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- Almstedt, Karin, 1980-, et al.
(author)
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Amyloid fibrils of human prion protein are spun and woven from morphologically disordered aggregates
- 2009
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In: Prion. - Austin : Landes Bioscience Journals. - 1933-6896 .- 1933-690X. ; 3:4, s. 224-235
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Propagation and infectivity of prions in human prionopathies are likely associated with conversion of the mainly α-helical human prion protein, HuPrP, into an aggregated form with amyloid-like properties. Previous reports on efficient conversion of recombinant HuPrP have used mild to harsh denaturing conditions to generate amyloid fibrils in vitro. Herein we report on the in vitro conversion of four forms of truncated HuPrP (sequences 90-231 and 121-231 with and without an N-terminal hexa histidine tag) into amyloid-like fibrils within a few hours by using a protocol (phosphate buffered saline solutions at neutral pH with intense agitation) close to physiological conditions. The conversion process monitored by thioflavin T, ThT, revealed a three stage process with lag, growth and equilibrium phases. Seeding with preformed fibrils shortened the lag phase demonstrating the classic nucleated polymerization mechanism for the reaction. Interestingly, comparing thioflavin T kinetics with solubility and turbidity kinetics it was found that the protein initially formed non-thioflavionophilic, morphologically disordered aggregates that over time matured into amyloid fibrils. By transmission electron microscopy and by fluorescence microscopy of aggregates stained with luminescent conjugated polythiophenes (LCPs); we demonstrated that HuPrP undergoes a conformational conversion where spun and woven fibrils protruded from morphologically disordered aggregates. The initial aggregation functioned as a kinetic trap that decelerated nucleation into a fibrillation competent nucleus, but at the same time without aggregation there was no onset of amyloid fibril formation. The agitation, which was necessary for fibril formation to be induced, transiently exposes the protein to the air-water interface suggests a hitherto largely unexplored denaturing environment for prion conversion.
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- Axelsson, Ann-Sofie, 1967, et al.
(author)
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Taking a New Direction: Behavioral Interventions in Higher Education supported by Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior
- 2010
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In: Engineering Education in Sustainable Development (EESD10), Gothenburg, Sweden, September 19-22, 2010.
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- According to Ajzen [1], intentions to perform behaviors of various kinds can be predicted on the basis of attitudes towards the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. In the light of this theory a several weeks long exercise within six higher education courses was conducted, in order to support the students to take a new direction in their every day lives in terms of carrying out sustainable and self-imposed actions such as decreasing the use of energy in the household and eating lower on the food chain. An online questionnaire was distributed in order to find out how effective this exercise was, what the key operational mechanisms in the exercise were, and if this exercise made an impact on other areas than the one selected for this course. An analysis showed that a majority of the students perceived the exercise inspiring and motivating, supporting change of behavior in the intended, new direction. There were, however, a number of suggestions for improvement, to be seriously considered for future implementation. For example, there seems to be a need for clarifying the relevance of the task for future engineering work life. The two key operational mechanisms identified were the individual’s own attitude towards the specific behaviour and the perception that the task was within their control. A further analysis also showed that half of the students still carried out the sustainable actions after 3 months to up to 2 years and that a considerable part of them had changed their behavior within other areas. This study shows that this type of behavioral change, within a course curriculum, is very effective, and that formative research, with Ajzen's theoretical framework as a foundation, could be a starting point for this to happen.
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| 4. |
- Brunklaus, Birgit, 1970-, et al.
