Capital, credit and the business cycle in Marx

The purpose of this paper is to identify two inconsistencies that are found in the third chapter of Marx’s Das Kapital, dedicated to the study of credit. In the first one Marx states that the distinction between commercial and bank credit is only nominal, but he resorts to it in order to provide an explanation for the nineteenth century crisis in England, thus implying that the distinction was not only nominal, but real. The second inconsistency is noticed between Marx’s statement that real and money capital move in opposite directions during the trade cycle (without an explanation of how it is possible), and the second book of The Capital where Marx states that capital in the form of money and real capital must move in the same directions during the business cycle

Low surface expression of B7-1 (CD80) is an immunoescape mechanism of colon carcinoma

Artificially enforced expression of CD80 (B7-1) and CD86 (B7-2) on tumor cells renders them more immunogenic by triggering the CD28 receptor on T cells. The enigma is that such B7s interact with much higher affinity with CTLA-4 (CD152), an inhibitory receptor expressed by activated T cells. We show that unmutated CD80 is spontaneously expressed at low levels by mouse colon carcinoma cell lines and other transplantable tumor cell lines of various tissue origins. Silencing of CD80 by interfering RNA led to loss of tumorigenicity of CT26 colon carcinoma in immunocompetent mice, but not in immunodeficient Rag-/- mice. CT26 tumor cells bind CTLA-4Ig, but much more faintly with a similar CD28Ig chimeric protein, thus providing an explanation for the dominant inhibitory effects on tumor immunity displayed by CD80 at that expression level. Interestingly, CD80-negative tumor cell lines such as MC38 colon carcinoma and B16 melanoma express CD80 at dim levels during in vivo growth in syngeneic mice. Therefore, low CD80 surface expression seems to give an advantage to cancer cells against the immune system. Our findings are similar with the inhibitory role described for the dim CD80 expression on immature dendritic cells, providing an explanation for the low levels of CD80 expression described in various human malignancies

Cross-Regulation between Transposable Elements and Host DNA Replication

Transposable elements subvert host cellular functions to ensure their survival. Their interaction with the host DNA replication machinery indicates that selective pressures lead them to develop ancestral and convergent evolutionary adaptations aimed at conserved features of this fundamental process. These interactions can shape the co-evolution of the transposons and their hosts

La conservación del paisaje cultural de las sierras de Urbasa y Andía (Navarra): problemas y oportunidades

La conservación de los paisajes culturales modelados por actividades agrarias tradicionales es objeto de una creciente atención con el fin de evitar su degradación. Entre los paisajes culturales a conservar se encuentran paisajes silvopastoriles creados por el pastoreo estacional basado en la trasterminancia y la trashumancia y por actividades forestales tradicionales. En este artículo se analizan los excepcionales valores del paisaje de las Sierras de Urbasa y Andía, que lo hacen potencialmente susceptible de ser inscrito como paisaje cultural en la Lista del Patrimonio Mundial de UNESCO. Asimismo, se examina la gestión que llevan a cabo los órganos de gobierno que administran el territorio concernido. Por último, se identifican problemas y oportunidades para garantizar la conservación del paisaje cultural.Proyecto de Investigación titulado “Paisajes culturales de la Lista de Patrimonio Mundial. Claves para la identificación y criterios para la gestión de paisajes agroganaderos, mineros e industriales de la España atlántica” (CSO2015-65787-C6-3-P, AEI/FEDER, UE)

Credit, capital and the business cycle in Marx

The purpose of this paper is to identify two inconsistencies that are found in the third chapter of Marx’s Das Kapital, dedicated to the study of credit. In the first one Marx states that the distinction between commercial and bank credit is only nominal, but he resorts to it in order to provide an explanation for the nineteenth century crisis in England, thus implying that the distinction was not only nominal, but real. The second inconsistency is noticed between Marx’s statement that real and money capital move in opposite directions during the trade cycle (without an explanation of how it is possible), and the second book of The Capital where Marx states that capital in the form of money and real capital must move in the same directions during the business cycle.Keywords: Marx; inconsistency; bank credit; money capital.El objetivo de este artículo consiste en identificar dos inconsistencias que aparecen en el capítulo 3 de El Capital, de Karl Marx, dedicado al estudio del crédito. En la primera, Marx afirma que la distinción entre banca comercial y de crédito es solo nominal, pero él recurre a esa distinción para dar una explicación a la crisis del siglo XIX en Inglaterra, con lo cual indica que es una distinción real, no nominal. La segunda inconsistencia es la siguiente: Marx anuncia que el efectivo y el capital dinero se mueven en direcciones opuestas durante el ciclo comercial; pero en el segundo libro de El Capital asume que el capital en forma de dinero y de capital efectivo se deben mover en la misma dirección durante el ciclo de negocio

