A great friggin' swindle? Sex Pistols, school kids and 1979

This article examines the popularity of the Sex Pistols’ song “Friggin’ in the Riggin’” and its parent album The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle. It argues that in 1979 the Sex Pistols attracted a new and younger audience, one that has been neglected in previous studies of the band, which tend instead to focus on the years 1976 and 1977 and the band’s original coterie of followers. This article locates the teenage appeal of “Friggin’ in the Riggin’” in its themes of swearing, sex and piracy. It also explores the media infrastructure that enabled young adolescents to access this music. Following on from this, the article charts the triumph of Johnny Rotten’s Sex Pistols’ narrative over that of Malcolm McLaren. The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle fell prey to notions of authenticity, coherence and the canonical tastes of young adults

Growth-Associated aspects of mould physiology.

The technique of continuous-flow culture was used to study the growth Kinetics of and the effects of, growth rate on biochemical composition and anaplerotic metabolism on the mould, Aspergillus nidulans. The validity of classical microbial growth equations, which have been well tested for unicells, was established for mould growth. Continuous cultures of A.nidulans followed Monod Kinetics when growing by simple hyphal elongation but exhibited anomalous growth Kinetics when growing by branch formation. The Kinetics of growth in batch culture involving the production of an extracellular metabolite followed the "logistic" model more closely than the Monod model. The effect of growth rate upon respiratory parameters, glucose uptaKe and energy yield, and the Kinetics of growth in the transient state were also studied. An inter-relationship between hyphal magnesium, polyamine and RNA concentrations was established, which held for vegetative cultures at all growth rates. A relationship between the ratio of magnesium to polyamine and ribosomal efficiency was also established. Ribosomal efficiency was itself proportional to growth rate at all values of p below 65% pmax, reaching a maximum value which was evident in the growth rate range, pmax- 65% ymax. Zero ribosomal efficiency was observed at the minimum specific growth rate Cpmin) under which conditions-differentiation into conidia tooK place. The response of ribosomal efficiency to abrupt changes in growth rate in transient states2 was immediate and positive. The effect of dilution rate upon mycelial wall content, DNA concentration and on the concentrations and energy required for synthesis of carbon-rich "storage- polymers" is also discussed. This work describes an investigation of anaplerotic metabolism, particularly that involving CO2 fixation. The inhibitory effect of high aeration conditions upon spore germination appeared to reflect a critical requirement for bicarbonate in the growth medium. Further investigation revealed a significant phospho- enol pyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) activity in batch culture. Pyruvate carboxylase (PC) activity was also detected but at lower levels. Glucose-limited chemostat cultures showed a marked increase in both carboxylase activities. Maximum PEPC levels increased from 1.1 x 10 2 ymol protein 1 h 1 to l.Oymol mg 1 h 1 in chemostat culture and PC activity from 1.5 x 10 3 ymol mg 1 h 1 to 2.5 x 10 2 ymol mg *h 1. Both enzyme activities were growth rate dependent. Measurements of bicarbonate fixation by intact mycelium indicated that virtually all the assimilated bicarbonate was fixed by PEPC and PC. The feasibility of making more efficient use of the carbon source with respect to biomass production by maximising carboxylase activities was investigated by (a) manipulating chemostat culture conditions to provide optimum bicarbonate concentration, (b) producing step-down and step-up transitions states and (c) constructing a two-stage continuous culture system

RNA helicase EIF4A1-mediated translation is essential for the GC response

EIF4A1 and cofactors EIF4B and EIF4H have been well characterised in cancers, including B cell malignancies, for their ability to promote the translation of oncogenes with structured 5' untranslated regions. However, very little is known of their roles in nonmalignant cells. Using mouse models to delete Eif4a1, Eif4b or Eif4h in B cells, we show that EIF4A1, but not EIF4B or EIF4H, is essential for B cell development and the germinal centre response. After B cell activation in vitro, EIF4A1 facilitates an increased rate of protein synthesis, MYC expression, and expression of cell cycle regulators. However, EIF4A1-deficient cells remain viable, whereas inhibition of EIF4A1 and EIF4A2 by Hippuristanol treatment induces cell death.</p