(author)
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Carbon theatre in public spaces : Using participatory theatre and co-designmethods in a museum for shaping lowcarbon lifestyles
- 2019
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In: Life Cycle Management Conference 2019. - Poznan, Polen.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Over the past ten years, the need for public spaces to deal with burning societal issues, such as climate change, has become even more important. Participatory theatre offers ways to meet the longing for shared forums by engaging large groups of people in exploring difficult social dilemmas. It can potentially empower participants to change their own situations and organizations. In a previous design research project Quantifying your carbon footprint, this gap was in focus. We will use the findings from the Quantifying carbon footprint project as an entry point and expand it with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on objects from the current museum collection and on daily life activities that have a carbon impact. The goal of the project is to explore and understand the climate and environmental impacts of lifestyles. The method used here are participatory theatre and co-design methods and pop-up exhibitions are used to engage young citizens in negotiating social norms and understanding their possible impact on CO2 emissions. The museum collections play a crucial role in the process of understanding how LCA calculations are related to mundane objects and reflecting on the temporality of social norms that are negotiated and re-negotiated through the way we handle products and objects in our everyday life. Developing new practices for museums involving participatory methods in order to engage young citizens in climate research. The results of the introductory meeting and study visit show that using the museum’s collection, the history and the value of things in the past centuries become clear and easier to reflect on compared to today’s unsustainable lifestyle – travelling and over consumption. Carbon Dioxide Theatre is an attempt to shape a shared space on a local level, in line with the priorities of the museum’s three years plan.
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- Jackson, Carolyn, 1970-, et al.
(author)
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"Smart students get perfect scores in tests without studying much" : Why is an effortless achiever identity attractive, and for whom is it possible?
- 2015
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In: Research Papers in Education. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0267-1522 .- 1470-1146. ; 30:4, s. 393-410
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Discourses about the value of effort and hard work are prevalent and powerful inmany western societies and educational contexts. Yet, paradoxically, in these samecontexts effortless achievement is often lauded, and in certain discourses is heraldedas the pinnacle of success and a sign of genius. In this paper we interrogatediscourses about effort and especially ‘effortlessness’ in Swedish and Englisheducational contexts. Informed, in particular, by interview data generated in uppersecondary schools in Sweden and secondary schools in England, we address thequestions: why is effortless achievement attractive, and for whom is it possible tobe discursively positioned as an effortless achiever? We argue that the subjectposition of ‘effortless achiever’ is not available to all categories of studentsequally, and for some it would be almost impossible to attain; the intersections ofgender, social class, ethnicity and institutional setting are influential. We end byconsidering the problematic implications of effortless achievement discourses.
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| 7. |
- Mishra, Rajesh, 1973-, et al.
(author)
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Lysozyme Amyloidogenesis Is Accelerated by Specific Nicking and Fragmentation but Decelerated by Intact Protein Binding and Conversion
- 2007
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In: Journal of Molecular Biology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0022-2836 .- 1089-8638. ; 366:3, s. 1029-1044
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We have revisited the well-studied heat and acidic amyloid fibril formation pathway (pH 1.6, 65 °C) of hen egg-white lysozyme (HEWL) to map the barriers of the misfolding and amyloidogenesis pathways. A comprehensive kinetic mechanism is presented where all steps involving protein hydrolysis, fragmentation, assembly and conversion into amyloid fibrils are accounted for. Amyloid fibril formation of lysozyme has multiple kinetic barriers. First, HEWL unfolds within minutes, followed by irreversible steps of partial acid hydrolysis affording a large amount of nicked HEWL, the 49-101 amyloidogenic fragment and a variety of other species over 5-40 h. Fragmentation forming the 49-101 fragment is a requirement for efficient amyloid fibril formation, indicating that it forms the rate-determining nucleus. Nicked full-length HEWL is recruited efficiently into amyloid fibrils in the fibril growth phase or using mature fibrils as seeds, which abolished the lag phase completely. Mature amyloid fibrils of HEWL are composed mainly of nicked HEWL in the early equilibrium phase but go through a "fibril shaving" process, affording fibrils composed of the 49-101 fragment and 53-101 fragment during more extensive maturation (incubation for longer than ten days). Seeding of the amyloid fibril formation process using sonicated mature amyloid fibrils accelerates the fibril formation process efficiently, however, addition of intact full-length lysozyme at the end of the lag phase slows the rate of amyloidogenesis. The intact full-length protein, in contrast to nicked lysozyme, slows fibril formation due to its slow conversion into the amyloid fold, probably due to inclusion of the non-amyloidogenic 1-48/102-129 portion of HEWL in the fibrils, which can function as a "molecular bumper" stalling further growth. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| 8. |
- Nilsson, Peter, et al.
