| 1. |
- Brack, Werner, et al.
(författare)
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The SOLUTIONS project : Challenges and responses for present and future emerging pollutants in land and water resources management
- 2015
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Ingår i: Science of the Total Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0048-9697 .- 1879-1026. ; 503, s. 22-31
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- SOLUTIONS (2013 to 2018) is a European Union Seventh Framework Programme Project (EU-FP7). The project aims to deliver a conceptual framework to support the evidence-based development of environmental policies with regard to water quality. SOLUTIONS will develop the tools for the identification, prioritisation and assessment of those water contaminants that may pose a risk to ecosystems and human health. To this end, a new generation of chemical and effect-based monitoring tools is developed and integrated with a full set of exposure, effect and risk assessment models. SOLUTIONS attempts to address legacy, present and future contamination by integrating monitoring and modelling based approaches with scenarios on future developments in society, economy and technology and thus in contamination. The project follows a solutions-oriented approach by addressing major problems of water and chemicals management and by assessing abatement options. SOLUTIONS takes advantage of the access to the infrastructure necessary to investigate the large basins of the Danube and Rhine as well as relevant Mediterranean basins as case studies, and puts major efforts on stakeholder dialogue and support. Particularly, the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) working groups, International River Commissions, and water works associations are directly supported. with consistent guidance for the early detection, identification, prioritisation, and abatement of chemicals in the water cycle. SOLUTIONS will give a specific emphasis on concepts and tools for the impact and risk assessment of complex mixtures of emerging pollutants, their metabolites and transformation products. Analytical and effect-based screening tools will be applied together with ecological assessment tools for the identification of toxicants and their impacts. The SOLUTIONS approach is expected to provide transparent and evidence-based candidates or River Basin Specific Pollutants in the case study basins and to assist future review of priority pollutants under the WFD as well as potential abatement options.
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| 2. |
- Mack, Natalie A., et al.
(författare)
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beta 2-syntrophin and Par-3 promote an apicobasal Rac activity gradient at cell-cell junctions by differentially regulating Tiam1 activity
- 2012
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Ingår i: Nature Cell Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1465-7392 .- 1476-4679. ; 14:11, s. 1169-1180
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although Rac and its activator Tiam1 are known to stimulate cell-cell adhesion, the mechanisms regulating their activity in cell-cell junction formation are poorly understood. Here, we identify beta 2-syntrophin as a Tiam1 interactor required for optimal cell-cell adhesion. We show that during tight-junction (TJ) assembly beta 2-syntrophin promotes Tiam1-Rac activity, in contrast to the function of the apical determinant Par-3 whose inhibition of Tiam1-Rac activity is necessary for TJ assembly. We further demonstrate that beta 2-syntrophin localizes more basally than Par-3 at cell-cell junctions, thus generating an apicobasal Rac activity gradient at developing cell-cell junctions. Targeting active Rac to TJs shows that this gradient is required for optimal TJ assembly and apical lumen formation. Consistently, beta 2-syntrophin depletion perturbs Tiam1 and Rac localization at cell-cell junctions and causes defects in apical lumen formation. We conclude that beta 2-syntrophin and Par-3 fine-tune Rac activity along cell-cell junctions controlling TJ assembly and the establishment of apicobasal polariy.
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| 3. |
- Sawcer, Stephen, et al.
(författare)
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Genetic risk and a primary role for cell-mediated immune mechanisms in multiple sclerosis
- 2011
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 476:7359, s. 214-219
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Multiple sclerosis is a common disease of the central nervous system in which the interplay between inflammatory and neurodegenerative processes typically results in intermittent neurological disturbance followed by progressive accumulation of disability. Epidemiological studies have shown that genetic factors are primarily responsible for the substantially increased frequency of the disease seen in the relatives of affected individuals, and systematic attempts to identify linkage in multiplex families have confirmed that variation within the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) exerts the greatest individual effect on risk. Modestly powered genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have enabled more than 20 additional risk loci to be identified and have shown that multiple variants exerting modest individual effects have a key role in disease susceptibility. Most of the genetic architecture underlying susceptibility to the disease remains to be defined and is anticipated to require the analysis of sample sizes that are beyond the numbers currently available to individual research groups. In a collaborative GWAS involving 9,772 cases of European descent collected by 23 research groups working in 15 different countries, we have replicated almost all of the previously suggested associations and identified at least a further 29 novel susceptibility loci. Within the MHC we have refined the identity of the HLA-DRB1 risk alleles and confirmed that variation in the HLA-A gene underlies the independent protective effect attributable to the class I region. Immunologically relevant genes are significantly overrepresented among those mapping close to the identified loci and particularly implicate T-helper-cell differentiation in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis.
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