Barbarians at the British Museum: Anglo-Saxon Art, Race and Religion

A critical historiographical overview of art historical approaches to early medieval material culture, with a focus on the British Museum collections and their connections to religion

The PreS2 activator MHBs(t) of hepatitis B virus activates c-raf-1/Erk2 signaling in transgenic mice

The large hepatitis B virus (HBV) surface protein (LHBs) and C-terminally truncated middle size surface proteins (MHBs(t)) form the family of the PreS2 activator proteins of HBV. Their transcriptional activator function is based on the cytoplasmic orientation of the PreS2 domain. MHBs(t) activators are paradigmatic for this class of activators. Here we report that MHBs(t) is protein kinase C (PKC)-dependently phosphorylated at Ser28. The integrity of the phosphorylation site is essential for the activator function. MHBs(t) triggers PKC-dependent activation of c-Raf-1/Erk2 signaling that is a prerequisite for MHBs(t)-dependent activation of AP-1 and NF-κB. To analyze the pathophysiological relevance of these data in vivo, transgenic mice were established that produce the PreS2 activator MHBs(t) specifically in the liver. In these mice, a permanent PreS2-dependent specific activation of c-Raf-1/Erk2 signaling was observed, resulting in an increased hepatocyte proliferation rate. In transgenics older than 15 months, an increased incidence of liver tumors occurs. These data suggest that PreS2 activators LHBs and MHBs(t) exert a tumor promoter-like function by activation of key enzymes of proliferation control

Connecting art and Zoroastrianism in Sasanian studies

A stark divide lingers between the themes and problems addressed by art historians and those explored in historical accounts of Zoroastrianism under the Sasanian Persian Empire (224–651). Although shaped by numerous intertwined investments and catalysts over the centuries, the divergence in the attentions of the two fields crystallized during imperial and anti-imperial movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, active both within Iran and without. Art has been framed as irrelevant for the history of Zoroastrianism, demonstrating the absence and avoidance of religious themes; at the other end of the scale, art has been seen as, containing innate sacred significance in its composition. Certain narratives central to the development of Sasanian studies - of continuity, exceptionalism, and eurocentricism, in particular - have shaped approaches to how iconography and art can be incorporated into discussions of Sasanian religion. Convergent interests have promoted the continuity of iconography’s sacred meanings from earlier in antiquity through the Sasanian period to the modern day, diminishing the contemporary contribution and context, and see the visual evidence as demonstrating the distinctiveness and exceptionalism of Zoroastrianism from other religions, and of Iranian culture from others