15 research outputs found
Stigmatic bodies: The corporeal Qiu Miaojin
No full textB1 - Research Book ChaptersDeposited with permission of University of Hawaii PressQiu Miaojin (1969–1995) is Taiwan’s best-known lesbian author. In local lesbian (nütongzhi) subcultures, Qiu’s books are frequently cited as classics, particularly her 1994 novel The Crocodile’s Journal (Eyu shouji), the first novel in Taiwan’s modern literary history to be written by an author commonly known to be a lesbian that takes erotic relationships between women as its central theme. Qiu’s fiction is much celebrated, too, in the mainstream literary establishment; The Crocodile’s Journal won the prestigious China Times Honorary Prize for Literature for Qiu posthumously, following her suicide in mid-1995. Qiu’s unique literary style—mingling cerebral, experimental language use, psychological realism, biting social critique through allegory, and a surrealist effect deriving from the use of arrestingly unusual metaphors—is strongly influenced by both European and Japanese literary and cinematic modernisms. Although her fiction has been compared, in its principal subject-matter, to Radclyffe Hall’s 1920s classic of lesbian alienation, The Well of Loneliness, most frequently cited in Qiu’s writings are male modernist and postmodernist ‘masters’ (many of whose work shows a strongly homoerotic aesthetic) including Andre Gide, Jean Genet, Kobo Abe, Yukio Mishima, Haruki Murakami, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Derek Jarman—locally, Qiu’s work has been critiqued for this apparent masculinist bias. Qiu’s early short stories ‘Zero Degree’ (‘Linjiedian,’ 1988) and ‘Platonic Hair’ (‘Bolatu zhi fa,’ 1990), to be discussed in this chapter, appeared in her first collection, The Revelry of Ghosts (Guide kuanghuan) in 1991, following their earlier serialization in local daily newspapers. They are Qiu’s first works to treat thematically homoerotic desire between women
Emerging Roles of Hydrogen Sulfide in Inflammatory and Neoplastic Colonic Diseases
No full textHydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a toxic gas that has been recognized as an important mediator of many physiological processes, such as neurodegeneration, regulation of inflammation and blood pressure, and metabolism. In the human colon, H2S is produced by both endogenous enzymes and sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB). H2S is involved in physiological and pathophysiological conditions of the colon, such as inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer, which makes the pharmacological modulation of H2S production and metabolism a potential target for the treatment of colonic diseases. However, the exact mechanisms and pathways by which H2S-mediates normal physiological function and disease in the colon are not fully understood yet. Besides, the production and release of H2S are modulated by both endogenous and exogenous factors. This review will discuss the production and storage of H2S, its biological roles and the emerging importance in physiology and pathology of inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer
VgrG2 of type VI secretion system 2 of Vibrio parahaemolyticus induces autophagy in macrophages
No full textType VI secretion system (T6SS) is a macromolecular transenvelope machine encoded within the genomes of several proteobacteria species. Vibrio parahaemolyticus contains two putative T6SS systems, VpT6SS1 and VpT6SS2, both contributing to adherence to Caco-2 and/or HeLa cells. However, it remains unknown if these systems are involved in cellular responses. In order to exclude the effects of other virulence factors known to induce cytotoxicity or autophagy, a triple deletion mutant dTTT (with deletion of tdh, and T3SS1 and T3SS2 structural protein genes) was used as the parent strain to construct deletion mutants of T6SS genes. The mutant dTTT-icmF2, but not dTTT-icmF1, reduced autophagic response upon 4 h of infection of the macrophage. Further attempt was made to search for the possible effector proteins that might be responsible for direct induction of autophagy by deletion of the genes encoding Hcp2 and VgrG2, two putative translocons of T6SS2 of V. parahaemolyticus. Deletion of either hcp2 or vgrG2 did reduce the autophagic response. However, increased LC3-II lipidation was seen only in the macrophage cells transfected with pVgrG2, but not with pHcp2. Chloroquinine treatment increased accumulation of LC3-II, suggesting that VgrG2 enhanced autophagic flux. The fact that vgrG2 deletion led to reduced level of intracellular cAMP suggests a possible role of cAMP signaling in autophagic responses to the bacterium. We conclude that VgrG2 of V. parahaemolyticus induces autophagy in macrophages
Modulation of chloride channel functions by the plant lignan compounds kobusin and eudesmin
