Tale proteins bind to both active and inactive chromatin

TALE (transcription activator-like effector) proteins can be tailored to bind to any DNA sequence of choice and thus are of immense utility for genome editing and the specific delivery of transcription activators. However, to perform these functions, they need to occupy their sites in chromatin. In the present study, we have systematically assessed TALE binding to chromatin substrates and find that in vitro TALEs bind to their target site on nucleosomes at the more accessible entry/exit sites, but not at the nucleosome dyad. We show further that in vivo TALEs bind to transcriptionally repressed chromatin and that transcription increases binding by only 2-fold. These data therefore imply that TALEs are likely to bind to their target in vivo even at inactive loci

To Build a Notion:US State Department Nation Building Expertise and Postwar Settlements in 20th Century East Central Europe

This article offers a contribution to the sociology of social science knowledge practices and expertise through the empirical lens of US nation building policies. Drawing on archival materials, including the State Department's Freedom of Information Act documents, and interviews with key policymakers we offer a comparative historical sociology of the US State Department as a site of nation building knowledge and expertise. In examining the evolving character of nation building expertise in three key moments across the twentieth century, we find that as nation building expertise and its attendant knowledge practices were redefined and institutionally relocated, the essential character of the expertise and data collection practices that were valorized shifted from social scientism in the 1910s to geopolitical empiricism in the 1940s to liberal legalism in the 1990s. This changing character of nation building knowledge practices at the State Department had an effect on the substance of US nation building policy

Assessing Immigrant Assimilation: New Empirical and Theoretical Challenges

This review examines research on the assimilation of immigrant groups. We review research on four primary benchmarks of assimilation: socioeconomic status, spatial concentration, language assimilation, and intermarriage. The existing literature shows that today's immigrants are largely assimilating into American society along each of these dimensions. This review also considers directions for future research on the assimilation of immigrant groups in new southern and midwestern gateways and how sociologists measure immigrant assimilation. We document the changing geography of immigrant settlement and review the emerging body of research in this area. We argue that examining immigrant assimilation in these new immigrant gateways is crucial for the development of theories about immigrant assimilation. We also argue that we are likely to see a protracted period of immigrant replenishment that may change the nature of assimilation. Studying this change requires sociologists to use both birth cohort and generation as temporal markers of assimilation.Sociolog

Hispanic Immigration to the United States

This chapter presents some of the exceptional characteristics of recent Hispanic immigration to the United States. In 2005, there were nearly 40 million Hispanic immigrants and descendants of Hispanic immigrants living in the U.S. The assimilation experience of this large cultural group does not seem to be following the path past immigrants to the U.S. followed. Most third generation Hispanics in the U.S. still find themselves with income and education levels below the U.S. averages. Most forecasts predict that about 60 million Hispanics and Hispanic-Americans will be living in the U.S. by 2030