Religious imaginations in embroidered craft art

This article focuses on ‘religious spaces’ that embroidered craft art denotes in a rural Northern Sotho community in South Africa, and the way in which spirituality is imagined through this form of art. Some background information on the craft artists of the Mogalakwena Craft Art Development Foundation (MCADF) in South Africa and the embroideries produced by them is given in the introduction. Examples of embroidered panels with religious and embedded cultural motives are then discussed. The focus of the discussion in the second part will be on (i) the influence of Christianity through Christian missions on indigenous African societies; (ii) the development of African Independent Churches in South Africa with special reference to the Zion Christian Church (ZCC) and (iii) an analysis of examples of the embroideries in order to understand the complex fusion of African religion and Christianity. This article finally suggests that the craft art embroideries of the Mogalakwena craft artists reflect a spirituality that is ‘poised in transition’, a spirituality that is ‘linking backwards and forwards at the same time’ allowing ‘modernity to be represented in older cultural forms, while cloaking older forms of tradition in newer guises’ (Venter, 2004:9).http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjal202015-01-30am201

Human IFT52 mutations uncover a novel role for the protein in microtubule dynamics and centrosome cohesion

Mutations in genes encoding components of the intraflagellar transport (IFT) complexes have previously been associated with a spectrum of diseases collectively termed ciliopathies. Ciliopathies relate to defects in the formation or function of the cilium, a sensory or motile organelle present on the surface of most cell types. IFT52 is a key component of the IFT-B complex and ensures the interaction of the two subcomplexes, IFT-B1 and IFT-B2. Here, we report novel IFT52 biallelic mutations in cases with a short-rib thoracic dysplasia (SRTD) or a congenital anomaly of kidney and urinary tract (CAKUT). Combining in vitro and in vivo studies in zebrafish, we showed that SRTD-associated missense mutation impairs IFT-B complex assembly and IFT-B2 ciliary localization, resulting in decreased cilia length. In comparison, CAKUT-associated missense mutation has a mild pathogenicity, thus explaining the lack of skeletal defects in CAKUT case. In parallel, we demonstrated that the previously reported homozygous nonsense IFT52 mutation associated with Sensenbrenner syndrome [Girisha et al. (2016) A homozygous nonsense variant in IFT52 is associated with a human skeletal ciliopathy. Clin. Genet., 90, 536-539] leads to exon skipping and results in a partially functional protein. Finally, our work uncovered a novel role for IFT52 in microtubule network regulation. We showed that IFT52 interacts and partially co-localized with centrin at the distal end of centrioles where it is involved in its recruitment and/or maintenance. Alteration of this function likely contributes to centriole splitting observed in Ift52(-/-) cells. Altogether, our findings allow a better comprehensive genotype-phenotype correlation among IFT52-related cases and revealed a novel, extra-ciliary role for IFT52, i.e. disruption may contribute to pathophysiological mechanisms