No full textPlant lignans are diphenolic compounds widely present in vegetables, fruits and grains. These compounds have been demonstrated to have protective effect against cancer, hypertension and diabetes. In the present study, we showed that two lignan compounds, kobusin and eudesmin, isolated from Magnoliae Flos, could modulate intestinal chloride transport mediated by cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) and calcium-activated chloride channels (CaCCs) chloride channels. The compounds potentiated CFTR channel function in both FRT cells and in HT-29 cells. The modulating effects of kobusin and eudesmin on the activity of CaCCgie (CaCC expressed in gastrointestinal epithelial cells) were also investigated, and the result showed that both compounds could stimulate CaCCgie-mediated short-circuit currents and the stimulation was synergistic with ATP. In ex vivo studies, both compounds potentiated CFTR and CaCCgie chloride channel activities in mouse colonic epithelia. Remarkably, the compounds showed inhibitory effects toward ANO1/CaCC-mediated short-circuit currents in ANO1/CaCC-expressing FRT cells, with IC50 values of 75 M for kobusin and 100 M for eudesmin. In charcoal transit study, both compounds mildly reduced gastrointestinal motility in mice. Taken together, these results revealed a new kind of activity displayed by the lignan compounds, one that is concerned with the modulation of chloride channel function
Irradiation promotes an M2 macrophage phenotype in tumor hypoxia
No full textMacrophages display different phenotypes with distinct functions and can rapidly respond to environmental changes. Previous studies on TRAMP-C1 tumor model have shown that irradiation has a strong impact on tumor microenvironments. The major changes include the decrease of microvascular density (MVD), the increase of avascular hypoxia, and the aggregation of tumor associated macrophages (TAMs) in avascular hypoxic regions. Similar changes were observed no matter the irradiation was given to tissue bed before tumor implantation (pre-IR tumors), or to established tumors (IR tumors). Recent results on three murine tumors, TRAMP-C1 prostate adenocarcinoma, ALTS1C1 astrocytoma, and GL261 glioma, further demonstrate that different phenotypes of inflammatory cells are spatially distributed into different microenvironments in both IR and pre-IR tumors. Regions with avascular hypoxia and central necrosis have CD11bhigh/Gr-1+ neutrophils in the center of the necrotic area. Next to them are CD11blow/F4/80+ macrophages that sit at the junctions between central necrotic and surrounding hypoxic regions. The majority of cells in the hypoxic regions are CD11blow/CD68+ macrophages. These inflammatory cell populations express different levels of Arg I. This distribution pattern, except for neutrophils, is not observed in tumors receiving chemotherapy or an anti-angiogenesis agent which also lead to avascular hypoxia. This unique distribution pattern of inflammatory cells in IR tumor sites is interfered with by targeting the expression of a chemokine protein, SDF-1, by tumor cells, and this also increases radiation-induced tumor growth delay. This indicates that irradiated-hypoxia tissues have distinct tumor microenvironments that favor the development of M2 macrophages and that is affected by the levels of tumor-secreted SDF-1
Depressive symptoms and associated psychosocial factors among adolescent survivors 30 months after 2008 Wenchuan earthquake: A follow-up study
No full textAbstractPurpose: This study longitudinally investigated the changes of depressive symptoms among adolescent survivors over two years and a half after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China, as well as the predictive effects of demographic characteristics, earthquake exposure, negative life events, social support and dispositional resilience on the risk of depressive symptoms at two time points after the earthquake.Methods: Participants were 1573 adolescent survivors (720 males and 853 females, mean age at initial survey =15 ± 1.26), whose depressive symptoms were assessed at 6 months (T6m) and 30 months (T30m) post-earthquake. Data on demographics, earthquake exposure and dispositional resilience were collected at T6m. Negative life events and social support were measured at T6m and 24 months (T24m) post-earthquake.Results: The prevalence rates of probable depression, 27.5% at T6m and 27.2% at T30m, maintained relatively stable over time. Female gender was related with higher risk of depressive symptoms at both T6m and T30m, while being only-child could only predict higher risk of depressive symptoms at T30m. Negative life events and social support at T6m, as well as earthquake exposure, were concurrently associated with increased risk of depressive symptoms at T6m, but not associated with the risk of depressive symptoms at T30m, while negative life events and social support at T24m could predict depressive symptoms at T30m, all of which suggested that these variables may have strong but short-term effect on adolescents’ depressive symptoms post-earthquake. Besides, dispositional resilience was evidenced as a relatively stable negative predictor for depressive symptoms.Conclusions: These findings could inform mental health professionals regarding how to screen adolescent survivors at high risk for depression, so as to provide them with timely and appropriate mental health services based on the identified risk and protective factors for depressive symptoms
Stochastic Learning in Oxide Binary Synaptic Device for Neuromorphic Computing
