10 research outputs found
From the river to the sea? : honour, identity and politics in historical and contemporary Palestinian rejectionism
No full textThe present thesis seeks to understand and explain the rhetoric and
behaviour of the rejectionist 'current' within the Palestinian national
movement. It proceeds from the view that extant scholarship, primarily from
within the fields of terrorism and security studies, has profoundly
misunderstood rejectionist speech and behaviour by ignoring the
explanatory capacity of Emic - the research subject's perception - as well as
the influence of the sociocultural milieu within which rejectionism exists.
The thesis proceeds to set up a 'socioculturally sensitive' analytical
framework drawn from social identity theory, a heuristic, non-reductionist
model for understanding group interaction and conflict. Emphasizing
cultural norms and cues identified by anthropologists as salient in the
eastern Mediterranean, the thesis suggests that the social value of honour,
patron-client dynamics and a firmly entrenched group orientation must be
significant elements of a model for understanding rejectionist behaviour.
The main analytical narrative suggests that for reasons derived from
ideology, patron-client relations and group dynamics, what has distinguished
the rejectionists from the mainstream have been a qualitatively different set
of preconditions for, and objectives of diplomatic negotiations. To the main
rejectionist factions the goal of liberating Palestine has always been
inextricably intertwined with the goal of restoring national honour; one
without the other has been impossible and to claim otherwise would mean a
depletion of factional and personal honour. To the rejectionists, there has
never been any question of deviating from the fundamental goals - national
recognition, repatriation, self-determination and independent statehood, not
even for tactical reasons. This 'higher standard' likely derives from their
structurally and politically subordinate position within the national
movement, and the need to creatively enhance their own social status and
appeal
Author Correction: Combined protein and transcript single-cell RNA sequencing in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells
No full textAuthor Correction to "Combined protein and transcript single-cell RNA sequencing in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells
Artificial Intelligence Supports Automated Characterization of Differentiated Human Pluripotent Stem Cells
No full textRevolutionary advances in AI and deep learning in recent years have resulted in an upsurge of papers exploring applications within the biomedical field. Within stem cell research, promising results have been reported from analyses of microscopy images to e.g., distinguish between pluripotent stem cells and differentiated cell types derived from stem cells. In this work, we investigated the possibility of using a deep learning model to predict the differentiation stage of pluripotent stem cells undergoing differentiation towards hepatocytes, based on morphological features of cell cultures. We were able to achieve close to perfect classification of images from early and late time points during differentiation, and this aligned very well with the experimental validation of cell identity and function. Our results suggest that deep learning models can distinguish between different cell morphologies, and provide alternative means of semi-automated functional characterization of stem cell cultures.CC BY 4.0Published: 26 June 2023Corresponding author: Benjamin Ulfenborg, PhD, Department of Biology and Bioinformatics, School of Bioscience, University of Skövde, SE-541 28, Sweden. Email: [email protected] work was supported by the Swedish Knowledge Foundation (grant numbers 20170302 and 20200014), the Systems Biology Research Center, University of Skövde, Sweden and Takara Bio Europe, Gothenburg, Sweden.</p
Brain organoid formation on decellularized porcine brain ECM hydrogels
No full textHuman brain tissue models such as cerebral organoids are essential tools for developmental and biomedical research. Current methods to generate cerebral organoids often utilize Matrigel as an external scaffold to provide structure and biologically relevant signals. Matrigel however is a nonspecific hydrogel of mouse tumor origin and does not represent the complexity of the brain protein environment. In this study, we investigated the application of a decellularized adult porcine brain extracellular matrix (B-ECM) which could be processed into a hydrogel (B-ECM hydrogel) to be used as a scaffold for human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-derived brain organoids. We decellularized pig brains with a novel detergent- and enzyme-based method and analyzed the biomaterial properties, including protein composition and content, DNA