Search

Abstract Influenza is a significant public health and economic threat around the world. Epidemiological studies have demonstrated a close association between influenza pandemics and cardiovascular mortality. Moreover, it has been shown that there is a decrease in cardiovascular mortality in high-risk patients following vaccination with the influenza vaccine. Here, we have investigated the role of anti-viral STAT1 signaling in influenza-induced myocarditis. Wild-type mice (C57BL/6) were infected with either influenza A/PR/8/34 or control, and cellular response and gene expression analysis from the heart samples were assessed 7 days later. The expression of interferon response genes STAT1, STAT2, Mx1, OASL2, ISG15, chemokines CCL2, CCL3, CXCL9 and CXCL10, and the frequency of neutrophils (CD45+CD11b+Ly6G+) and CD4+ T cells (CD45+CD4+) were all significantly increased in influenza-infected mice when compared to vehicle controls. These data suggest that influenza infection induces interferons, inflammatory chemokines, and cellular recruitment during influenza infection. We further investigated the role of STAT1 in influenza-induced myocarditis. The frequency of neutrophils and the levels of lipocalin 2 were significantly increased in STAT1−/− mice when compared to WT controls. Finally, we investigated the role of Lcn2 in viral-induced myocarditis. We found that in the absence of Lcn2, there was preserved cardiac function in Lcn2−/− mice when compared to WT controls. These data suggest that the absence of Lcn2 is cardioprotective during viral-induced myocarditis.

This article aims to evaluate the Constitution of 1923 which was adopted by Greater Romania short after its unity. Its destiny was not peaceful. Repeatedly suspended, repealed, or violated, it will have known only a turbulent existence and an intermittent application. It nevertheless remains a reference and could have served to unite the Romanians under the aegis of a king in the aftermath of the events of 1989. But the choice of a republican form of government by the new constituents and the refusal to go back to the 1923 constitution and to the sources of Romanian constitutionalism—a solution that the law nevertheless seemed to impose—perhaps showed once more that history rarely goes back.

Abstract Although zinc deficiency (secondary to malnutrition) has long been considered an important contributor to morbidity and mortality of infectious disease (e.g. diarrhea disorders), epidemiologic data (including randomized controlled trials with supplemental zinc) for such a role in lower respiratory tract infection are somewhat ambiguous. In the current study, we provide the first preclinical evidence demonstrating that although diet‐induced acute zinc deficiency (Zn‐D: ~50% decrease) did not worsen infection induced by either influenza A (H1N1) or methicillin‐resistant staph aureus (MRSA), Zn‐D mice were sensitive to the injurious effects of superinfection of H1N1 with MRSA. Although the mechanism underlying the sensitivity of ZnD mice to combined H1N1/MRSA infection is unclear, it was noteworthy that this combination exacerbated lung injury as shown by lung epithelial injury markers (increased BAL protein) and decreased genes related to epithelial integrity in Zn‐D mice (surfactant protein C and secretoglobins family 1A member 1). As bacterial pneumonia accounts for 25%–50% of morbidity and mortality from influenza A infection, zinc deficiency may be an important pathology component of respiratory tract infections.

This essay identifies recent trends in the field of health humanities and reflects on their relevance for the study of nineteenth-century US literature, as well as on the contribution of Americanist literary criticism to health humanities enquiries. It first shows how health humanities scholarship invites us to think about body and mind as inextricable. It then demonstrates how a nondualist focus on the bodymind helps articulate the complexities of the experience of pain. As a wide array of nineteenth-century literary texts attests, bodyminds in pain ask to be understood through interconnected scales ranging from the singular to the collective, from the intimate to the social, from the microbiotic to the biopolitical. The final section thus considers the bodymind as a liminal site where these scalar dynamics intersect, turning to the way metabolic processes mediate conditions of health and illness while serving as an analytic for investigating wider biopolitical anxieties. Through the example of Henry James's ambiguous valuation of "munching" at the turn of the twentieth century, when conditions such as obesity and diabetes emerged as alleged diseases of modernity, the essay concludes by pondering the entanglements between literature, foodways, and health as a fruitful avenue for further enquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the political aesthetics of visual and textual representations of ruins following episodes of urban destruction during the Civil War. Although ruins were long held to be lacking in the nineteenth-century US landscape—and their absence deemed a sign of America’s newness—ruins were ubiquitous throughout the nation, in particular in its growing urban centres. These antebellum ruins spoke to America’s uncanny historicity, spelling out its premature growth as well as the risk of its untimely extinction. Their presence, however transient, thus provided Americans with a language to make sense of the devastation caused by the Civil War. The essay then turns to two instances of urban destruction: the burning of Columbia, SC, in February 1865 and the New York City draft riots of July 1863. Their representation in the periodical press, as well as in personal and literary accounts, archives the destructiveness of the war even as it shapes its collective memory. While the ashes of Columbia became a climactic episode in the narrative of the Lost Cause, the burning of New York City indexed the problematic memorialization of antistate and anti-Black violence.

