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In 2008, University of California, San Diego (UCSD) joined the ranks of institutions offering Global Seminars, short-term study abroad programs designed and led by the institution's own faculty. In this model, an instructor teaches two courses in his or her area of expertise and guides students through a city or other location abroad for five weeks, integrating the course work with the site to enhance learning and to enrich the student experience. In the UCSD model, each Global Seminar (GS) required a minimum of 15 students for financial viability and was capped at a maximum of 30 students for manageability. In Summer 2009, the author led a program in Istanbul, teaching a lower-division world history course and an upper-division history course on Byzantium. The Istanbul program was offered again in 2010 and he will lead a fourth GS there in 2011. With the hope that this experience may be of interest or potential use to faculty or administrators at other institutions, the author offers this general introduction and overview, from program development to implementation and assessment, and discusses the integration of the site itself in history pedagogy.

Transformation of the undergraduate learning experience through evidence-based, student-centered teaching practices remains a consistent challenge for faculty and departments at large research universities with competing priorities. This paper presents a self-study of the first formalized Faculty Learning Community (FLC) at the University of California, San Diego, which united a cross-disciplinary faculty who specialize in education (at the rank of Lecturer with (Potential) Security of Employment, as part of the LSOE series) to focus on issues of student learning in large university classes. Participants in this year-long faculty development initiative gained: (1) knowledge of the norms and expectations for conducting educational research in the classroom; (2) increased awareness of curricular and pedagogical interventions to enhance student learning in large classes and greater confidence in implementing them; and (3) heightened regard for the collaborative potential of teaching assistants (TAs) in improving teaching and learning. As a result, members of this new community of teacher-scholars are better poised to serve as agents of change within their own academic units and across the campus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Norepinephrine exerts powerful influences on the metabolic, neuroprotective and immunoregulatory functions of astrocytes. Until recently, all effects of norepinephrine were believed to be mediated by receptors localized exclusively to the plasma membrane. However, recent studies in cardiomyocytes have identified adrenergic receptors localized to intracellular membranes, including Golgi and inner nuclear membranes, and have shown that norepinephrine can access these receptors via transporter-mediated uptake. We recently identified a high-capacity norepinephrine transporter, organic cation transporter 3 (OCT3), densely localized to outer nuclear membranes in astrocytes, suggesting that adrenergic signaling may also occur at the inner nuclear membrane in these cells. Here, we used immunofluorescence and western blot to show that β 1 -adrenergic receptors are localized to astrocyte inner nuclear membranes; that key adrenergic signaling partners are present in astrocyte nuclei; and that OCT3 and other catecholamine transporters are localized to astrocyte plasma and nuclear membranes. To test the functionality of nuclear membrane β 1 -adrenergic receptors, we monitored real-time protein kinase A (PKA) activity in astrocyte nuclei using a fluorescent biosensor. Treatment of astrocytes with norepinephrine induced rapid increases in PKA activity in the nuclear compartment. Pretreatment of astrocytes with inhibitors of catecholamine uptake blocked rapid norepinephrine-induced increases in nuclear PKA activity. These studies, the first to document functional adrenergic receptors at the nuclear membrane in any central nervous system cell, reveal a novel mechanism by which norepinephrine may directly influence nuclear processes. This mechanism may contribute to previously described neuroprotective, metabolic and immunoregulatory actions of norepinephrine., (© 2022 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Both prolactin (PRL) and TGF-beta regulate cell survival in mammary epithelial cells, but their mechanisms of interactions are not known. In primary mammary epithelial cells and the HC11 mouse mammary epithelial cell line, PRL prevented TGF-beta-induced apoptosis, as measured by terminal deoxynucleotidyltransferase dUTP nick-end labeling staining and caspase-3 activation. This effect depended on phosphatidyl inositol triphosphate kinase (PI3K). PI3K activates a downstream serine/threonine kinase, Akt; therefore, we investigated the role of Akt in the interaction between PRL and TGF-beta signaling. Akt activity was inhibited by TGF-beta over a 20- to 60-min time course. In TGF-beta-treated cells, PRL disinhibited Akt in a PI3K-dependent manner. Expression of dominant negative Akt blocked the protective effect of PRL in TGF-beta-induced apoptosis. Transgenic mice overexpressing a dominant-negative TGF-beta type II receptor (DNIIR) in the mammary epithelium undergo hyperplastic alveolar development, and this effect was PRL dependent. Involution in response to teat sealing was slowed by overexpression of DNIIR; furthermore, Akt and forkhead phosphorylation increased in the sealed mammary glands of DNIIR mice. Thus, Akt appears to be an essential component of the interaction between PRL and TGF-beta signaling in mammary epithelial cells both in vitro and in vivo.

Prolactin (PRL) is the primary hormone that, in conjunction with local factors, leads to lobuloalveolar development during pregnancy. Recently, receptor activator of NF-kappaB ligand (RANKL) has been identified as one of the effector molecules essential for lobuloalveolar development. The molecular mechanisms by which PRL may induce RANKL expression have not been carefully examined. Here we report that RANKL expression in the mammary gland is developmentally regulated and dependent on PRL and progesterone, whereas its receptor RANK (receptor activator of NF-kappaB) and decoy receptor osteoprotegerin (OPG) are constitutively expressed at all stages in both normal (PRL+/-) and prolactin knockout (PRL-/-) mice. In vitro, PRL markedly increased RANKL expression in primary mammary epithelial cells and RANKL-luciferase reporter activity in CHOD6 cells, which constitutively express the PRL receptor. We identified a gamma-interferon activation sequence (GAS) in the region between residues -965 to -725 of the RANKL promoter, which conferred a PRL response. Using dominant negative mutants of recombinant Jak2 and Stat5 in CHOD6 cells, and by reconstituting the Jak2/Stat5 pathway in COS7 cells, we determined that Jak2 and Stat5a are essential for the PRL-induced RANKL expression in mammary gland.

Previously, we reported that glycosylation-dependent cell adhesion molecule 1 (GlyCAM 1) was a novel target for prolactin (PRL) in the mouse mammary gland. However, the signaling pathway by which PRL regulates GlyCAM 1 expression has not been specified. In the present study, we showed that PRL induced GlyCAM 1 expression in primary mammary epithelial cells of mice through the Janus kinase 2/signal transducer and activator of transcription 5 (Stat5) pathway. Deletion and site-directed mutagenesis analyses of the GlyCAM 1 promoter demonstrated that the two tandemly linked Stat5 binding sites [interferon-gamma-activated sequence 1 and -2 (GAS1 and GAS2)] in the proximal promoter region were crucial and synergistically responded to PRL. GAS2, a consensus GAS site, was essential and, by itself, weakly responded to PRL, whereas GAS1, a nonconsensus site, failed to respond to PRL but was indispensable for the maximal activity of the GlyCAM 1 promoter. Gel shift assays showed that probe containing GAS1 and GAS2 bound two Stat5 complexes, which represent Stat5 dimer and tetramer, respectively, while GAS2, by itself, bound Stat5 as a dimer only, and GAS1 showed no apparent binding activity. Interruption of tetramer formation by mutation of a tryptophan to alanine (W37A), and a leucine to serine (L83S) in the N terminus of Stat5A attenuated the synergistic effect between the two tandemly linked GAS sites. Overexpression of W37A and L83S mutants in primary mammary epithelial cells suppressed endogenous GlyCAM 1 expression.