Cholera in Haiti and other Caribbean regions, 19th century.

Medical journals and other sources do not show evidence that cholera occurred in Haiti before 2010, despite the devastating effect of this disease in the Caribbean region in the 19th century. Cholera occurred in Cuba in 1833-1834; in Jamaica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, Nevis, Trinidad, the Bahamas, St. Vincent, Granada, Anguilla, St. John, Tortola, the Turks and Caicos, the Grenadines (Carriacou and Petite Martinique), and possibly Antigua in 1850-1856; and in Guadeloupe, Cuba, St. Thomas, the Dominican Republic, Dominica, Martinique, and Marie Galante in 1865-1872. Conditions associated with slavery and colonial military control were absent in independent Haiti. Clustered populations, regular influx of new persons, and close quarters of barracks living contributed to spread of cholera in other Caribbean locations. We provide historical accounts of the presence and spread of cholera epidemics in Caribbean islands.

Cytokinesis proteins Tum and Pav have a nuclear role in Wnt regulation.

Wg/Wnt signals specify cell fates in both invertebrate and vertebrate embryos and maintain stem-cell populations in many adult tissues. Deregulation of the Wnt pathway can transform cells to a proliferative fate, leading to cancer. We have discovered that two Drosophila proteins that are crucial for cytokinesis have a second, largely independent, role in restricting activity of the Wnt pathway. The fly homolog of RacGAP1, Tumbleweed (Tum)/RacGAP50C, and its binding partner, the kinesin-like protein Pavarotti (Pav), negatively regulate Wnt activity in fly embryos and in cultured mammalian cells. Unlike many known regulators of the Wnt pathway, these molecules do not affect stabilization of Arm/beta-catenin (betacat), the principal effector molecule in Wnt signal transduction. Rather, they appear to act downstream of betacat stabilization to control target-gene transcription. Both Tum and Pav accumulate in the nuclei of interphase cells, a location that is spatially distinct from their cleavage-furrow localization during cytokinesis. We show that this nuclear localization is essential for their role in Wnt regulation. Thus, we have identified two modulators of the Wnt pathway that have shared functions in cell division, which hints at a possible link between cytokinesis and Wnt activity during tumorigenesis.