare, or even common cryptic taxa a large and unwieldy task. This limits the ability to perform large-scale surveys of the diversity of these organisms.</p> <p>Here we demonstrate a culture-independent molecular survey approach that enables the generation of large amounts of eutardigrade and bdelloid rotifer sequence data directly from soil. Our PCR primers, specific to the 18s small-subunit rRNA gene, were developed for both eutardigrades and bdelloid rotifers.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The developed primers successfully amplified DNA of their target organism from various soil DNA extracts. This was confirmed by both the BLAST similarity searches and phylogenetic analyses. Tardigrades showed much better phylogenetic resolution than bdelloids. Both groups of organisms exhibited varying levels of endemism.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The development of clade-specific primers for characterizing eutardigrades and bdelloid rotifers from environmental samples should greatly increase our ability to characterize the composition of these taxa in environmental samples. Environmental sequencing as shown here differs from other molecular survey methods in that there is no need to pre-isolate the organisms of interest from soil in order to amplify their DNA. The DNA sequences obtained from methods that do not require culturing can be identified post-hoc and placed phylogenetically as additional closely related sequences are obtained from morphologically identified conspecifics. Our non-cultured environmental sequence based approach will be able to provide a rapid and large-scale screening of the presence, absence and diversity of Bdelloidea and Eutardigrada in a variety of soils.</p

Brief Review Renal Aging. Causes and consequences

Individuals age >65 years old are the fastest expanding population demographic throughout the developed world. Consequently, more aged patients than before are receiving diagnoses of impaired renal function and nephrosclerosis—age–associated histologic changes in the kidneys. Recent studies have shown that the aged kidney undergoes a range of structural changes and has altered transcriptomic, hemodynamic, and physiologic behavior at rest and in response to renal insults. These changes impair the ability of the kidney to withstand and recover from injury, contributing to the high susceptibility of the aged population to AKI and their increased propensity to develop subsequent progressive CKD. In this review, we examine these features of the aged kidney and explore the various validated and putative pathways contributing to the changes observed with aging in both experimental animal models and humans. We also discuss the potential for additional study to increase understanding of the aged kidney and lead to novel therapeutic strategies

Re-Structuring of Marine Communities Exposed to Environmental Change: A Global Study on the Interactive Effects of Species and Functional Richness

Species richness is the most commonly used but controversial biodiversity metric in studies on aspects of community stability such as structural composition or productivity. The apparent ambiguity of theoretical and experimental findings may in part be due to experimental shortcomings and/or heterogeneity of scales and methods in earlier studies. This has led to an urgent call for improved and more realistic experiments. In a series of experiments replicated at a global scale we translocated several hundred marine hard bottom communities to new environments simulating a rapid but moderate environmental change. Subsequently, we measured their rate of compositional change (re-structuring) which in the great majority of cases represented a compositional convergence towards local communities. Re-structuring is driven by mortality of community components (original species) and establishment of new species in the changed environmental context. The rate of this re-structuring was then related to various system properties. We show that availability of free substratum relates negatively while taxon richness relates positively to structural persistence (i.e., no or slow re-structuring). Thus, when faced with environmental change, taxon-rich communities retain their original composition longer than taxon-poor communities. The effect of taxon richness, however, interacts with another aspect of diversity, functional richness. Indeed, taxon richness relates positively to persistence in functionally depauperate communities, but not in functionally diverse communities. The interaction between taxonomic and functional diversity with regard to the behaviour of communities exposed to environmental stress may help understand some of the seemingly contrasting findings of past research

ACBD5 and VAPB mediate membrane associations between peroxisomes and the ER

Peroxisomes (POs) and the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) cooperate in cellular lipid metabolism and form tight structural associations, which were first observed in ultrastructural studies decades ago. PO–ER associations have been suggested to impact on a diverse number of physiological processes, including lipid metabolism, phospholipid exchange, metabolite transport, signaling, and PO biogenesis. Despite their fundamental importance to cell metabolism, the mechanisms by which regions of the ER become tethered to POs are unknown, in particular in mammalian cells. Here, we identify the PO membrane protein acyl-coenzyme A–binding domain protein 5 (ACBD5) as a binding partner for the resident ER protein vesicle-associated membrane protein-associated protein B (VAPB). We show that ACBD5–VAPB interaction regulates PO–ER associations. Moreover, we demonstrate that loss of PO–ER association perturbs PO membrane expansion and increases PO movement. Our findings reveal the first molecular mechanism for establishing PO–ER associations in mammalian cells and report a new function for ACBD5 in PO–ER tethering

ACBD5 and VAPB mediate membrane associations between peroxisomes and the ER

This is the final version of the article. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Peroxisomes (POs) and the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) cooperate in cellular lipid metabolism and form tight structural associations, which were first observed in ultrastructural studies decades ago. PO–ER associations have been suggested to impact on a diverse number of physiological processes, including lipid metabolism, phospholipid exchange, metabolite transport, signaling, and PO biogenesis. Despite their fundamental importance to cell metabolism, the mechanisms by which regions of the ER become tethered to POs are unknown, in particular in mammalian cells. Here, we identify the PO membrane protein acyl-coenzyme A–binding domain protein 5 (ACBD5) as a binding partner for the resident ER protein vesicle-associated membrane protein-associated protein B (VAPB). We show that ACBD5–VAPB interaction regulates PO–ER associations. Moreover, we demonstrate that loss of PO–ER association perturbs PO membrane expansion and increases PO movement. Our findings reveal the first molecular mechanism for establishing PO–ER associations in mammalian cells and report a new function for ACBD5 in PO–ER tethering.This work was supported by grants from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/K006231/1 and BB/ N01541X/1 to M. Schrader). J. Metz and M. Schrader are supported by a Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Award (WT097835MF and WT105618MA) and L.F. Godinho by a fellowship from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal (SFRH/ BPD/90084/2012). M. Schrader and A.S. Azadi are supported by Marie Curie Initial Training Network action PerFuMe (316723). M. Islinger is supported by MEAMEDMA Anschubförderung, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg