Thinking about and working with archives and records: a personal reflection on theory and practice

Looking back over a career that has lasted 40 years (so far) the author reflects on developments in his own thinking and the influences involved. Not least amongst these are: the British public records tradition which predominated at UCL when he studied there; the American historical manuscripts tradition which was in the process of aligning with strands of postmodernism when he held visiting fellowships in the USA; the reconfiguration of Records Management in sub-Saharan Africa in response to public sector reform in which he was involved as an advisor; and the experience of teaching postgraduate students in Britain and overseas. The author’s publications have appeared in a wide range of journals and as monographs, some of them published overseas. Here he draws together the common strands that connect them. Finally he argues that hermeneutic techniques and the concept of fiduciarity deserve to be given serious consideration in debates about archive and records theory

ZmES genes encode peptides with structural homology to defensins and are specifically expressed in the female gametophyte of maize.

All four members of a gene family, which are highly expressed in the cells of the female gametophyte (ZmES1--4: Zea mays embryo sac), were isolated from a cDNA library of maize egg cells. High expression of ZmES genes in the synergids around the micropylar region was detected in thin sections of maize ovaries. Single-cell RT--PCR analyses with the various cells of the female gametophyte confirmed the expression in synergids and also showed expression in the egg cell and central cell, and low expression in the antipodals. The expression of the whole gene family is suppressed after fertilization of the embryo sac, and expression in two-cell or later embryo stages or other tissues of maize could not be detected. In order to investigate ZmES mRNA gradients in the highly polarized and vacuolized cells of the maize embryo sac, a whole-mount in situ protocol with isolated single cells was developed: as for total RNA, ZmES transcripts are uniformly distributed in the cytoplasm of egg cell, synergids and central cell. ZmES genes encode small, cysteine-rich proteins with an N-terminal signal peptide, probably for translocation into the embryo sac cell wall. The four ZmES proteins display high sequence identity with each other, and the proposed tertiary structure of the mature peptides is similar to that of plant and animal defensins. The function of ZmES1-4 during the fertilization process is discussed