Emile Guimet’s Network for Research and Collecting Asian Objects (ca. 1877–1918)

Ting Chang

doi:10.1515/9783110545081-013

Abstract

This article examines the early history of the first national museum in France devoted to the arts and religions of Asia, the Musee Guimet, created in 1879. Through extensive archival research in unpublished sources it is revealed that the founder Emile Guimet employed an international network of scholars, agents, and dealers to expand the collection of objects as well as to disseminate leading research in Asian studies. The close examination of multilingual documents ranging from personal and official correspondence to billings and inventories shows both the aleatory and planned development of a leading international centre of Asian collections and studies.

Highlights

Our recent data demonstrated that severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-CoV-2 is able to bind αvβ[3] and αvβ[6] integrins to facilitate internalization into lung epithelial cells, which may be associated severe pathology associated COVID 19.20 These findings suggest intriguing roles of lung epithelial cells involvement in COVID-19-induced acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and pulmonary fibrosis
There is mounting evidence that fibrotic changes and interstitial lung abnormalities may result from COVID-19 infection in some cases, how these changes develop and whether the fibrosis is stable or progressive is unknown
More research is urgently needed to (a) confirm that COVID-19 can result in fibrotic lung disease, (b) establish the prevalence and epidemiology of such changes, and (c) delineate the cellular and molecular mechanisms driving fibrotic changes following SARS-CoV-2 infection

Summary

Introduction

TGF-β has been proposed as a potential therapeutic target in the treatment of COVID-19 and previous studies suggest that epithelial TGF-β1 acts as a principal trigger regulating lung injury and fibrosis.[53] Over expressing TGF-β1 in vivo results in progressive pulmonary fibrosis and TGF-β increases expression of the TGF-β activating integrin αvβ6.74 This upregulation of TGFβ through αvβ[6] may suppress alveolar macrophage mediated type I interferon responses and thereby increase the chance of a persistent viral infection.[147] The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein contains an RGD integrin-binding domain close to the ACE2 binding region, which could potentially facilitate binding to RGD-binding integrins,[148] which includes several TGF-β -activating integrins.

Results

Conclusion