Redundancy and the role of protein copy numbers in the cell polarization machinery of budding yeast

How can a self-organized cellular function evolve, adapt to perturbations, and acquire new sub-functions? To make progress in answering these basic questions of evolutionary cell biology, we analyze, as a concrete example, the cell polarity machinery of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This cellular module exhibits an intriguing resilience: it remains operational under genetic perturbations and recovers quickly and reproducibly from the deletion of one of its key components. Using a combination of modeling, conceptual theory, and experiments, we propose that multiple, redundant self-organization mechanisms coexist within the protein network underlying cell polarization and are responsible for the module’s resilience and adaptability. Based on our mechanistic understanding of polarity establishment, we hypothesize that scaffold proteins, by introducing new connections in the existing network, can increase the redundancy of mechanisms and thus increase the evolvability of other network components. Moreover, our work gives a perspective on how a complex, redundant cellular module might have evolved from a more rudimental ancestral form.DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-42928-6 author correction the author name Leila Iñigo de la Cruz was incorrectly written as Leila M. Iñigo de la Cruz. The original article has been corrected.BN/Liedewij Laan La

Does education matter? France and Germany in comparative perspective

'This paper builds on a French-German comparison on how individuals' education and occupational achievement, understood as social class position, are related to each other. Representative samples of national, male and female work forces from the early 1970s and 1990s are used as the empirical basis. The paper aims at analyzing patterns of occupational stratification by education from three perspectives, historical development, cross-national differences and similarities, gender-specific variation. First, we refer to the question of change and stability over time in national patterns of occupational stratification by education. Did more or less fundamental structural changes as well as quantitative moves in the respective educational systems and labour markets provoke changes in the returns to educational certification? Second, the link between education and occupation is investigated from a cross-national perspective. Which are the most salient differences between the French and the German pattern of occupational stratification by education? Do we discover processes of convergence between 1970 and 1990 or persisting cross-national dissimilarities? Third, differences between the sexes in the allocative power of education are considered. Is the pattern of association found in the respective countries the same for men and women, so that a 'societal effect' can be claimed? The paper outlines first the institutional framework in both countries. Relevant developments in the educational systems that took place between 1970 and 1990 are described as well as central findings of prior research on how education and work are related to each other in the two countries. According to our hypotheses, the empirical analysis reveals important similarities between both countries in how education is linked to occupational position, but also salient and persisting dissimilarities. France and Germany are both countries where strong education effects are at work. As regards changes over time, the findings show for both countries an increasing importance of educational achievement and, in some respects, a devaluation of lower level qualifications due to the expansion of higher education. The specific patterns of occupational stratification by education, however, vary between France and Germany. According to the skill-divide produced by the vocational qualification system, the German labour market appears relatively rigid at the bottom compared to the French one. By contrast, it still reveals less rigidity than the French labour market in recruitment to the upper organizational tiers, where it allows for some even though definitely less mobility than in the early 1970s. National differences in women's patterns of occupational stratification by education seem to have converged over time in direction of the differences found between German and French men. National institutions today show an extensive effect on the whole labour force, supposedly because female labour force participation became more 'regular' over the period investigated.' (author's abstract)Gegenstand der Untersuchung sind Zusammenhaenge von Bildung und beruflichem Status. Die Verfasserinnen stellen zunaechst den bildungspolitischen Hintergrund in Frankreich und Deutschland sowie Entwicklungen in diesem Bereich zwischen 1970 und 1990 dar. Sie fragen im folgenden nach der Stabilitaet der Beziehung von Bildungsniveau und Berufsposition in beiden Laendern im Zeitverlauf, nach Unterschieden dieser Beziehung im Laendervergleich sowie nach einer moeglichen geschlechtsspezifischen Auspraegung des Zusammenhangs von Bildung und Berufsposition. Die Untersuchung macht fuer beide Laender einen deutlichen Zusammenhang zwischen Bildungsabschluss und Berufsposition sichtbar, der im Zeitverlauf noch staerker wird und sich besonders in einer Entwertung niedriger Qualifikationen ausdrueckt. Die Strukturen der Hierarchisierung von Berufspositionen durch Bildung sind in Deutschland und Frankreich allerdings unterschiedlich. Waehrend der deutsche Arbeitsmarkt im unteren Bereich rigidere Strukturen aufweist, ist er im oberen Bereich im Vergleich zu Frankreich durchlaessiger. Geschlechtsspezifische Unterschiede im Zusammenhang von Bildung und Berufsposition haben sich im Zeitverlauf angeglichen. (ICE)German title: Spielt Bildung eine Rolle: Frankreich und Deutschland aus vergleichender PerspektiveSIGLEAvailable from UuStB Koeln(38)-970106634 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman

France - Allemagne: inegales avancees des femmes Evolutions comparees de l'education et de l'activite des femmes de 1971 a 1991

'Der Artikel befasst sich im deutsch-franzoesischen Vergleich mit der zunehmenden Beteiligung der Frauen im Bildungs- und Erwerbssystem. Bisherige Untersuchungen zu nationalen Unterschieden im Verhaeltnis von Bildung und Beschaeftigung haben sich vornehmlich auf die Maenner beschraenkt. Der Artikel zeigt auf der Basis nationaler Arbeitskraefteerhebungen, dass die franzoesischen Frauen von guenstigeren Ausbildungs- und Arbeitsmarktbedingungen profitieren als die deutschen Frauen. Zu Beginn der 70er und noch in den 90er Jahren erweisen sich geschlechterspezifische Ungleichheiten im Bildungserwerb in Deutschland als staerker ausgepraegt. Dies trifft - in allen Alters- und Bildungsgruppen - auch fuer die Erwerbsbeteiligung zu, sobald es sich um Frauen mit Kindern handelt. Dieser Befund laesst sich auf strukturelle Besonderheiten des deutschen Bildungs- und dessen Verknuepfung mit dem Beschaeftigungssystem zurueckfuehren. Das in Deutschland vorherrschende korporatistische Ausbildungs- und Berufssystem geht in hoeherem Masse mit geschlechterspezifischer Segregation einher als das in Frankreich dominierende Modell schulischer Ausbildung und einer Betonung auf allgemeiner Bildung.' (Autorenreferat)SIGLEAvailable from UuStB Koeln(38)-980106311 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman

Direccionales con con

An understudied property of Spanish grammar is the possibility of obtaining a directional reading with a PP introduced by con ‘with’, as in Ven con papá ‘Come to daddy’. This work explores this construction taking into account both the properties of the verb and the prepositional phrase, identifying as one of the restrictions that the preposition must in such cases introduce an animate noun; this relates such cases to standard Differential Object Marking (DOM). The proposal, which closely follows the analyses of DOM based on animacy, is that con is able to grammaticalise the [person] property of an animate noun