Bacterial sporulation: Pole-to-pole protein oscillation

AbstractSporulating bacteria need to temporally coordinate DNA replication, chromosome partitioning and sporulation initiation. Recent work has shown that one aspect of this coordination lies with the interdependent subcellular localization of two proteins, Spo0J and Soj, and in the Spo0J-dependent spatial oscillation of Soj

How Child Protection Workers Support or Further Victimize Battered Mothers

This study explored battered mothers’ perceptions of their interactions with child protective services (CPS) workers to increase understanding about how child welfare workers and policies can have negative as well as positive impacts on women’s and children’s lives. The research was guided by two feminist frameworks: structured action theory and social entrapment theory. Twenty women participated in the in-depth, qualitative interviews. Most felt misunderstood and unsupported by their CPS workers and thought that this treatment directly harmed them and their children. Many batterers manipulated caseworkers and escaped sanctions, which contributed to negative consequences. Some women received helpful responses from their caseworkers and viewed such support as invaluable. Implications for social work practice are discussed

Where Visual Literacy and Identity Meet: Adolescents Define Themselves Through Participation in a University Video and Art Enrichment Program

This article summarizes a project that oriented one hundred and twenty-five gifted and talented middle-school students to university culture through a series of summer workshops that emphasized visual media. Various workshops introduced students to methods of video and art production. The middle-school students created short videos and artistic collages to represent their identity in response to two activities: (a) in-depth explorations of the California State University campus at San Bernardino; and (b) literary reading. Art and video production are revealed as a powerful means of middle-school students’ identity formation and expression; the work summarized herein gains credence through its alignment with seminal work in the field of visual literacy theory and research

Accidental Needlestick Exposures linked to the Administration of Local Anesthesia by Healthcare Workers

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health mandates that all Massachusetts hospitals maintain an active log to track sharps injuries due to the health risks related to such injuries. These logs are used to guide continuous quality improvement activities aimed at preventing sharps injuries. A review of sharps injuries at UMass Memorial Medical Center (UMMMC) in 2013 showed a seemingly high incidence occurring among healthcare workers who were administering local anesthesia. We undertook an investigation of the relative rate of needlesticks associated with local anesthesia administration compared to the rate of all sharps injuries over a 10-year period

Gene co-expression analysis of the human substantia nigra identifies BMP2 as a neurotrophic factor that can promote neurite growth in cells overexpressing wild-type or A53T α-synuclein

Introduction: α-synuclein-induced degeneration of dopaminergic neurons has been proposed to be central to the early progression of Parkinson\u27s disease. This highlights the need to identify factors that are neuroprotective or neuroregenerative against α-synuclein-induced degeneration. Due to their potent neurotrophic effects on nigrostriatal dopaminergic neurons, we hypothesized that members of the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) family have potential to protect these cells against α-synuclein. Methods: To identify the most relevant BMP ligands, we used unbiased gene co-expression analysis to identify all BMP family members having a significant positive correlation with five markers of dopaminergic neurons in the human substantia nigra (SN). We then tested the ability of lead BMPs to promote neurite growth in SH-SY5Y cells and in primary cultures of ventral mesencephalon (VM) dopaminergic neurons, treated with either 6-OHDA or MPP+, or overexpressing wild-type or A53T α-synuclein. Results: Only the expression of BMP2 was found to be significantly correlated with multiple dopaminergic markers in the SN. We found that BMP2 treatment promoted neurite growth in SH-SY5Y cells and in dopaminergic neurons. Moreover, BMP2 treatment promoted neurite growth in both SH-SY5Y cells and VM neurons, treated with the neurotoxins 6-OHDA or MPP+. Furthermore, BMP2 promoted neurite growth in cells overexpressing wild-type or A53T-α-synuclein. Conclusion: These findings are important given that clinical trials of two neurotrophic factors, GDNF and neurturin, have failed to meet their primary endpoints. Our findings are a key first step in rationalising the further study of BMP2 as a potential neurotrophic factor in α-synuclein-based translational models of Parkinson\u27s disease

The potential of bone morphogenetic protein 2 as a neurotrophic factor for Parkinson\u27s disease

Parkinson\u27s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder; it affects 1% of the population over the age of 65. The number of people with Parkinson\u27s disease is set to rapidly increase due to changing demographics and there is an unmet clinical need for disease-modifying therapies. The pathological hallmarks of Parkinson\u27s disease are the progressive degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra and their axons which project to the striatum, and the aggregation of α-synuclein; these result in a range of debilitating motor and non-motor symptoms. The application of neurotrophic factors to protect and potentially regenerate the remaining dopaminergic neurons is a major area of research interest. However, this strategy has had limited success to date. Clinical trials of two well-known neurotrophic factors, glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor and neurturin, have reported limited efficacy in Parkinson\u27s disease patients, despite these factors showing potent neurotrophic actions in animal studies. There is therefore a need to identify other neurotrophic factors that can protect against α-synuclein-induced degeneration of dopaminergic neurons. The bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) family is the largest subgroup of the transforming growth factor-β superfamily of proteins. BMPs are naturally secreted proteins that play crucial roles throughout the developing nervous system. Importantly, many BMPs have been shown to be potent neurotrophic factors for dopaminergic neurons. Here we discuss recent work showing that transcripts for the BMP receptors and BMP2 are co-expressed with several key markers of dopaminergic neurons in the human substantia nigra, and evidence for downregulation of BMP2 expression at distinct stages of Parkinson\u27s disease. We also discuss studies that explored the effects of BMP2 treatment, in in vitro and in vivo models of Parkinson\u27s disease. These studies found potent effects of BMP2 on dopaminergic neurites, which is important given that axon degeneration is increasingly recognized as a key early event in Parkinson\u27s disease. Thus, the aim of this mini-review is to give an overview of the BMP family and the BMP-Smad signalling pathway, in addition to reviewing the available evidence demonstrating the potential of BMP2 for Parkinson\u27s disease therapy