The FA women's super league : framing developments in elite women's football

In 2009, the Football Association (FA), the national governing body of football in England, announced its plan to introduce the country's first semi-professional women's elite league. Launched in 2010 as the FA Women's Super League (FA WSL), its introduction provided both an opportunity to research whether this evidenced a change of position for the women's elite game within footballing narratives and also to examine the place of the FA within these. This study adopted a critical sociological feminist approach to deconstruct the assumptions, values and practices that frame the female game and the introduction of the FA WSL, while providing new insights into the role of the sport's governing organisation in defining elite women's football. Through observations at matches and interviews with people working within the women's game, an examination of the development and introduction of the FA WSL was undertaken, with valuable early insights provided into the first three years of the new League. The study identified that the introduction of the FA WSL was impacted upon by the complex, closed and gendered nature of the FA's organisational structure. The new League adhered to traditional societal concepts of hegemonic masculinity, heteronormativity and liberal approaches to gender equality. The study also found that the new elite women's structures required the clubs who gained entry into the FA WSL to adhere to commercialised, spectacularised and commodified values which dominate the men's game and neo liberal societal narratives. The increased inclusion of females into elite football structures did not profoundly disrupt traditional discourses or provide evidence of a fundamental challenge to gender inequality in the game

Additional file 3: Figure S2. of Phosphoproteome dynamics mediate revival of bacterial spores

Comparison of germinating spore and vegetative growth phosphoproteomes. (A) Overlap between the germinating and vegetative phosphoproteins. (B) Common phosphorylation sites between the germinating and vegetative phase phosphoproteins. (C) The identity of the overlapping 17 phosphorylation sites and the stage of vegetative growth at which they show increased phosphorylation. (PDF 185 kb

Additional file 8: Table S5. of Phosphoproteome dynamics mediate revival of bacterial spores

Deletion- and site-directed mutants assessed in this study. (PDF 206 kb

Additional file 16: Figure S9. of Phosphoproteome dynamics mediate revival of bacterial spores

Phospho-modifications of translation elongation factors affect vegetative growth. (A) Spores of PY79 (WT), AR165 (P hyper-spank -EF-G, ∆EF-G), AR166 (P hyper-spank -EF-G-Y339A, ∆EF-G), and AR167 (P hyper-spank -EF-G-Y339D, ∆EF-G) strains were incubated at 37 °C in S7-defined medium supplemented with L-Ala (10 mM) and 0.5 mM IPTG, and optical density (OD600) was measured at the indicated time points. Data are presented as a fraction of the initial OD600 of the phase-bright spores. Decreasing OD600 signifies spore germination while increasing OD600 indicates spore outgrowth. (B) Strains listed in (A) were grown at 37 °C in S7- supplemented with L-Ala (10 mM) and 0.5 mM IPTG, and OD600 was measured at the indicated time points. AR166 (P hyper-spank -EF-G-Y339A, ∆EF-G) and AR167 (P hyper-spank -EF-G-Y339D, ∆EF-G) strains showed significantly reduced growth rates compared to the control strains by repeated measures ANOVA (P <0.05). C) Spores of PY79 (WT), AR157 (P xyl -EF-TU, ∆EF-TU), AR158 (P xyl -EF-TU-Y270A, ∆EF-TU), and AR159 (P xyl -EF-TU-Y270D, ∆EF-TU) strains were incubated at 37 °C in S7- supplemented with L-Ala (10 mM) and 0.5 % xylose, and OD600 was measured at the indicated time points. Data are presented as a fraction of the initial OD600 of the phase-bright spores. (D) Strains listed in (C) were grown at 37 °C in S7- supplemented with L-Ala (10 mM) and 0.5 % xylose, and OD600 was measured at the indicated time points. The data points are averages of results obtained from three independent biological repeats. Error bars designate SD. AR159 (P xyl -EF-TU-Y270D, ∆EF-TU) showed significantly reduced growth rates compared to the other strains by repeated measures ANOVA (P <0.05). (PDF 237 kb

Additional file 7: Table S4. of Phosphoproteome dynamics mediate revival of bacterial spores

Estimated occupancies of phosphorylation sites detected in this study. (XLSX 44 kb

