My Genetic Child May Not Be My Legal Child? A Functionalist Perspective on the Need for Surrogacy Equality in the United States

While assisted reproductive technology, and surrogacy in particular, may appear to be a straightforward solution to infertility, the legal field is extremely complex. The patchwork of laws across the United States leaves intended parents at risk for a court to deny legal rights to their biological child. This Note will examine the complexities of surrogacy agreements and the need for a federal, uniform surrogacy law under the sociological functionalist theory of society

NF-κB and IRF7 Pathway Activation by Epstein-Barr Virus Latent Membrane Protein 1

The principal Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) oncoprotein, Latent Membrane Protein 1 (LMP1), is expressed in most EBV-associated human malignancies. LMP1 mimics CD40 receptor signaling to provide infected cells with constitutive NF-κB, MAP kinase, IRF7, and PI3 kinase pathway stimulation. EBV-transformed B-cells are particularly dependent on constitutive NF-κB activity, and rapidly undergo apoptosis upon NF-κB blockade. Here, we review LMP1 function, with special attention to current understanding of the molecular mechanisms of LMP1-mediated NF-κB and IRF7 pathway activation. Recent advances include the elucidation of transmembrane motifs important for LMP1 trafficking and ligand-independent signaling, analysis of genome-wide LMP1 gene targets, and the identification of novel cell proteins that mediate LMP1 NF-κB and IRF7 pathway activation

INTERACTIONS OF THE COMPLEMENT SYSTEM WITH ENDOTOXIC LIPOPOLYSACCHARIDE : GENERATION OF A FACTOR CHEMOTACTIC FOR POLYMORPHONUCLEAR LEUKOCYTES

Endotoxic lipopolysaccharide has recently been shown to fix large amounts of the complement components related to the biologic activities mediated by that system. The present study sought to determine whether the generation of chemotactic factor by endotoxin in serum was dependent upon complement system activation. Preheating serum, incubating at 0°C, or incubating in the presence of EDTA, all prevented chemotactic factor generation as well as complement fixation by endotoxin. "Endotoxoids" deficient in complement-firing activity were also deficient in chemotactic factor generation. Chemotactic factor could not be generated by endotoxin in sera of mice congenitally deficient in the C'S component of complement, while chemotactic factor was generated by endotoxin in the sera of coisogenic mice with normal complement levels for that species. The chemotactic factor induced by endotoxin was heat stable and nondialyzable. Molecular sieve chromatography and sucrose density gradient ultracentrifugation demonstrated that the chemotactic factor was a relatively low molecular weight product (15,000–30,000) and as such different from previously scribed C' system-derived chemotactic factors. These experiments demonstrate that generation of chemotactic factor by endotoxin in serum is dependent upon C' system activation involving at least C'5. Furthermore, the relatively low molecular weight of this factor suggests that it might be derived from activation of a single complement component rather than from complexing of multiple complement components

The NF-κB subunit c-Rel regulates Bach2 tumour suppressor expression in B-cell lymphoma

The REL gene, encoding the NF-κB subunit c-Rel, is frequently amplified in B-cell lymphoma and functions as a tumour-promoting transcription factor. Here we report the surprising result that c-rel–/– mice display significantly earlier lymphomagenesis in the c-Myc driven, Eμ-Myc model of B-cell lymphoma. c-Rel loss also led to earlier onset of disease in a separate TCL1-Tg-driven lymphoma model. Tumour reimplantation experiments indicated that this is an effect intrinsic to the Eμ-Myc lymphoma cells but, counterintuitively, c-rel–/– Eμ-Myc lymphoma cells were more sensitive to apoptotic stimuli. To learn more about why loss of c-Rel led to earlier onset of disease, microarray gene expression analysis was performed on B cells from 4-week-old, wild-type and c-rel–/– Eμ-Myc mice. Extensive changes in gene expression were not seen at this age, but among those transcripts significantly downregulated by the loss of c-Rel was the B-cell tumour suppressor BTB and CNC homology 2 (Bach2). Quantitative PCR and western blot analysis confirmed loss of Bach2 in c-Rel mutant Eμ-Myc tumours at both 4 weeks and the terminal stages of disease. Moreover, Bach2 expression was also downregulated in c-rel–/– TCL1-Tg mice and RelA Thr505Ala mutant Eμ-Myc mice. Analysis of wild-type Eμ-Myc mice demonstrated that the population expressing low levels of Bach2 exhibited the earlier onset of lymphoma seen in c-rel–/– mice. Confirming the relevance of these findings to human disease, analysis of chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing data revealed that Bach2 is a c-Rel and NF-κB target gene in transformed human B cells, whereas treatment of Burkitt's lymphoma cells with inhibitors of the NF-κB/IκB kinase pathway or deletion of c-Rel or RelA resulted in loss of Bach2 expression. These data reveal a surprising tumour suppressor role for c-Rel in lymphoma development explained by regulation of Bach2 expression, underlining the context-dependent complexity of NF-κB signalling in cancer

A combinatorial approach to the phonetic similarity of language

En exploitant une représentation géométrique des phonèmes vocaliques, nous réalisons un modèle bidimensionnel dans lequel des voyelles sont des points et les distances entre ces points expriment des différences auditives. Ceci nous permettra de décrire le système vocalique d'une langue du point de vue d’une autre langue au moyen d'une partition d'un ensemble fini dont les propriétés combinatoires peuvent être explorées. Le concept de base que nous utilisons est celui du diagramme de Voronoï, qui a été largement utilisé dans d’autres domaines. Dans le cas présent, nous mettons en évidence quelques particularités combinatoires de partitions d’entiers qui décrivent des dissemblances entre des inventaires vocaliques de différentes langues et classons les relations possibles entre inventaires par le biais des graphes orientés appropriés, et, en particulier, parmi les diagrammes de Voronoï adéquats. Nous appliquons cette théorie à quelques langues réelles, en recherchant des améliorations pouvant faciliter la compréhension d’un inventaire vocalique par un auditeur dont la catégorisation auditive est différente. Enfin, nous décrivons des inventaires privilégiés, facilement compréhensibles dans beaucoup de langues en même temps.By exploiting a well-known geometrical representation of vowel phonemes, we devise a two-dimensional model in which vowels are points and distances between points express auditory discrepancies. This will allow us to describe the vowel system of a language, as seen by another language, by means of a set partition whose combinatorial properties can be explored. The basic concept we employ is that of Voronoi diagram, which has been, so far, extensively used for many other purposes. In the present framework we point out some combinatorial features of integers partitions which describe dissimilarities between vowel inventories of different languages. We classify the possible relations between inventories via suitable directed graphs related to point configurations and, in particular, to the pertinent Voronoi diagrams. We apply the above theory to some real languages, we also look for possible improvements that make a vowel inventory easier to understand by a listener whose auditory categorisation is different. Finally, we describe particular inventories, easily understandable in many languages at the same time