CK-2 of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) has two differentially regulated alleles that encode a functional chemokine

The final publication is available at Elsevier via https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vetimm.2018.02.003. © 2018. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Rainbow trout chemokine 2 (CK-2) is currently the only known CC chemokine to have a mucin stalk. Further analysis of the mucin stalk region revealed a second, related CC chemokine sequence, denoted here as CK-2.1. This second sequence was determined to be an allele of CK-2 following genomic PCR analysis on several outbred individuals. Furthermore, in both in vivo and in vitro trials, CK-2 and CK-2.1 were both present, but appeared to have differential tissue expression in both control and PHA stimulated samples. Upon the development of a polyclonal antibody to rCK-2, CK-2 was only observed in the brain, liver and head kidney of PHA stimulated rainbow trout tissues. In comparison, when using the rainbow trout monocyte/macrophage-like cell line, RTS-11, CK-2 protein was observed in both control and PHA stimulated conditions. When studying the function of CK-2, a chemotaxis assay revealed that both peripheral blood leukocytes and RTS-11 cells migrated towards rCK-2 significantly at all concentrations studied when compared to truncated β2m. Interestingly, this migration was lowest at both the highest concentration and the lowest concentrations of CK-2. Thus, teleostean chemokine receptors may become desensitized when overstimulated as has been observed in mammalian models. The observed chemotactic function was indeed due to rCK-2 as cell migration was inhibited through pre-treatment of both the cells and the polyclonal antibody with rCK-2. As has been observed thus far with all other chemokines, CK-2 does appear to function through binding to a G-coupled protein receptor as chemotaxis could be inhibited through pre-treatment with pertussis toxin. Overall, the results of this study indicate that CK-2 is a functional chemokine that is encoded by two differentially expressed alleles in rainbow trout, CK-2 and CK-2.1.Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council || 21752

Missense mutations in the copper transporter gene ATP7A cause X-Linked distal hereditary motor neuropathy

Distal hereditary motor neuropathies comprise a clinically and genetically heterogeneous group of disorders. We recently mapped an X-linked form of this condition to chromosome Xq13.1-q21 in two large unrelated families. The region of genetic linkage included ATP7A, which encodes a copper-transporting P-type ATPase mutated in patients with Menkes disease, a severe infantile-onset neurodegenerative condition. We identified two unique ATP7A missense mutations (p.P1386S and p.T994I) in males with distal motor neuropathy in two families. These molecular alterations impact highly conserved amino acids in the carboxyl half of ATP7A and do not directly involve the copper transporter's known critical functional domains. Studies of p.P1386S revealed normal ATP7A mRNA and protein levels, a defect in ATP7A trafficking, and partial rescue of a S. cerevisiae copper transport knockout. Although ATP7A mutations are typically associated with severe Menkes disease or its milder allelic variant, occipital horn syndrome, we demonstrate here that certain missense mutations at this locus can cause a syndrome restricted to progressive distal motor neuropathy without overt signs of systemic copper deficiency. This previously unrecognized genotype-phenotype correlation suggests an important role of the ATP7A copper transporter in motor-neuron maintenance and function

Same-sex partnering and same-sex parented families in Singapore

Same-sex families are officially non-existent in Singapore; they are absent from official data censuses, not considered in state policies designed for the Singaporean family and not recognized within the prevailing heteronormative socio-cultural climate. Being gay is, after all, illegal in Singapore. Very little is, therefore, known about LGBT families in Singapore. This chapter provides the first account of local same-sex families within the domain of Singapore family studies. First, it contextualizes the existence of same-sex families within the diversity of family life in Singapore. Second, it follows closely two case studies: a female same-sex partnership and a lesbian-parented family, focusing on the couples’ experiences and challenges. Finally, it situates these case studies within an established international literature on same-sex families, paying attention to findings on the diversity of LGBT families and the well-being of children raised by lesbian and gay parents; this important body of research has emerged from countries where same-sex partners and parenting relationships have gained considerable legal and social recognition

