Grants

New York Shakespeare Festival

Alejandro Morales - Marea

City of Oakland

El Camino is a new short film that explores the challenges faced by young people with parents in US prisons, as well as obstacles that low-income undocumented immigrant families confront.

Regional Council Capital Fund - RC4

Alfred Technology Resources Capital

U.S. National Science Foundation

Algebra and Number Theory

City of Richmond

ALI OGARI

City of Oakland

Support for after-school programs that bring a broad range of visual and performing arts classes to underserved Oakland schools. In addition, a new new initiative "Showcasing the Arts" which will demonstrate the art form for students prior to their first class

City of Oakland

Support for "The Prepared Table: A Feast of Foods and Stories from Iraq, Afghanistan and the US Military)" conceived as an interactive event that incorporates videotaped interviews with war veterans, live performance, and a feast of foods from both Iraq and Afghanistan as well as a typical US military base.

New York Foundation for the Arts

Alison Cornyn & Sue Johnson - Sonic Memorial

NYC Department of Cultural Affairs

Alkemie Early Music Ensemble, Inc.

Regional Council Capital Fund - RC6

Alken Industries Capital

NYC Department of Cultural Affairs

All Out Arts, Inc.

Allegany

Mobile Home

Allegany

Allegany County's SWIMS Project

Friends of Alley Gallery

This project is a phase of the Bell Street Park Art + Activation 5 Year Plan for Alley Gallery. This Placemaking process will identify key stakeholders and develop specific recommendations to transform the Bell Street Park alleys into unrivaled assets for ongoing creativity.

NYC Department of Cultural Affairs

Alley Pond Environmental Center, Inc.

NYC Department of Cultural Affairs

Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, Inc.

NYC Department of Cultural Affairs

Alliance of Resident Theatres / New York, Inc.

NYC Department of Cultural Affairs

Allied Productions, Inc.

City of Richmond

AllRepair.com Service Corporation

NYC Department of Cultural Affairs

Alpha Omega 1-7 Theatrical Dance Company, Inc.

NYC Department of Cultural Affairs

Alpha Workshops, Inc.

NIAID - National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

SUMMARY Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a ubiquitous DNA tumor virus that is causally linked to Hodgkin's and non- Hodgkin's lymphoma, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, stomach cancer, and autoimmune diseases. EBV is particularly problematic in the HIV/AIDS population where EBV-associated lymphomas are especially prevalent. There are two distinct stages in EBV's life cycle: latency and lytic reactivation/replication. The viral lytic replication stage is a key component of the EBV infection cycle that facilitates the spread of the virus not only from host to host but also its dissemination within an infected individual. While EBV latency genes are long known to contribute to the tumor phenotype, EBV lytic replication is a precursor of (through dissemination) and a direct contributor to EBV-associated pathologies including lymphomas and autoimmune diseases. EBV is known to elicit a series of host cellular responses and it can almost always find a way to hijack these host machineries for its own benefits. For instance, EBV infection induces double-stranded breaks (DSBs) and strong DNA damage response (DDR) in host cells. It appears that EBV utilizes a variety of strategies to purposely activate the upstream/early steps of DDR signaling and inactivate the harmful downstream/late steps to ensure cell survival and benefit its own self-preservation. Recently, we have found that EBV lytic replication causes substantial induction of alpha-satellite RNAs (α-SatRNA), a novel host cellular response. This motivates us to further explore its significance in EBV lytic replication. Alpha-satellite DNA (α-SatDNA) is one type of tandem repetitive non-coding (nc) DNA sequences and constitutes 3-5% of the human genome. It also serves as the main building blocks for centromeres and has long been viewed as transcriptionally inert. Surprisingly, these genomic “dark matter” can be actively transcribed by RNA polymerase II to produce non- polyadenylated α-SatRNAs. The unique long repetitive sequence also makes α-SatRNAs a novel class of long ncRNAs. Our preliminary findings show that α-SatRNA levels are substantially induced by EBV lytic replication, accompanied by DNA damage DSBs and ATM activation. We further found that α-SatRNAs are required for efficient EBV lytic replication and α-SatRNAs promote ATM/upstream DDR signaling globally. Based on our published and unpublished findings, we hypothesize that lytic reactivation-induced DSBs on host centromeric α-SatDNA upregulate α-SatRNAs, which subsequently facilitate lytic reactivation by promoting ATM/upstream DDR signaling globally. In this proposal, we will test this hypothesis, we will begin to address the mechanisms through which EBV utilizes α-SatRNAs to facilitate its lytic replication and we will begin to address the mechanisms by which EBV reactivation induces α-SatRNA expression. Together, completion of this work will reveal a novel role of these “understudied” α-SatRNAs and associated underlying mechanisms in EBV lytic replication, and thus add conceptually to our understanding of EBV-host interaction.

Ten Penny Players Inc.

Alternative Consortium for Cultural Literacy

City of Oakland

Alternatives in Action