(author)
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Imaging distinct conformational states of amyloid-β fibrils in Alzheimer's disease using novel luminescent probes
- 2007
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In: ACS Chemical Biology. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1554-8929 .- 1554-8937. ; 2:8, s. 553-560
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Using luminescent conjugated polyelectrolyte probes (LCPs), we demonstrate the possibility to distinguish amyloid-β 1-42 peptide (Aβ1-42) fibril conformations, by analyzing in vitro generated amyloid fibrils of Aβ1-42 formed under quiescent and agitated conditions. LCPs were then shown to resolve such conformational heterogeneity of amyloid deposits in vivo. A diversity of amyloid deposits depending upon morphology and anatomic location was illustrated with LCPs in frozen ex vivo brain sections from a transgenic mouse model (tg-APPswe) of Alzheimer's disease. Comparative LCP fluorescence showed that compact-core plaques of amyloid β precursor protein transgenic mice were composed of rigid dense amyloid. A more abundant form of amyloid plaque displayed morphology of a compact center with a protruding diffuse exterior. Surprisingly, the compact center of these plaques showed disordered conformations of the fibrils, and the exterior was composed of rigid amyloid protruding from the disordered center. This type of plaque appears to grow from more loosely assembled regions toward solidified amyloid tentacles. This work demonstrates how application of LCPs can prove helpful to monitor aggregate structure of in vivo formed amyloid deposits such as architecture, maturity, and origin.
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| 10. |
- Nyström, Anne-Sofie, 1974-, et al.
(author)
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Coping with Higher Education Expectations : Wellbeing and Prestige-related Stress in Medicine and Law
- 2018. - 1
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In: Social justice in times of crisis and hope. - New York : Peter Lang Publishing Group. - 9781433163692 ; , s. 27-43
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this chapter we draw on interviews with students and staff on law and medicine programmes in two high-status universities in Sweden and England to explore (di)stress, crisis and wellbeing on these programmes. Thus, our focus is on predominantly, although not exclusively, middle- and upper-class students. There has been a tendency in educational research, and especially research that concentrates on social justice, to focus on disadvantaged groups while their privileged counterparts—who are often cast as successful and “having it all”—are seldom subject to scrutiny (Gaztambide-Fernández & Howard, 2010). While we acknowledge the tremendous importance of research on disadvantaged groups, there are strong arguments for also rendering visible the experiences of privileged, middle- and upper-class students. As Walkerdine, Lucey, and Melody (2001) argue, if we wish to explore the ways in which systems of stratification are produced, reproduced and transformed we need to analyse the production of privilege as well as the production of disadvantage. Furthermore, although middle-class students typically have many privileges relative to their working-class counterparts, it is unreasonable to assume that educational achievement is simply a celebratory success story for middle-class young people (Allan, 2010). For example, Walkerdine et al. in the UK (2001) and Holmqvist (2017) in Sweden vividly portray the anxiety, stress and profound fears of failure experienced by privileged young people who were growing up in a culture where anything less than excellence was regarded as failure. As Francis and Mills (2012) argue, schools can be damaging organisations for pupils and teachers and the implications for social justice are considerable. In this chapter, we focus on H.E. rather than schools to explore the production of stress and anxiety in two high-status programmes, and especially the ways in which stress is heightened by the prestige of the programmes: what we have termed “prestige-related stress.” We focus in particular on the ways in which stress and hard work were normalised on the programmes, how students responded, and the impacts on their wellbeing. We also explore the ways in which social comparisons and changing frames of reference impact student identities and feelings of worth. We begin by briefly outlining our research methods and contexts.
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