RNA helicase EIF4A1-mediated translation is essential for the GC response

EIF4A1 and cofactors EIF4B and EIF4H have been well characterised in cancers, including B cell malignancies, for their ability to promote the translation of oncogenes with structured 5' untranslated regions. However, very little is known of their roles in nonmalignant cells. Using mouse models to delete Eif4a1, Eif4b or Eif4h in B cells, we show that EIF4A1, but not EIF4B or EIF4H, is essential for B cell development and the germinal centre response. After B cell activation in vitro, EIF4A1 facilitates an increased rate of protein synthesis, MYC expression, and expression of cell cycle regulators. However, EIF4A1-deficient cells remain viable, whereas inhibition of EIF4A1 and EIF4A2 by Hippuristanol treatment induces cell death.</p

Mesoscale standing wave imaging

Standing wave (SW) microscopy is a method that uses an interference pattern to excite fluorescence from labelled cellular structures and produces high-resolution images of three-dimensional objects in a two-dimensional dataset. SW microscopy is performed with high-magnification, high-numerical aperture objective lenses, and while this results in high-resolution images, the field of view is very small. Here we report upscaling of this interference imaging method from the microscale to the mesoscale using the Mesolens, which has the unusual combination of a low-magnification and high-numerical aperture. With this method, we produce SW images within a field of view of 4.4 mm × 3.0 mm that can readily accommodate over 16,000 cells in a single dataset. We demonstrate the method using both single-wavelength excitation and the multi-wavelength SW method TartanSW. We show application of the method for imaging of fixed and living cells specimens, with the first application of SW imaging to study cells under flow conditions

Acorn: A grid computing system for constraint based modeling and visualization of the genome scale metabolic reaction networks via a web interface

Constraint-based approaches facilitate the prediction of cellular metabolic capabilities, based, in turn on predictions of the repertoire of enzymes encoded in the genome. Recently, genome annotations have been used to reconstruct genome scale metabolic reaction networks for numerous species, including Homo sapiens, which allow simulations that provide valuable insights into topics, including predictions of gene essentiality of pathogens, interpretation of genetic polymorphism in metabolic disease syndromes and suggestions for novel approaches to microbial metabolic engineering. These constraint-based simulations are being integrated with the functional genomics portals, an activity that requires efficient implementation of the constraint-based simulations in the web-based environment

Long-Term Administration of Conjugated Estrogen and Bazedoxifene Decreased Murine Fecal β-Glucuronidase Activity Without Impacting Overall Microbiome Community

AbstractConjugated estrogens (CE) and Bazedoxifene (BZA) combination is used to alleviate menopause-associated symptoms in women. CE+BZA undergo first-pass-metabolism in the liver and deconjugation by gut microbiome via β-glucuronidase (GUS) enzyme inside the distal gut. To date, the impact of long-term exposure to CE+BZA on the gut microbiome or GUS activity has not been examined. Our study using an ovariectomized mouse model showed that CE+BZA administration did not affect the overall cecal or fecal microbiome community except that it decreased the abundance of Akkermansia, which was identified as a fecal biomarker correlated with weight gain. The fecal GUS activity was reduced significantly and was positively correlated with the abundance of Lactobacillaceae in the fecal microbiome. We further confirmed in Escherichia coli K12 and Lactobacillus gasseri ADH that Tamoxifen-, 4-hydroxy-Tamoxifen- and Estradiol-Glucuronides competed for GUS activity. Our study for the first time demonstrated that long-term estrogen supplementation directly modulated gut microbial GUS activity. Our findings implicate that long-term estrogen supplementation impacts composition of gut microbiota and microbial activity, which affects estrogen metabolism in the gut. Thus, it is possible to manipulate such activity to improve the efficacy and safety of long-term administered estrogens for postmenopausal women or breast cancer patients.</jats:p