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Inflammasomes Primarily Restrict Cytosolic \u3cem\u3eSalmonella\u3c/em\u3e Replication Within Human Macrophages
No full textSalmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium is a facultative intracellular pathogen that utilizes its type III secretion systems (T3SSs) to inject virulence factors into host cells and colonize the host. In turn, a subset of cytosolic immune receptors respond to T3SS ligands by forming multimeric signaling complexes called inflammasomes, which activate caspases that induce interleukin-1 (IL-1) family cytokine release and an inflammatory form of cell death called pyroptosis. Human macrophages mount a multifaceted inflammasome response to Salmonella infection that ultimately restricts intracellular bacterial replication. However, how inflammasomes restrict Salmonella replication remains unknown. We find that caspase-1 is essential for mediating inflammasome responses to Salmonella and restricting bacterial replication within human macrophages, with caspase-4 contributing as well. We also demonstrate that the downstream pore-forming protein gasdermin D (GSDMD) and Ninjurin-1 (NINJ1), a mediator of terminal cell lysis, play a role in controlling Salmonella replication in human macrophages. Notably, in the absence of inflammasome responses, we observed hyperreplication of Salmonella within the cytosol of infected cells as well as increased bacterial replication within vacuoles, suggesting that inflammasomes control Salmonella replication primarily within the cytosol and also within vacuoles. These findings reveal that inflammatory caspases and pyroptotic factors mediate inflammasome responses that restrict the subcellular localization of intracellular Salmonella replication within human macrophages
Understanding The World Bank’s Role In Climate Finance
No full textAs the most well-resourced multilateral development bank, the World Bank is expected to play a central role in international climate finance (CF). However, systematic analysis of its CF projects remains limited, raising key questions such as what qualifies as a CF project, how the Paris Agreement has influenced the Bank’s CF, and whether CF projects are directed to areas of greatest need. Utilizing statistical analysis and natural language processing, this study offers a novel examination of the Bank’s CF projects. To provide a nuanced and detailed picture, we uniquely distinguish between the Bank-financed “pure” CF projects—those dedicated exclusively to climate objectives—and “mixed” CF projects, which combine climate aims with other priorities. Although there has been a significant increase in the Bank’s CF post-Paris, this rise is primarily driven by mixed CF projects with low climate components. Furthermore, while vulnerable countries and large emitters have received more mixed CF projects following the Paris Agreement, they have not received more pure CF projects. The findings indicate that the Bank incorporates climate goals when and where it can. The study provides insights into the pressing issue of CF flows from wealthier to poorer countries
La beauté ignoble du cadavre. Regard scientifique et regard artistique dans \u3cem\u3eThérèse Raquin\u3c/em\u3e d’Émile Zola
No full textAge-Dependent Changes In Reproductive Behaviour And Success In A Long-Lived Beetle (\u3cem\u3eBolitotherus cornutus\u3c/em\u3e)
No full textAge-related changes in behaviors often result in shifts in an individual’s competitive ability, reproductive success, and fitness. However, how mating behaviors, aggression, and mating success simultaneously change as individuals age in natural populations remains understudied. Investigating these age-dependent effects in wild populations could reveal how age-specific patterns shape social dynamics and influence natural selection. In this study, we ask how behaviors associated with mating and reproductive success vary across age in a wild metapopulation of a long-lived beetle, Bolitotherus cornutus. We used both cross-sectional and longitudinal data from a multi-year field study of individually marked beetles to investigate how aging in the wild influences courtship and mating success. We performed rigorous scan sampling of reproductive behaviors, including courtship, mate guarding, and egg laying. We then observed marked individuals from the same wild metapopulation in male-male competition trials to determine how age influences male aggression. We found that individuals of both sexes increased their mating behaviors and experienced higher mating success as they aged. Males also increased their level of aggression as they aged. The results from our longitudinal analysis support the results from our cross-sectional analysis, showing that the observed increase in reproductive behaviors with age is not a result of survivorship bias. This work has implications for understanding how an individual’s competitive ability within a population may change over time and how the age structure of a population could influence variation in sexual selection due to these age-specific reproductive patterns
