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Extreme natural and human-made disasters can affect the lives of thousands of citizens. The only way we can prepare ourselves for such situations is to learn and establish basic survival strategies within our families and communities. This article explores how K-12 teachers could help educating children about disaster preparedness by utilizing existing educational standards and Web portals for disaster education. A set of exemplary lesson plans for elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools, based on the National Geography Standards, describe how disaster preparedness could be integrated in lesson planning. The lesson plans can be downloaded at "http://www.geo.txstate.edu/grosvenor/publications/GEO7347_lesson_plans.pdf." (Contains 4 figures.)

Biliary glutathione (GSH) efflux was measured in rats with streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetes to determine changes in hepatic GSH transport due to diabetes. Rats with STZ-induced diabetes exhibited significant alterations in hepatobiliary metabolism such as progressive and significant reductions in bile GSH output due to heightened protein kinase C levels. However, canalicular GSH transport was not affected STZ-induced diabetes in rats.

Responds to a previous article on the application of instructional technology to foreign-language instruction, focusing on two interrelated points. These include the need for involvement of faculty, staff, and administrators, and the capabilities of hardware. (JL)

Introduction: Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) have been derived from various somatic cell types. Granulosa cells, a group of cells which surround oocytes and are obtained from the (normally discarded) retrieved egg follicles of women undergoing infertility treatment, are a possible cell source for induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) generation. Here, we explored the possibility of using human granulosa cells as a donor cell type for iPSC reprogramming, and compared granulosa cell-derived iPSCs (iGRAs) with those derived from other cell sources, to determine the potential ability of iGRA differentiation. Methods: Granulosa cells were collected from egg follicles retrieved from women undergoing infertility treatment. After short-term culture, the granulosa cells derived from different patients were mixed in culture, and infected with retroviruses encoding reprogramming factors. The resulting iPSC clones were selected and subjected to microsatellite DNA analysis to determine their parental origin. IGRAs were subjected to RT-PCR, immunofluorescence staining, and in vitro and in vivo differentiation assays to further establish their pluripotent characteristics. Results: Microsatellite DNA analysis was used to demonstrate that hiPSCs with different parental origins can be simultaneously reprogrammed by retroviral transfection of a mixed human granulosa cell population obtained from multiple individuals. The iGRAs resemble human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) in many respects, including morphological traits, growth requirements, gene and marker expression profiles, and in vitro and in vivo developmental propensities. We also demonstrate that the iGRAs express low levels of NLRP2, and differentiating iGRAs possess a biased differentiation potential toward the trophoblastic lineage. Although NLRP2 knockdown in hESCs promotes trophoblastic differentiation of differentiating hESCs, it does not result in exit from pluripotency. These results imply that NLRP2 may play a role in regulating the trophoblastic differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells. Conclusions: These findings provide a means of generating iPSCs from multiple granulosa cell populations with different parental origins. The ability to generate iPSCs from granulosa cells not only enables modeling of infertility-associated disease, but also provides a means of identifying potential clinical interventions through iPSC-based drug screening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) is a transmembrane glycoprotein that is highly expressed in embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and its role in maintenance of pluripotency has been suggested previously. In epithelial cancer cells, activation of the EpCAM surface-to-nucleus signaling transduction pathway involves a number of membrane proteins. However, their role in somatic cell reprogramming is still unknown. Here we demonstrate that EpCAM and its associated protein, Cldn7, play a critical role in reprogramming. Quantitative RT-PCR analysis of Oct4, Sox2, K1f4, and c-Myc (OSKM) infected mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) indicated that EpCAM and Cldn7 were upregulated during reprogramming. Analysis of numbers of alkaline phosphataseand Nanog-positive clones, and the expression level of pluripotency-related genes demonstrated that inhibition of either EpCA.M or Cldn7 expression resulted in impairment in reprogramming efficiency, whereas overexpression of EpCAM, EpCAM plus Cldn7, or EpCAM intercellular domain (EpICD) significantly enhanced reprogramming efficiency in MEFs, Furthermore, overexpression of EpCAM or EpICD significantly repressed the expression of p53 and p21 in the reprogramming MEFs, and both EpCAM and EpICD activated the promoter activity of Oct4. These observations suggest that EpCAM signaling may enhance reprogramming through up-regulation of Oct4 and possible suppression of the p53-p2l pathway. In vitro and in vivo characterization indicated that the EpCAM-reprogrammed iPSCs exhibited similar molecular and functional features to the mouse ESCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]