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Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) develops when genetically susceptible individuals lose tolerance to autoantigens, likely as a result of an environmental insult. The list of identified genetic susceptibilities is expansive, however variants in the interferon regulatory factor 5 (IRF5) gene have consistently and convincingly been shown to be associated with an increased risk of developing SLE across all ethnic and racial groups examined. These genetic variants are hypothesized to produce a gain-of-function phenotype due to increased IRF5 mRNA and increased stability of the IRF5 protein; however, definitive functional studies examining these polymorphisms in primary human cells are not possible given the genetic variation from patient to patient. IRF5 is a transcription factor that is constitutively expressed in a number of immune cells including B cells and dendritic cells. IRF5 has cell type specific roles; in dendritic cells, it primarily controls a proinflammatory program which directs T cell polarization. Dysfunctional conventional dendritic cells (cDCs) have been implicated in the onset and development of SLE due to their high capacity to activate and interact with autoreactive lymphoid cells via a number of different pathways; the exact type of dysfunction and mechanisms underlying it are still debated. Study of primary cDCs either from SLE patients or healthy controls is complicated by the low frequency of cDCs in peripheral blood (

Plant secretory peroxidases are important commercial enzymes and play a central role in plant stress responses. The focus of this work is a unique peroxidase from the leaves of a cold tolerant palm, Trachycarpus fortunei, (i.e., windmill palm tree). Like other palm tree peroxidases, windmill palm tree peroxidase is stable at high temperatures and in the presence of denaturants. It is distinct from other palm tree peroxidases in its substrate specificity. The amino acid sequence and glycosylation had not been determined. Because glycosylation is known to play a critical role in plant peroxidase stability and activity, this knowledge is essential for structure activity studies, selection of an expression system for enzyme production, and engineering the enzyme. Glycosylation is a complex modification that is difficult to study; furthermore, there is a lack of analytical tools for characterizing plant glycoproteins. The complete amino acid sequence was determined using cDNA sequencing and biological mass spectrometry. The mature amino acid sequence is 306 residues in length. The presence of a C-terminal signal peptide predicts vacuolar targeting of the enzyme. Native windmill palm tree peroxidase was analyzed at the glycopeptide level to give a qualitative and quantitative assessment of glycosylation at each site. Windmill palm tree peroxidase has 13 sites for N-linked glycosylation, 2 of which are unique. Each site is at least partially occupied by a glycan. Major glycans are paucimannosidic, which supports the assignment of windmill palm tree peroxidase as a vacuolar peroxidase. To carry-out this work, a workflow for analyzing the glycopeptide mass spectrometry data was developed. Included in the workflow are novel tools for glycan database construction, pGlycoFilter, and validation of glycopeptide assignment, gPSMvalidator. New analytical methods are needed for the emerging field of plant glycoproteomics. The novel methods developed in this dissertation will be useful for the study of other important plant glycoproteins. This knowledge can be used to study the roles of glycosylation in this exceptionally stable and unique palm peroxidase.

This dissertation is on foreign images--of China and the West--created by Lin Shu, the first major translator of Western fiction, and Pearl S. Buck, the first Western writer of fiction on China to engage American readers' sympathies. Following the recent cultural turn in Translation Studies, both are considered translators who translated the experiences of foreign others. The introduction presents my rationale for treating them as such and for juxtaposing them. My focus is on how Lin and Buck accommodated foreign material for uninitiated readers, as well as on how they appropriated this material to express their own literary or social agendas, or, in one case, how readers did their own appropriations. I am especially concerned to show the changes in attitude towards translation in these two authors' earliest works, and I make full use of readers' responses, including book reviews, reaction poems, and essays. A chapter each is on Lin's first two translations. In the first, on Bali chahua nu yishi (The true tale of the Parisian lady of the camellias; 1899), a popular rendering into classical Chinese of Alexandre Dumas fils' (1824-95) La dame aux camelias, I show how Lin accommodated readers by presenting the story as if it were a Tang dynasty literary language tale. The second is on Heinu yutian lu (The black slave cries out to heaven; 1901), Lin's appropriation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's (1811-96) Uncle Tom's Cabin as a call-to-arms against the Exclusion Laws then affecting Chinese laborers in the American West. Lin warns that if Chinese do not act, they will be worse off than the novel's slaves. The last two chapters treat Buck's early efforts to depict the foreign. The first is on two essays, In China, Too, (1923) and Beauty in China, (1924), and her first published story, A Chinese Woman Speaks, (1926). The second is on The Good Earth (1931). Buck did not see China as foreign, and presumed to write not only for her compatriots, but also for China's educated elite. Ironically, while Chinese found her unflinching portraits of peasants degrading, Westerners tended to find them noble. I conclude that while both writers were concerned that China preserve its national identity vis a vis the West, they advocated different solutions. Lin moved from reliance on Chinese values towards engagement with the West; Buck preached instead a moving away from the West back towards Chinese values.