Glycosaminoglycan Binding Facilitates Entry of a Bacterial Pathogen into Central Nervous Systems

Certain microbes invade brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMECs) to breach the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and establish central nervous system (CNS) infection. Here we use the leading meningitis pathogen group B Streptococcus (GBS) together with insect and mammalian infection models to probe a potential role of glycosaminoglycan (GAG) interactions in the pathogenesis of CNS entry. Site-directed mutagenesis of a GAG-binding domain of the surface GBS alpha C protein impeded GBS penetration of the Drosophila BBB in vivo and diminished GBS adherence to and invasion of human BMECs in vitro. Conversely, genetic impairment of GAG expression in flies or mice reduced GBS dissemination into the brain. These complementary approaches identify a role for bacterial-GAG interactions in the pathogenesis of CNS infection. Our results also highlight how the simpler yet genetically conserved Drosophila GAG pathways can provide a model organism to screen candidate molecules that can interrupt pathogen-GAG interactions for future therapeutic applications

Introduction : Performing cross-cultural understanding in Pacific tourism

Contains fulltext : 103202.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)This article is an introduction to the special issue entitled Indigenous Tourism, Performance, and Cross-Cultural Understanding in the Pacific. Based on various examples from the Pacific, we argue for the analysis of the tourist encounter as a single performative act of production and reception that produces its own ever shifting and contested meanings. We look at the dynamics of the tourist meeting and the possibility of really encountering and understanding the Other, by moving beyond cultural performance as text and by including the pre-objective, experiential dimension of the performative interface between indigenous ‘hosts’ and tourist ‘guests’. The inclusion of the sensory, bodily dimensions of tourism practices challenges common approaches to guest-host roles, the gaze, intentions, expectations and authenticity, and opens up to a more complex exchange through which the sensuality of the sensory body of the self is tentatively experienced via the sensuality of the sensory body of the Other.8 p

Indigenous Tourism, Performance, and Cross-Cultural Understanding in the Pacific , La Ricerca Folklorica, n. 61

Curatela numero monografico della rivista La Ricerca Folklorica, no. 61, ISSN: 0391-9099; il volume contiene introduzione e sette saggi orifinali