Credit, capital and the business cycle in Marx

The purpose of this paper is to identify two inconsistencies that are found in the third chapter of Marx’s Das Kapital, dedicated to the study of credit. In the first one Marx states that the distinction between commercial and bank credit is only nominal, but he resorts to it in order to provide an explanation for the nineteenth century crisis in England, thus implying that the distinction was not only nominal, but real. The second inconsistency is noticed between Marx’s statement that real and money capital move in opposite directions during the trade cycle (without an explanation of how it is possible), and the second book of The Capital where Marx states that capital in the form of money and real capital must move in the same directions during the business cycle.Keywords: Marx; inconsistency; bank credit; money capital.El objetivo de este artículo consiste en identificar dos inconsistencias que aparecen en el capítulo 3 de El Capital, de Karl Marx, dedicado al estudio del crédito. En la primera, Marx afirma que la distinción entre banca comercial y de crédito es solo nominal, pero él recurre a esa distinción para dar una explicación a la crisis del siglo XIX en Inglaterra, con lo cual indica que es una distinción real, no nominal. La segunda inconsistencia es la siguiente: Marx anuncia que el efectivo y el capital dinero se mueven en direcciones opuestas durante el ciclo comercial; pero en el segundo libro de El Capital asume que el capital en forma de dinero y de capital efectivo se deben mover en la misma dirección durante el ciclo de negocio

RNAi promotes heterochromatic silencing through replication-coupled release of RNA Pol II

Heterochromatin comprises tightly compacted repetitive regions of eukaryotic chromosomes. The inheritance of heterochromatin through mitosis requires RNA interference (RNAi), which guides histone modification during the DNA replication phase of the cell cycle. Here we show that the alternating arrangement of origins of replication and non-coding RNA in pericentromeric heterochromatin results in competition between transcription and replication in Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Co-transcriptional RNAi releases RNA polymerase II (Pol II), allowing completion of DNA replication by the leading strand DNA polymerase, and associated histone modifying enzymes that spread heterochromatin with the replication fork. In the absence of RNAi, stalled forks are repaired by homologous recombination without histone modification. © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.This work was supported by grants BFU2008-01919 and Consolider-Ingenio CSD2007-00015 from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation to F.A., and NIH R01 GM076396 to W.Z.C. and R.A.M.Peer Reviewe

Adenovirus Virus-Associated RNA Is Processed to Functional Interfering RNAs Involved in Virus Production

Posttranscriptional gene silencing allows sequence-specific control of gene expression. Specificity is guaranteed by small antisense RNAs such as microRNAs (miRNAs) or small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). Functional miRNAs derive from longer double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) molecules that are cleaved to pre-miRNAs in the nucleus and are transported by exportin 5 (Exp 5) to the cytoplasm. Adenovirus-infected cells express virus-associated (VA) RNAs, which are dsRNA molecules similar in structure to pre-miRNAs. VA RNAs are also transported by Exp 5 to the cytoplasm, where they accumulate. Here we show that small RNAs derived from VA RNAs (svaRNAs), similar to miRNAs, can be found in adenovirus-infected cells. VA RNA processing to svaRNAs requires neither viral replication nor viral protein expression, as evidenced by the fact that svaRNA accumulation can be detected in cells transfected with VA sequences. svaRNAs are efficiently bound by Argonaute 2, the endonuclease of the RNA-induced silencing complex, and behave as functional siRNAs, in that they inhibit the expression of reporter genes with complementary sequences. Blocking svaRNA-mediated inhibition affects efficient adenovirus production, indicating that svaRNAs are required for virus viability. Thus, svaRNA-mediated silencing could represent a novel mechanism used by adenoviruses to control cellular or viral gene expression