97 research outputs found
Closed circuits : kinship, neighborhood and incarceration in urban Portugal
The notion that prisons are a ‘world apart’, with their
walls severing prisoners from their external relationships, and
incarceration an interruption, ‘time away’ spent in a separate social
universe, has provided an adequate framework for understanding the
social realities of imprisonment in the past. But it has also created an
analytical dead angle that prevents us from identifying the ramifying
social effects of concentrated incarceration upon both the prison and
heavily penalized lower-class neighborhoods. This article addresses these
effects with data from an ethnographic revisit of a major women’s prison
in Portugal, where the recomposition of the inmate population that has
accompanied the rapid inflation of the country’s carceral population is
especially pronounced and entails the activation of wide-ranging
carceralized networks bringing kinship and neighborhood into the prison
as well as the prison into the domestic world. The analysis focuses on the
ways whereby these constellations have transformed the experience of
confinement and the texture of correctional life, calling for a
reconsideration of the theoretical status of the prison as a ‘total
institution’ and for exploring anew the boundary that separates it (or not)
from outside worlds.Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research
Evidence for bystander signalling between human trophoblast cells and human embryonic stem cells
Maternal exposure during pregnancy to toxins can occasionally lead to miscarriage and
malformation. It is currently thought that toxins pass through the placental barrier, albeit bilayered
in the first trimester, and damage the fetus directly, albeit at low concentration. Here we
examined the responses of human embryonic stem (hES) cells in tissue culture to two metals at low
concentration. We compared direct exposures with indirect exposures across a bi-layered model
of the placenta cell barrier. Direct exposure caused increased DNA damage without apoptosis or
a loss of cell number but with some evidence of altered differentiation. Indirect exposure caused
increased DNA damage and apoptosis but without loss of pluripotency. This was not caused by
metal ions passing through the barrier. Instead the hES cells responded to signalling molecules
(including TNF-α) secreted by the barrier cells. This mechanism was dependent on connexin 43
mediated intercellular ‘bystander signalling’ both within and between the trophoblast barrier and
the hES colonies. These results highlight key differences between direct and indirect exposure of hES
cells across a trophoblast barrier to metal toxins. It offers a theoretical possibility that an indirectly
mediated toxicity of hES cells might have biological relevance to fetal development
A desigualdade invisÃvel: o papel da classe social na criação dos filhos em famÃlias negras e brancas
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Association of SLC11A1 with tuberculosis and interactions with NOS2A and TLR2 in African-Americans and Caucasians
SETTING: Host defense factors may influence the development of active tuberculosis (TB).
OBJECTIVE: To test variants in solute carrier family 11A, member 1 (SLC11A1), for an association with TB.
METHODS: A mixed case-control study of TB cases, relatives or close contact controls, consisting of 474 African-Americans (243 families) and 381 Caucasians (192 families), examined 13 SLC11A1 polymorphisms for association with pulmonary TB using generalized estimating equations adjusting for age and sex.
RESULTS: Two associations were observed in Caucasians (rs3731863, P = 0.03, and rs17221959, P = 0.04) and one in African-Americans (rs3731865, P = 0.05). Multilocus analyses between polymorphisms in SLC11A1 and 11 TB candidate genes detected interactions between SLC11A1 and inducible nitric oxide synthase (NOS2A) in Caucasians (rs3731.863 [SLC11A1] x rs8073782 [NOS2A], P = 0.009; rs3731863 [SLC11A1] x rs17722851 [NOS2A], P = 0.007) and toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) in African-Americans (rs3731865 [SLC11A1] x rs1816702, P = 0.005).
CONCLUSIONS: No association was detected with 5'(GT)(n) promoter polymorphism previously associated with lower SLC11A1 expression, rs17235409 (D543N), or rs17235416 (3' TGTG insertion/deletion polymorphism). SLC11A1 polymorphism rs3731865 was associated with TB in African-Americans, consistent with previous findings in West Africans. These results suggest that variants in SLC11A1 increase susceptibility to pulmonary TB and interact with other variants that differ by race
NOS2A, TLR4, and IFNGR1 interactions influence pulmonary tuberculosis susceptibility in African-Americans
Tuberculosis (TB) has substantial mortality worldwide with 5-10% of those exposed progressing to active TB disease. Studies in mice and humans indicate that the inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) molecule plays an important role in immune response to TB. A mixed case-control association study of individuals with TB, relatives, or close contact controls was performed in 726 individuals (279 case and 166 control African-Americans; 198 case and 123 control Caucasians). Thirty-nine single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were selected from the NOS2A gene for single SNP, haplotype, and multilocus interaction analyses with other typed candidate genes using generalized estimating equations. In African-Americans, ten NOS2A SNPs were associated with TB. The strongest associations were observed at rs2274894 (odds ratio (OR) = 1.84, 95% confidence interval (CI) [1.23-2.77], p = 0.003) and rs7215373 (OR 1.67, 95% CI [1.17-2.37], p = 0.004), both of which passed a false discovery rate (FDR) correction for multiple comparisons (q*=0.20). The strongest gene-gene interactions were observed between NOS2A rs2248814 and IFNGR1 rs1327474 (p = 0.0004) and NOS2A rs944722 and IFNGR1 rs1327474 (p = 0.0006). Three other SNPs in NOS2A interacted with TLR4 rs5030729 and five other NOS2A SNPs interacted with IFNGR1 rs1327474. No significant associations were observed in Caucasians. These results suggest that NOS2A variants may contribute to TB susceptibility, particularly in individuals of African descent, and may act synergistically with SNPs in TLR4 and IFNGR1
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