Plantekoner og priklebørn – kvinder og børn som arbejdskraft ved hedens forvandling, ca. 1880-1930

Det er artiklens primære målsætning at påvise eksistensen af kvinde- og børnearbejde i skoven. Mange fotografier og erindringer henviser til dette arbejde, men vi ved reelt intet om omfanget. Her er gjort et forsøg på at beskrive og kvantificerekvinders og børns arbejde ved produktionen af planter på Hedeselskabets planteskole i Birkebæk i perioden fra 1890 til 1932 ud fra betalingslisterne i planteskolens regnskaber. Oplysningerne heri er suppleret med erindringsbeskrivelserog fotografier.Resultatet af undersøgelsen er et større kendskab til arbejdsfordelingen mellem kønnene. Kvinder og børn har udgjort en meget vigtig arbejdskraft i planteproduktionen, men det reelle omfang er stadig ukendt, da tallene heri udelukkendeviser en lokal situation.Producing Plants – Women and Children as a Workforce duringthe Transformation of the Jutland Heathlands, ca. 1880-1930It is the aim of this study to document the existence of women and children working in the forest. A number of photos and memoirs mention this kind of work, but in reality we do not have much knowledge of the type and extent of thiswork. Here, a qualified attempt is made at describing and quantifying the work of women and children in producing forest plants at a nursery in Birkebæk, owned by Hedeselskabet (The Danish Heath Society) during the period 1890-1932. Thisis done by examining the wage accounts. Women and children are not mentioned specifically by name, but their share of the work may be gauged by looking at the wage levels. The days and hours enumerated at low pay represent the amountof work performed by women and children. To ensure that this was actually the case, wages in the accounts were compared to the few scraps of local information available and to the statistical information on wage levels. From the accounts may be seen that the work was strictly divided on the basisof sex and age. Men did the heavy work, such as handling the horses (ploughing, harrowing and transport work) and preparing the soil (digging and fertilizing), whilst the main tasks for women and children was weeding out and transplanting the small plants, tasks that included monotonous work in very bad working postures and requiring small hands and lots of patience. This is also borne out by contemporary photos: Women and children down on their knees weeding outwhile men are performing the same job but in an upright position, using a hoe or a rake. The results of the study confirm that women and children have been importantas a workforce in the nurseries. Unfortunately, the true extent of their workhas yet to be discovered. Other studies will have to show if the situation was the same in most nurseries all over Denmark in this period – which by the author’s recollection is the most likely

Glucose induced MAPK signalling influences NeuroD1-mediated activation and nuclear localization

AbstractThe helix–loop–helix transcription factor NeuroD1 (also known as Beta2) is involved in β-cell survival during development and insulin gene transcription in adults. Here we show NeuroD1 is primarily cytoplasmic at non-stimulating glucose concentrations (i.e. 3 mM) in MIN6 β-cells and nuclear under stimulating conditions (i.e. 20 mM). Quantification revealed that NeuroD1 was in 40–45% of the nuclei at 3 mM and 80–90% at 20 mM. Treatment with the MEK inhibitor PD98059 or substitution of a serine for an alanine at a potential mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphorylation site (S274) in NeuroD1 significantly increased the cytoplasmic level at 20 mM glucose. The rise in NeuroD1-mediated transcription in response to glucose also correlated with the change in sub-cellular localization, a response attenuated by PD98059. The data strongly suggest that glucose-stimulation of the MEK–ERK signalling pathway influences NeuroD1 activity at least partially through effects on sub-cellular localization

Insulin gene regulation and islet development as studied in genetically modified tumors and transgenic laboratory animals

The pancreatic islet of Langerhans is composed of four highly distinct cell types specialized to mass produce a particular hormone. Insulin is thus the main product released from the islet B—cell in response to elevated glucose.The four cell types maturate during fetal development. Pluripotent rat islet tumors can to a certain degree undergo similar maturation processes when passaged in vivo. Such a model has been used to study the B—cell specific process of insulin gene activation. Transgenic mice have been instrumental in defining the functional regulatory elements involved in restricting the insulin gene activity to the pancreatic B-cell. The tissue-specific enhancer/promoter has thus been identified and used in combination with a series of other genes which in transgenic mice targets expression of the gene in question selectively to the B-cell. Important transacting factors have been identified and cloned which are in part responsible for mediating tissue specific insulin gene expression. One such factor when "knocked-out" results in a phenotype lacking the entire pancreas. Future developments in targeting "knockout" of genes to particular cell types will help dissecting out the multiple functions of such regulatory transacting factors

Pax6 and Cdx2/3 form a functional complex on the rat glucagon gene promoter G1-element

Abstractα-cell specific transcription of the glucagon gene is mainly conferred by the glucagon promoter G1-element, while additional elements G2, G3, and G4 have broad islet cell specificity. Transcription of the glucagon gene has been shown to be stimulated by Pax6 through binding to the glucagon gene promoter G3-element. In this report, we show that Pax6 additionally binds the glucagon gene promoter G1-element and forms a transcriptionally active complex with another homeodomain protein, Cdx2/3. Two distinct mutations in the G1-element, that both reduce promoter activity by 85–90%, is shown to eliminate binding of either Pax6 or Cdx2/3. Additionally, Pax6 enhanced Cdx2/3 mediated activation of a glucagon reporter in heterologous cells. We discuss how Pax6 may contribute to cell-type specific transcription in the pancreatic islets by complex formation with different transcription factors