content, mechanical characteristics, surface structure, and antigen presence. Then, we compared the growth of human brain organoid models with the B-ECM hydrogel or Matrigel controls in vitro. We found that the native brain source material was successfully decellularized with little remaining DNA content, while Mass Spectrometry (MS) showed the loss of several brain-specific proteins, while mainly different collagen types remained in the B-ECM. Rheological results revealed stable hydrogel formation, starting from B-ECM hydrogel concentrations of 5 mg/mL. hESCs cultured in B-ECM hydrogels showed gene expression and differentiation outcomes similar to those grown in Matrigel. These results indicate that B-ECM hydrogels can be used as an alternative scaffold for human cerebral organoid formation, and may be further optimized for improved organoid growth by further improving protein retention other than collagen after decellularization.CC BY 4.0© 2021 Simsa et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under the Marie SklodowskaCurie Gran
Author Correction: Combined protein and transcript single-cell RNA sequencing in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells
No full textAuthor Correction: Combined protein and transcript single-cell RNA sequencing in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells
No full textThe original article [1] contained significant errors in Fig 1A which necessitated correction; the figure has since been updated to the corrected version
Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome Protein Regulates Nuclear Organization, Alternative Splicing and Cell Proliferation
No full textWiskott-Aldrich syndrome (WAS), caused by mutations in the WASP protein, displaysimmunological dysfunctions and predisposition to cancer. Despite studies in cell linesand mouse models the molecular mechanisms of WAS remain obscure. We generatedinduced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from patients with WAS (WAS-iPSCs) andisogenic gene-corrected iPSCs by genome editing. Immune cells derived from WASiPSCs,genetically engineered B lymphoblastoid cell lines, and patient primarylymphocytes were subjected to imaging, proteomic and transcriptomic analyses. TheWAS-iPSC model not only recapitulated known disease phenotypes but also revealed,for the first time, roles of WASP in the organization of the nucleolus and nuclearspeckles and PML nuclear bodies. WASP interacts with components of the nucleolusand nuclear speckles, including chromatin modifiers and splicing factors. Innate andadaptive immune cells from WAS patients display global dysregulation of cell cycleregulation and alternative splicing. WASP mutation is sufficient to drive an acceleratedcell cycle and tumor-promoting splicing changes. Our data show that WASP acts as atumor suppressor and specific WASP mutants behave as oncogenes and cause cellintrinsicalterations that predispose patients to cancer.We would like to thank B. Lubin for advice on hematopoiesis and assistance in cord blood unit procurement; C. Cole, R. Walker, J. Lieu, R. Tonai, M. Swearingen for providing cord blood samples; Y. Zheng for advice on hematopoietic differentiation and assistance on flow cytometry; members of the Belmonte lab for helpful discussions; A. T. Gutiérrez, A. Geobl, R. D. Soligalla and Y. Hishida for technical assistance, L. Mack, J, Olvera, C. O’Connor, E. O'Connor and K. Marquez for help with flow cytometry; D. O’Keefe for critical reading of the manuscript; M. Schwarz, P. Schwarz, C. Xia and X. Zhang for administrative help. Funding: M.L. was supported by grants from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. This work was supported by the Waitt Advanced Biophotonics Core Facility of the Salk Institute with funding from NIH-NCI CCSG: P30 014195, NINDS Neuroscience Core Grant and the Waitt Foundation. J.C.I.B. was supported by grants from The Moxie Foundation, G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Charitable Foundation, The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust grant #2012-PG-MED002, The Glenn Foundation and Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia (UCAM). Work in the laboratory of M.L. was supported by the KAUST Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) under Awards No. BAS/1/1080-01. Author contributions: M.L., K.S. and J.C.I.B conceived the project, designed the experiments and performed data analysis. K.S., T.Y., X.Z, J.J.M., S.D., R.H.B., T.H., N.Y.K, M.M.A., M.K., Y.T., J.X., J.Q., E.A., J.Q., G.L., Z.L., F.Y, C.B., Y.G., C.S., J.R.Y.III., X.D.F., and C.R.E. contributed to project design and conducted the experiments. L.H., C.B., M.S. bioinformatics design, carried out bioinformatics work, and interpreted data. P.C. and F.F. contributed to the design and experiments related to the primary patient samples. M.L. and J.C.I.B. wrote the paper