No full textHardware implementation of neuromorphic computing is attractive as a computing paradigm beyond the conventional digital computing. In this work, we show that the SET (off-to-on) transition of metal oxide resistance switching memory becomes probabilistic under a weak programming condition. The switching variability of the binary synaptic device implements a stochastic learning rule. Such stochastic SET transition was statistically measured and modeled for a simulation of a winner-take-all network for competitive learning. The simulation illustrates that with such stochastic learning, the orientation classification function of input patterns can be effectively realized. The system performance metrics were compared between the conventional approach using the analog synapse and the approach in this work that employs the binary synapse utilizing the stochastic learning. The feasibility of using binary synapse in the neurormorphic computing may relax the constraints to engineer continuous multilevel intermediate states and widens the material choice for the synaptic device design
FMRI evidence for the interaction between orthography and phonology in reading Chinese compound words
No full textCompound words make up a major part of modern Chinese vocabulary. Behavioral studies have demonstrated that access to lexical semantics of compound words is driven by the interaction between orthographic and phonological information. However, little is known about the neural underpins of compound word processing. In this fMRI study, we asked participants to perform lexical decision to pseudohomophones, which were constructed by replacing one or both constituents of two-character compound words with orthographically dissimilar homophonic characters. Mixed pseudohomophones, which shared the first constituent with the base words, were more difficult to reject than non-pseudohomophone nonwords. This effect was accompanied by the increased activation of bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), left inferior parietal lobule (IPL), and left angular gyrus. The pure pseudohomophones, which shared no constituent with their base words, were rejected as quickly as nonword controls and did not elicit any significant neural activation. The effective connectivity of a phonological pathway from left IPL to left IFG was enhanced for the mixed pseudohomophones but not for pure pseudohomophones. These findings demonstrated that phonological activation alone, as in the case of the pure pseudohomophones, is not sufficient to drive access to lexical representations of compound words, and that orthographic information interacts with phonology, playing a gating role in the recognition of Chinese compound words
Identification of two bZIP transcription factors interacting with the promoter of soybean Rubisco activase gene (GmRCAα)
No full textRubisco activase (RCA), a key photosynthetic protein, catalyses the activation of Rubisco and thus plays an important role in photosynthesis. Although the RCA gene has been characterized in a variety of species, the molecular mechanism regulating its transcription remains unclear. Our previous studies on RCA gene expression in soybean suggested that expression of this gene is regulated by trans-acting factors. In the present study, we verified activity of the GmRCAα promoter in both soybean and Arabidopsis and used a yeast one-hybrid (Y1H) system for screening a leaf cDNA expression library to identify transcription factors (TFs) interacting with the GmRCAα promoter. Four basic leucine zipper (bZIP) TFs, GmbZIP04g, GmbZIP07g, GmbZIP1 and GmbZIP71, were isolated, and GmbZIP04g and GmbZIP07g were confirmed as able to bind to a 21-nt G-box-containing sequence. Additionally, the expression patterns of GmbZIP04g, GmbZIp07g and GmRCAα were analysed in response to abiotic stresses and during a 24-h period. Our study will help to advance elucidation of the network regulating GmRCAα transcription
De novo analysis of Wolfiporia cocos transcriptome to reveal the differentially expressed carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) genes during the early stage of sclerotial growth
No full textThe sclerotium of Wolfiporia cocos has been used as an edible mushroom and/or a traditional herbal medicine for centuries. W. cocos sclerotial formation is dependent on parasitism of the wood of Pinus species. Currently, the sclerotial development mechanisms of W. cocos remain largely unknown and the lack of pine resources limit the commercial production. The CAZymes (carbohydrate-active enzymes) play important roles in degradation of the plant cell wall to provide carbohydrates for fungal growth, development and reproduction. In this study, the transcript profiles from W. cocos mycelium and two-months-old sclerotium, the early stage of sclerotial growth, were specially analyzed using de novo sequencing technology. A total of 142,428,180 high-quality reads of mycelium and 70,594,319 high-quality reads of two-months-old sclerotium were obtained. Additionally, differentially expressed genes from the W. cocos mycelium and two-months-old sclerotium stages were analyzed, resulting in identification of 69 CAZymes genes which were significantly up-regulated during the early stage of sclerotial growth compared to that of in mycelium stage, and more than half of them belonged to glycosyl hydrolases (GHs) family, indicating the importance of W. cocos GHs family for degrading the pine woods. And qRT-PCR was further used to confirm the expression pattern of these up-regulated CAZymes genes. Our results will provide comprehensive CAZymes genes expression information during W. cocos sclerotial growth at the transcriptional level and will lay a foundation for functional genes studies in this fungus. In addition, our study will also facilitate the efficient use of limited pine resources, which is significant for promoting steady development of Chinese W. cocos industry