Re-examining ‘transnationality’ through Singapore lesbian identities

Research work on lesbian sexualities in Asia have demonstrated that ‘transnational turn’ in lesbian and gay scholarship, deploying the ‘transnational’ to disrupt hegemonic understandings of sexual identities as the product of uni-linear global flows from the West to the rest. However, I contend that the existing scholarship on lesbian sexualities in Asia only illustrate in a limited way what ‘transnationality’ means. Stronger evidence of transnational sexualities is needed. I argue that asking how globally connected middle-class lesbians in Singapore rework their sexual identities around local cultural norms add empirically and theoretically to transnational debates about sexual identity. First, I discuss how existing materialist accounts of transnational lesbian sexualities in Asia tend to reinforce rather than problematise the local-global dichotomy, revealing the limits of the ‘transnational’ in these analyses. Second, I re-test the limits of transnationality by asking after how highly mobile and well-educated local middle-class lesbians in Singapore make meaning of ‘coming out’, a chief current in the global circuit of queer knowledge production. I aim to bring a more nuanced cultural analysis to bear on the existing literature on transnational sexualities. In the final section, I discuss the political significance of a transnational perspective for the Singapore context

Queering state-sexuality relations : sodomy law in postcolonial Singapore

From the mid-1980s, scholars began to pay attention to the imbrications between state, nationalism and sexuality. This scholarship focused on the hegemonic power of the state in privileging “respectable” forms of sexuality and repressing “abnormal” forms in the name of nationalistic purity. I argue that while it is important to highlight the hegemonic power of the state over sexuality as a form of critique of state-inflicted sexual violence, it is also crucial to re-think state-sexuality relations as more complex and dialogic. I wish to advance a more critical, postcolonial perspective of state-sexuality relations that goes beyond the assertion of the way hegemonic states and nationalisms interpellate individuals into normative discourses and shape sexualities in a one-way process. First, this paper draws on queer theory, feminist sexuality studies, poststructuralist and postcolonial approaches to re-theorise state-sexuality relations. Second, it examines the mobilisation against the male sodomy law in Singapore to illustrate the ways in which the Singapore state can be re-imagined and conceptualised beyond “its” role as the arbiter of sexual rights. Third, I emphasise the necessity of a more nuanced understanding of state-sexuality relations: one that does not reproduce state power and hegemony in a counter productive scholarship

Postcolonial Lesbian Identities in Singapore: Re-thinking Global Sexualities

Taking lesbians in Singapore as a case study, this book explores the possibility of a modern gay identity in a postcolonial society, that is not dependent on Western queer norms. It looks at the core question of how this identity can be reconciled with local culture and how it relates to global modernities and dominant understandings of what it means to be queer. It engages with debates about globalization, post-colonialism and sexuality, while emphasising the specificity, diversity and interconnectedness of local lesbian sexualities

Transnational lesbian identities : lessons from Singapore?

Lesbians in Asia have come under scholarly attention within the study of nonnormative sexualities. This is due to the theoretical insistence on including accounts of non-Western sexualities and sexual identities that disrupt hegemonic Western practices and meanings as embodied by the globalised lesbian and gay subject. Understandings of sexuality, as this claim goes, have been dominated by Anglo-American images of the 'out' gay person with a fixed and unitary identity who has access to particular sexual rights and freedoms. This conception casts sexuality as an autonomous and anterior aspect of identity, and at the same time, elides the different meanings and expectations placed on sexuality in other contexts. As and where alternative conceptions of what it means to be lesbian and gay emerge, these are indexed against a Western developmental teleology that renders these sexual variations as 'premodern', 'inauthentic', 'not legitimate' or simply 'not lesbian and gay enough', much to the chagrin of Western and non-Western scholars studying sexualities outside the West. Ethnographic studies of female same-sex relations have appeared across Asia, complicating and contributing to this core debate in sexuality studies. These include monographs on female non-normative sexual identities and practices in Japan, India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Thailand and Taiwan.2 Further exemplary research focusing on lesbians in Asian contexts can be found in Wieringa, Blackwood and Bhaiya's (2007) collection, as well as Khor and Kamano's (2006) edited volume. These works attest to the burgeoning intellectual interest in Asian women's non-normative sexualities

CONSUMING PERANAKAN FOOD

Bachelor'sBACHELOR OF SOCIAL SCIENCES (HONOURS

INTIMATE BONDS: A STUDY OF FEMALE SEXUALITY IN SINGAPORE

Master'sMASTER OF SOCIAL SCIENCE