[Woman and race biology]

Early 20th century race biology takes a special interest in woman as part of the "intra-racial" project of bringing forth healthy and competitive individuals. But there are other motives as well for the race biologist to take an interest in woman. She is believed to develop fewer individual characteristics and is therefore a more typical representative of her race than man. The development level of the race is also presupposed to be discernible by the degree of "gender diformism": a race of higher standing would exhibit a greater difference between the sexes. The anthropologist, anatomist, gynaecologist--or whatever guise the race biologist may adopt-- will, in principle, stress that the relation between the sexes is not a matter of "more or less", but one of differences in kind. In reality, the "more-or-less of comparison is the very cornerstone of the issue. Quantitative differences, directly observed or obtained from statistics, are construed as signs of difference in kind. 18th century medical philosophy and sex-linked anthropology laid the theoretical foundation of the 19th century essentialist conception of woman, which is also that adopted by race biology. Eugenics of social Darwinist inspiration regarded prophylactic health care and social welfare programs with scepticism. A race biology founded on the man-woman dualism could sustain altogether different conclusions. An advanced culture calls for extensive division of labour. An extended childhood renders possible higher development but will also impose higher demands on woman. The protection of the female organism is thus an exigency for any people or race striving to survive and evolve. From society's care for the female organism health care for women and preventive maternity care will emerge. Race biology has been a preeminently German concern, as indicated by the selection of works taken to represent this perspective on woman: Bartels-Ploss' Das Weib, C.H. Stratz' Die Rassenschönheit des Weibes and Oskar Schultze's Das Weib: In anthropologischer und sozialer Betrachtung.

Telomere shortening in Fanconi anaemia demonstrated by a direct FISH approach

Analysis of telomere status in patients with Fanconi anaemia (FA) has previously been carried out by measurement of telomere restriction fragment (TRF) length by Southern blotting and densitometry. Results from these studies indicated that FA patients had significant reduction in telomere length compared with age-matched controls. This paper confirms and extends these findings using a direct FISH technique, which showed that 15 out of 16 FA patients had increased loss of telomere signals compared with controls. In 12 out of the 16 patients, decrease in telomere signal intensity could also be detected using a Q-FISH approach.

The age dependence of intracellular proteolysis: changes of the substrate proteins

Liver cytosol proteins of young (4--6 months) and old (18--27 months) rats were degraded in vitro by papain, pronase, trypsin, pepsin, cathepsin D from rat liver and a soluble lysosomal enzyme mixture from rat liver. We could demonstrate the capability of the latter enzyme mixture to degrade proteolytically the cytosol proteins of young animals about 20% faster than those of the older animal group. Digesting radioactive labelled "young" cytosol in the presence of unlabelled "old" cytosol the possibility could be excluded, that this effect was due to an inhibitor of macromolecular size present in the "old" cytosol.

Photoinactivation and carbethoxylation of leucine aminopeptidase

In the present paper the reactivity of histidyl residues of leucine aminopeptidase from bovine eye lens was studied by dye-sensitized photooxidation and by carbethoxylation of the enzyme protein using diethylpyrocarbonate. Of all the different amino acids modified by photooxidation only histidine is connected with the enzymic acticity, whereas tyrosine seems to be involved in structure stabilization. By changing the pH and varying the effectors (Mg2+ and/or dodecylsulfate) of the reaction mixture a different number of histidyl residues of the enzyme protein is caused to react with diethylpyrocarbonate. No secondary reactions with tyrosyl or tryptophyl residues could be observed by spectrophotometric investigations. The enzyme modified by one of the above-mentioned methods shows changes in the capacity of Mn2+ binding measured by autoradiography as well as in the degree of enhancement of enzymic activity by Mn2+ or Mg2+ ions. Of the 48 histidyl residues of the enzyme (Mr = 326000) up to 2 histidyl residues per subunit (Mr = 54000) may be involved in Mn2+ or Mg2+ binding and up to 4 histidyl residues have a strong influence on Zn2+ binding.