How curvature-generating proteins build scaffolds on membrane nanotubes

Bin/Amphiphysin/Rvs (BAR) domain proteins control the curvature of lipid membranes in endocytosis, trafficking, cell motility, the formation of complex sub-cellular structures, and many other cellular phenomena. They form three-dimensional assemblies, which act as molecular scaffolds to reshape the membrane and alter its mechanical properties. It is unknown, however, how a protein scaffold forms and how BAR domains interact in these assemblies at protein densities relevant for a cell. In this work, we employ various experimental, theoretical and simulation approaches to explore how BAR proteins organize to form a scaffold on a membrane nanotube. By combining quantitative microscopy with analytical modeling, we demonstrate that a highly curving BAR protein endophilin nucleates its scaffolds at the ends of a membrane tube, contrary to a weaker curving protein centaurin, which binds evenly along the tube’s length. Our work implies that the nature of local protein-membrane interactions can affect the specific localization of proteins on membrane-remodeling sites. Furthermore, we show that amphipathic helices are dispensable in forming protein scaffolds. Finally, we explore a possible molecular structure of a BAR-domain scaffold using coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. Together with fluorescence microscopy, the simulations show that proteins need only to cover 30–40% of a tube’s surface to form a rigid assembly. Our work provides mechanical and structural insights into the way BAR proteins may sculpt the membrane as a high-order cooperative assembly in important biological processes. 

From brown envelopes to community benefits: the co-option of planning gain agreements under deepening neoliberalism

The provision of physical and social infrastructure in the form of roads, green spaces and community facilities has traditionally been provided for by the state through the general taxation system. However, as the state has been transformed along more neoliberal lines, the private sector is increasingly relied upon to deliver public goods and services. Planning gain agreements have flourished within this context by offering another vehicle through which local facilities are privately funded. Whilst these agreements reflect the broader dynamics of neoliberalism, they are commonly viewed as a tool which can be employed to challenge these very dynamics by empowering local communities to secure more just planning outcomes. This paper counters such claims. Based on evidence gathered from 80 interviews with planners, councillors, developers and community groups in Ireland, the paper demonstrates how planning gain agreements have been strategically redeployed by the holders of political and economic power to serve their own ends. In seeking to understand why and how this has occurred, specific consideration is given to the changing power dynamics between the state and private capital under neoliberalism. The paper highlights how institutional arrangements have enabled developers to infiltrate the political sphere in more subtle and implicit ways than ever before. We conclude by arguing that planning gain must be understood as a mechanism which has been manipulated in ways which essentially work to preserve and enhance, rather than redress, existing power imbalances in the planning system by facilitating large scale transfers of wealth upwards in society.

“I am in a constant state of insecurity trying to make ends meet, like our service users”: Shared austerity reality between social workers and service users: Towards a preliminary conceptualization

This article introduces the concept of an emerging shared austerity reality, which refers to the socio-economic context of austerity that is shared both by social workers and service users, albeit to different degrees. Traditionally, the concept of the shared reality has been utilized to encompass the experiences of welfare professionals working in situations where both they and service users are exposed to the adverse effects of a natural disaster, war or terrorist attack. Here, the concept of shared reality is expanded through the introduction of the context of austerity. Drawing on 21 in-depth interviews with public sector social work practitioners in Greece it discusses, among other things, social anxieties about their children’s future, and their inability to take care of their elderly relatives that suggest an emerging shared austerity reality, reflecting the deterioration of socio-economic conditions. The paper ends with a discussion about the possibilities of alliance and division that emerge from the concept and future research directions. Moreover, it concludes with a reflection on the role of the social work profession and recent political developments in Greece in anti-austerity struggles.

‘Ulster Says No’: Regulating the consumption of commercial sex spaces and services in Northern Ireland

Commercial forms of sex such as prostitution/sex work, strip clubs and even sex shops have been the subject of much political debate and policy regulation over the last decade or so in the UK and Ireland. These myriad forms of commercial sex and land usage have managed to survive and even thrive in the face of public outcry and regulation. Despite being part of the UK we suggest that Northern Ireland has steered its own regulatory course, whereby the consumption of commercial sexual spaces and services have been the subject of intense moral and legal oversight in ways that are not apparent in other UK regions. Nevertheless, in spite of this we also argue that the context of Northern Ireland may provide some lessons for the ways that religious values and moral reasoning can influence debates on commercial sex elsewhere.

'Dancing the Downward Slide: Spaces of Affective Adjacency in Rian and Bird with Boy'

This chapter examines how the choreography of affect in two dance theatre works creates a space of affective adjacency—a space in which the building of an alternative structure of feeling and an alternative economy of the body can be experienced. Focusing on the choreographic use of repetition in Junk Ensemble’s Bird With Boy (2011) and Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre’s Rian (2011), it shows how the work required to build an alternative affective space can become visible. Although affect is most often viewed as a preconscious, ephemeral phenomenon (a passage of intensities), that can have little or no lasting impact on socio-political action, theorists such as Megan Watkins have argued for a consideration of the ‘cumulative aspects of affect’. Highlighting Spinoza’s distinction between affectus (the capacity for a body to affect and be affected), and affectio (the impact the affecting body leaves on the affected), Watkins points out that affectio can ‘leave a residue’ allowing for the ‘capacity of affect to be retained, to accumulate, to form dispositions and thus shape subjectivities’. The choreography of repetition in Bird With Boy and Rian presents sites for an examination of this accumulation of affect and its capacity not only to form and shape dispositions, but also, as Lauren Berlant suggests, ‘to move along and make worlds, situations, and environments’.