The chemokine receptor CXCR4 was identified as an independent predictor of poor prognosis in primary melanoma. The aim of the study was to investigate the role of CXCR4 in human melanoma metastases.
...CXCR4 expression was evaluated in melanoma metastases and in metastatic cell lines through immunohistochemistry, immunoblotting, immunofluorescence, and reverse transcription-PCR. The function of CXCR4 was tested in the presence of the ligand, CXCL12, through induction of extracellular signal-regulated kinase-1 and -2 (Erk-1 and -2) phosphorylation, proliferation, apoptosis, and migration capabilities.
CXCR4 expression was detected in 33 out of 63 (52.4%) metastases from cutaneous melanomas. Metastatic melanoma cell lines expressed cell surface CXCR4; PES 43, Alo 40, and COPA cell lines showed the highest levels of CXCR4 (>90% of positive cells); PES 41, Alo 39, PES 47, POAG, and CIMA cell lines showed low to moderate degrees of expression (5-65% of positive cells). Other chemokine receptors, CCR7 and CCR10, were detected on the melanoma cell lines; CXCL12 activated Erk-1 and Erk-2, the whose induction was specifically inhibited by AMD3100 treatment. CXCL12 increased the growth in PES 41, PES 43, and PES 47 cells under suboptimal (1% serum) and serum-free culture conditions; AMD3100 (1 mumol/L) inhibited the spontaneous and CXCL12-induced proliferation. No rescue from apoptosis was shown but PES 41, PES 43, and PES 47 cells migrate toward CXCL12.
These findings indicate that CXCR4 is expressed and active in human melanoma metastases, suggesting that active inhibitors such as AMD3100 may be experienced in human melanoma.
We study the effect of preferences for boys on the performance in mathematics of girls, using evidence from two different data sources. In our first set of results, we identify families with a ...preference for boys by using fertility stopping rules in a large population of households whose children attend public schools in Florida. Girls growing up in a boy-biased family score on average 3 percentage points lower on math tests when compared to girls raised in other types of families. In our second set of results, we find similar effects when we study the correlations between girls’ performance in mathematics and maternal gender role attitudes, using evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. We conclude that socialization at home can explain a non-trivial part of the observed gender disparities in mathematics performance and document that maternal gender attitudes correlate with those of their children, supporting the hypothesis that preferences transmitted through the family impact children behavior.
FAMILY VALUES AND THE REGULATION OF LABOR Alesina, Alberto; Algan, Yann; Cahuc, Pierre ...
Journal of the European Economic Association,
August 2015, Volume:
13, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
To be efficient, flexible labor markets require geographically mobile workers. Otherwise firms can take advantage of workers' immobility and extract rents at their expense. In cultures with strong ...family ties, moving away from home is costly. Thus, to limit the rents of firms and to avoid moving, individuals with strong family ties rationally choose regulated labor markets, even though regulation generates higher unemployment and lower incomes. Empirically, we find that individuals who inherit stronger family ties are less mobile, have lower wages and higher unemployment, and support more stringent labor market regulations. We find a positive association between labor market rigidities at the beginning of the 21st century and family values prevailing before World War II, and between family structures in the Middle Ages and current desire for labor market regulation. Both results suggest that labor market regulations have deep cultural roots.
The participation of women in agriculture and the role of women in society in the preindustrial period were remarkably different across ethnicities and strongly related to the type of agricultural ...technology adopted historically. The sexual division of labor was broadly associated to two technological regimes: shifting cultivation, where the majority of agricultural work was done by women, and plough cultivation, a system mostly dominated by men. In this article, we review the literature on the persistent effect of the impact of historical plough use on female labor force participation and fertility today. We also provide additional evidence showing that differences regarding the role of women across the two agricultural regimes were more general and persisted over time in other societal aspects, including the form of marital arrangements, the presence of polygamy and the freedom of movement enjoyed by women.
THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF TRUST Butler, Jeffrey V.; Giuliano, Paola; Guiso, Luigi
Journal of the European Economic Association,
October 2016, Volume:
14, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
We investigate the relationship between individual trust and individual economic performance. We find that individual income is hump-shaped in a measure of intensity of trust beliefs. Our ...interpretation is that highly trusting individuals tend to assume too much social risk and to be cheated more often, ultimately performing less well than those with a belief close to the mean trustworthiness of the population. However, individuals with overly pessimistic beliefs avoid being cheated, but give up profitable opportunities, therefore underperforming. The cost of either too much or too little trust is comparable to the income lost by forgoing college. Our findings hold in large-scale international survey data, as well as inside a country with high-quality institutions, and are also supported by experimental findings.
Recently, we reported that the transient expression of huntingtin exon1 polypeptide containing polyglutamine tracts of various sizes (httEx1‐polyQ) in cell models of Huntington disease generated an ...oxidative stress whose intensity was CAG repeat expansion‐dependent. Here, we have analyzed the intracellular localization of the oxidative events generated by the httEx1‐polyQ polypeptides. Analysis of live COS‐7 cells as well as neuronal SK‐N‐SH and PC12 cells incubated with hydroethidine or dichlorofluorescein diacetate revealed oxidation of these probes at the level of the inclusion bodies formed by httEx1‐polyQ polypeptides. The intensity and frequency of the oxidative events among the inclusions were CAG repeat expansion‐dependent. Electron microscopic analysis of cell sections revealed the presence of oxidation‐dependent morphologic alterations in the vicinity of httEx1‐polyQ inclusion bodies. Moreover, a high level of oxidized proteins was recovered in partially purified inclusions. We also report that the iron chelator deferroxamine altered the structure, localization and oxidative potential of httEx1‐polyQ inclusion bodies. Hence, despite the fact that the formation of inclusion bodies may represent a defense reaction of the cell to eliminate httEx1 mutant polypeptide, this phenomenon appears inherent to the generation of iron‐dependent oxidative events that can be deleterious to the cell.
We study the role of Long-Term Orientation on the educational attainment of immigrant students. Controlling for the quality of schools and socioeconomic characteristics, students from long-term ...oriented cultures perform better in third grade reading and math, have larger test score gains over time, fewer absences and disciplinary incidents, are less likely to repeat grades, more likely to enroll in advanced high school courses, and are more likely to graduate from high school in four years. Evidence on mechanisms suggests that both parents’ educational choices for their children and social learning from peers are important mechanisms.
Fertility and the Plough Alesina, Alberto; Giuliano, Paola; Nunn, Nathan
The American economic review,
05/2011, Volume:
101, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
This paper provides evidence that the form of agriculture traditionally practiced—intensive plough agriculture versus shifting hoe agriculture—affected historic norms and preferences about fertility, ...and that these norms persist, affecting observed fertility around the world today.
Empirical evidence on the relationship between democracy and economic reforms is limited to few reforms, countries, and years. This paper studies the effect of democracy on the adoption of economic ...reforms using a new dataset on reforms in the financial, capital and banking sectors, product markets, agriculture, and trade for 150 countries over the period 1960-2004. Democracy has a positive and significant impact on the adoption of economic reforms, but there is scarce evidence that economic reforms foster democracy. Our results are robust to the inclusion of a large variety of controls and estimation strategies.
Abstract
We study the effect of exposure to immigrants on the educational outcomes of U.S.-born students, using a unique dataset combining population-level birth and school records from Florida. This ...research question is complicated by the substantial school selection of U.S.-born students, especially among White and comparatively affluent students, in response to the presence of immigrant students in the school. We propose a new identification strategy, comparing sibling outcomes with the inclusion of family fixed effects, to partial out the unobserved non-random selection of native-born families into schools. We find that the presence of immigrant students has a positive effect on the academic achievement of U.S.-born students, especially for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Moreover, the presence of immigrants does not negatively affect the performance of affluent U.S.-born students, who typically show a higher academic achievement compared to immigrant students. We provide suggestive evidence on potential channels.
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