Divergence Of Immune Cell Types In Chordate Blood
No full textEvolutionary adaptations often occur at the level of cell types and cellular function. Innate immune cells are a promising system for studying cell-type evolution, as they are widespread across metazoans, have several conserved functions, and are under selective pressure from pathogens. However, molecular characterizations of invertebrate immune cells are limited, and it remains unclear whether invertebrate immune cell types are homologous to those in vertebrates. Here, we use single-cell RNA sequencing, in situ hybridization, and live reporters to define the identity of blood cell states in Ciona robusta, a member of the tunicate subphylum, the sister group to vertebrates. We find evidence that C. robusta circulating blood contains a differentiation hierarchy, with at least five major lineages, constituting more than 75% of circulating cells. The mature cell states include phagocytes, as well as cells variously expressing vanadium-binding proteins, carbonic anhydrases, pattern recognition receptors, cytokines, and complement factors. Despite the expression of homologs to vertebrate immune components, extensive divergence between tunicate and vertebrate immune cells obscures cell-state homology. Altogether, this work modernizes blood cell classifications in C. robusta and extends the known repertoire of immune cells within chordates
Introduction
No full textHow can we study to make a new world in and against the limits on studying in this world
Introduction: Narrative Empathy And The Ethics Of Border-Crossing In World Literature
No full textThe special issue Constructing the Other: Narrative Empathy and the Ethics of Border-Crossing in World Literature intervenes in the current scholarship on narrative empathy in two specific ways: first, by contesting the mainstream position that empathy is exclusively colonial or ethnocentric, our collection asserts that empathy can play a positive role in shaping anticolonial resistance, global south solidarities, and collective efforts against oppression; second, by offering visibility to narrative strategies and aesthetic modes of empathy practiced globally by creative writers to ethically rethink otherness and alterity in literature. Some of the concerns highlighted in the different chapters include how do creative writers deploy narrative strategies to ethically imagine otherness and border-crossing? How can border-crossing empathy allow us to dismantle colonial, hegemonic, and other forms of representational violence? How can narrative empathy allow us to move beyond anthropocentric limitations in imagining non-human planetary consciousness? How can writers encounter their own prejudices in crafting ethical and empathetic border-crossing strategies? How can the teaching of empathy enrich student encounters with narratives of difference? How can empathy produce new forms of ethicality and inter-subjective alliance in war-torn and conflicted regions? Are there particular literary tools and strategies that can be consistently identified across different texts as a vehicle for empathy? And finally, how do writers and scholars engage empathy as a criterion for evaluating literature
U.S. Immigrants\u27 Multicultural Identities: Implications Of Immigration Policy, State Immigrant Concentration, And Public Perceptions
No full textU.S. immigrant-origin emerging adults must negotiate their cultural identities—ethnic (EI) and American national identities—as part of acculturation to ensure optimal adaptation in the receiving context. Contextual factors, like immigration policy, state immigrant concentration, and public perceptions of immigrants, may affect identity negotiation. Person-centred approaches show that immigrants have varying approaches to negotiating their cultural identities, but contextual explanations of these patterns have yet to be explored. Using latent profile analyses, we explored profiles of multicultural identity among U.S. immigrant-origin emerging adults (N = 253; 35.4% first generation; 53.1% female; ages 18–29) and examined how multiple levels of the social context contributed to their multicultural identity styles. We identified four multicultural identity styles that varied in their approach to ethnic identity, American identity and cultural identity strategies: EI Oriented Bicultural (39.68%), Balanced Bicultural (29.15%), EI Oriented Separated (18.22%) and Low EI Diffused (12.95%). Next, we examined how contextual factors were associated with profile membership. We found that inclusivity of state immigration policy, living in a traditional immigrant destination state, and perceptions of the public\u27s views of immigrants were associated with multicultural identity styles. These results have implications for fostering welcoming contexts of reception for immigrants in the United States