Additional file 9: Figure S4. of Phosphoproteome dynamics mediate revival of bacterial spores

SspA structure and conservation across Bacillus species. (A) Multiple sequence alignment of B. subtilis SspA and its homologue proteins from representative Bacillus species. Conserved Ser47 residue is highlighted in solid red and other Ser residues are boxed in purple. The corresponding conservation level and consensus sequence are shown below. The multiple sequence alignment was constructed using Jalview. (B) Ribbon diagram of SspA (aa 12–65) protein (cyan) with bound DNA (pink). Ser47 (red) is located at the tip of the second alpha helix. The N and C protein terminals are absent from the structure. Protein structure was predicted by SWISS-MODEL ( http://swissmodel.expasy.org/ ). (PDF 205 kb

Additional file 15: Figure S8. of Phosphoproteome dynamics mediate revival of bacterial spores

RpsJ structure and conservation across Bacillus species. (A) Multiple sequence alignment of B. subtilis RpsJ with its homologues from representative Bacillus species. Conserved Ser32 residue is highlighted in solid red, the corresponding conservation level and consensus sequence are shown below. The multiple sequence alignment was constructed using Jalview. (B) Ribbon diagram of RpsJ protein Ser32 (red) is located at the tip of globular surface domain. Protein structure was predicted by SWISS-MODEL ( http://swissmodel.expasy.org/ ). (PDF 282 kb

Additional file 1: Figure S1. of Phosphoproteome dynamics mediate revival of bacterial spores

Reproducibility of measured protein ratios within three technical replicates. (A) Phosphoproteome measurements. (B) Proteome measurements. Pearson correlation coefficient was higher than 0.95 in all cases. (PDF 503 kb

Additional file 2: Table S1. of Phosphoproteome dynamics mediate revival of bacterial spores

The germinating spore phosphoproteome. Phospho-sites identified in this study were clustered according to their biological processes, as assigned by the DAVID functional annotation tool. (XLSX 27 kb

Additional file 13: Figure S7. of Phosphoproteome dynamics mediate revival of bacterial spores

Characterization of SspB-S6,S7 phosphorylation mutants. (A) Spores of PY79 (wild type, WT), AR233 (sspB-S6A,S7A), AR234 (sspB-S6D,S7D), AR235 (sspB-S6A,S7A, ∆sspA), AR236 (sspB-S6D,S7D, ∆sspA), AR179 (∆sspA), and AR186 (∆sspB) strains were incubated in S7-defined medium supplemented with L-Ala (10 mM) at 37 °C, and optical density (OD600) was measured at the indicated time points. Data are presented as a fraction of the initial OD600 of the phase-bright spores. Decreasing OD600 signifies spore germination while increasing OD600 indicates spore outgrowth. The data points are averages of results obtained from three independent biological repeats. Error bars designate SD. (B) Spores of PY79 (wild type, WT), AR233 (sspB-S6A,S7A), AR234 (sspB-S6D,S7D), AR235 (sspB-S6A,S7A, ∆sspA), AR236 (sspB-S6D,S7D, ∆sspA), AR179 (∆sspA), and AR186 (∆sspB) strains were exposed to increasing UV (254 nm) doses (mj/cm2) and plated on LB for viable count. Percentage survival was calculated by dividing the viable spore titer at any given UV dose (mj/cm2) with the spore titer obtained from the non-irradiated spores. The data points are averages of results obtained from three independent biological repeats. Error bars designate SD. (C) Spores of PY79 (wild type, WT), AR233 (sspB-S6A,S7A), AR234 (sspB-S6D,S7D), AR235 (sspB-S6A,S7A, ∆sspA), AR236 (sspB-S6D,S7D, ∆sspA), AR179 (∆sspA), and AR186 (∆sspB) strains were germinated with L-Ala (10 mM). Samples were taken at the indicated time points, irradiated with 500 mj/cm2 UV (254 nm), and plated on LB. Percentage survival was calculated by dividing the viable spore titer at any given time point with the spore titer obtained from spores irradiated at the 0 time point. The data points are averages of results obtained from three independent biological repeats. Error bars designate SD. For simplicity, strains lacking sspA were not depicted in B and C due to their high UV sensitivity (Fig. 3). (PDF 107 kb