The Life of Aleksandr Men\u27: Hagiography in the Making

Hagiography is not an extinct genre in Russian literature, even though many believe that it was important in the history of early Russian literature but became irrelevant as Russian literature entered its modem period. The autobiography of priest A vvakum, written in the second half of the seventeenth century, is often considered to be the final work in the development of Russian hagiography. Russian spirituality has not died out, however, and holy men and women continue to display the same devotion to Christ that was admired in medieval saints. The biographies and memoirs of these modem saints retain some of the hallmarks of traditional hagiography. In this paper I propose to show that the memoirs written about one of these contemporary Christian heroes, Aleksandr Men\u27, draw upon traditional hagiographic elements in order to portray him as a saint. Furthermore, the literature written about Men\u27 contains the seeds for a full-length saint\u27s Life, one that could possibly be included among the works of a modem neo-hagiographic genre

A communal catalogue reveals Earth’s multiscale microbial diversity

Our growing awareness of the microbial world’s importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth’s microbial diversity

IIp45 Inhibits Cell Migration through Inhibition of HDAC6*

IIp45 (aka MIIP) is a newly discovered gene whose protein product inhibits cell migration. HDAC6 is a class IIb deacetylase that specifically deacetylates α-tubulin, modulates microtubule dynamics, and promotes cell migration. A yeast two-hybrid assay using IIp45 as bait identified HDAC6 protein as a binding partner of IIp45. This physical interaction of the two functionally antagonistic proteins was confirmed by glutathione S-transferase pulldown assay and co-immunoprecipitation assay in human cells. Serial deletion constructs of HDAC6 were used to characterize the interaction of HDAC6 and IIp45, and this analysis found that the two catalytic domains of HDAC6 protein are required for IIp45 binding. We examined the protein expression patterns of IIp45 and HDAC6 in glioma tissues. Elevated protein levels of HDAC6 were found in high grade glioma samples, in contrast to the decreased protein expression of IIp45. The potential negative regulation of HDAC6 expression by IIp45 was confirmed in cell lines with altered IIp45 expression by constitutive overexpression or small interfering RNA knockdown. Protein turnover study revealed that overexpression of IIp45 significantly reduces the intracellular protein stability of endogenous HDAC6, indicating a possible mechanism for the negative regulation of HDAC6 by IIp45. Results from the HDAC activity assay demonstrated that overexpressed IIp45 effectively decreases HDAC6 activity, increases acetylated α-tubulin, and reduces cell migration. The increased cell migration resulting from siIIp45 knockdown was significantly reversed by co-transfection of siHDAC6. Thus, we report here for the first time a novel mechanism by which IIp45 inhibits cell motility through inhibition of HDAC6