Background To provide insight into bone turnover, quantitative measurements of bone remodeling are required. Radionuclide studies are widely used in clinical care, but have been rarely used in the exploration of the bone in preclinical studies. We describe a bone planar scintigraphy method for frequent assessment of bone activity in mice across the growing period. Since repeated venous radiotracer injections are hardly feasible in mice, we investigated the subcutaneous route. Methods Repeated 99mTc-hydroxymethylene diphosphonate (HMDP) tracer bone planar scintigraphy studies of the knee region and µCT to measure femur growth rate were performed in eight mice between week 6 and week 27 of life, i.e., during their growth period. Three independent investigators assessed the regions of interest (ROI). An index was calculated based on the counts in knees ROI (normalized by pixels and seconds), corrected for the activity administered, the decay between administration and imaging, and individual weights. Results A total of 93 scintigraphy studies and 85 µCT were performed. Repeated subcutaneous tracer injections were well tolerated and allowed for adequate radionuclide studies. Mean scintigraphic indexes in the knees ROI decreased from 87.4 ± 2.6 × 10−6 counts s−1 pixel−1 MBq−1 g−1 at week 6 to 15.0 ± 3.3 × 10−6 counts s−1 pixel−1 MBq−1 g−1 at week 27. The time constant of the fitted exponential decay was equal to 23.5 days. As control mean femur length assessed by µCT increased from 12.2 ± 0.8 mm at week 6 to 15.8 ± 0.2 mm at week 22. The time constant of the fitted Gompertz law was equal to 26.7 days. A correlation index of −0.97 was found between femur growth and decrease of bone tracer activity count between week 6 and 24. Conclusion This methodological study demonstrates the potential of repeated bone planar scintigraphy in growing mice, with subcutaneous route for tracer administration, for quantitative assessment of bone remodeling.

An introduction to the journal is presented which discusses reports within the issue on topics including the figuration of pain and heartache in the writings of several African American authors, the visual representation of pain of Civil War soldiers, and Ralph Ellison's novel "Invisible Man."

Corynebacteriales are Actinobacteria that possess an atypical didermic cell envelope. One of the principal features of this cell envelope is the presence of a large complex made up of peptidoglycan, arabinogalactan and mycolic acids. This covalent complex constitutes the backbone of the cell wall and supports an outer membrane, called mycomembrane in reference to the mycolic acids that are its major component. The biosynthesis of the cell envelope of Corynebacteriales has been extensively studied, in particular because it is crucial for the survival of important pathogens such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis and is therefore a key target for anti-tuberculosis drugs. In this study, we explore the biogenesis of the cell envelope of Corynebacterium glutamicum, a non-pathogenic Corynebacteriales, which can tolerate dramatic modifications of its cell envelope as important as the loss of its mycomembrane. For this purpose, we used a genetic approach based on genome-wide transposon mutagenesis. We developed a highly effective immunological test based on the use of anti-cell wall antibodies that allowed us to rapidly identify bacteria exhibiting an altered cell envelope. A very large number (10,073) of insertional mutants were screened by means of this test, and 80 were finally selected, representing 55 different loci. Bioinformatics analyses of these loci showed that approximately 60% corresponded to genes already characterized, 63% of which are known to be directly involved in cell wall processes, and more specifically in the biosynthesis of the mycoloyl-arabinogalactan-peptidoglycan complex. We identified 22 new loci potentially involved in cell envelope biogenesis, 76% of which encode putative cell envelope proteins. A mutant of particular interest was further characterized and revealed a new player in mycolic acid metabolism. Because a large proportion of the genes identified by our study is conserved in Corynebacteriales, the library described here provides a new resource of genes whose characterization could lead to a better understanding of the biosynthesis of the envelope components of these bacteria.

Dans "Maud-Evelyn" (1900), Henry James met en scène l’improbable mariage d’un aristocrate anglais désargenté et d’un fantôme. Décédée alors qu’elle n’était encore qu’une enfant, Maud-Evelyn Dedrick se voit offrir, par ses parents endeuillés, une vie posthume dont le point culminant est son union avec Marmaduke. Parvenus ainsi à trouver un héritier à qui transmettre leur immense fortune, M. et Mme Dedrick meurent à leur tour, bientôt suivis par Marmaduke qui laisse in fine son héritage entre les mains de son amie et confidente, Lavinia. La vie imaginaire de Maud-Evelyn aura donc d’abord servi à perpétuer la fortune familiale : toujours déjà absente, celle-ci apparaît comme la femme idéale et semble conforter la logique nécrophile qui sous-tend l’économie patriarcale de l’Angleterre victorienne. La revenance de cet étrange fantôme génère cependant une série de troubles dans le genre qui viennent contrarier la dynamique héréditaire censée régir la circulation des richesses pour lui substituer un modèle de transmission que l’on pourrait qualifier de queer. Dans l’un et l’autre cas toutefois, la lecture vise la mise au jour d’un secret supposément dissimulé dans les plis du récit et l’interprétation postule que l’absence est le signe paradoxal d’une présence cachée. Or la structure du conte empêche cette herméneutique du soupçon en même temps qu’elle l’encourage en ne cessant pas de différer l’accès aux "trésors extraordinaires" accumulés en mémoire de Maud-Evelyn qu’il ne nous sera jamais donné de contempler. Pour finir, c’est la "légende" de Maud-Evelyn elle-même, l’idée d’une absence toujours présente, qui prend la forme d’un quasi-objet au gré de sa circulation entre les personnages, le narrateur et le lecteur.