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The role of the fat mass and obesity associated gene (FTO) in breast cancer risk
© Kaklamani et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011
Received: 31 January 2011
Accepted: 13 April 2011
Published: 13 April 2011
Obesity has been shown to increase breast cancer risk. FTO is a novel gene which has been identified through genome wide association studies (GWAS) to be related to obesity. Our objective was to evaluate tissue expression of FTO in breast and the role of FTO SNPs in predicting breast cancer risk.
We performed a case-control study of 354 breast cancer cases and 364 controls. This study was conducted at Northwestern University. We examined the role of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of intron 1 of FTO in breast cancer risk. We genotyped cases and controls for four SNPs: rs7206790, rs8047395, rs9939609 and rs1477196. We also evaluated tissue expression of FTO in normal and malignant breast tissue.
We found that all SNPs were significantly associated with breast cancer risk with rs1477196 showing the strongest association. We showed that FTO is expressed both in normal and malignant breast tissue. We found that FTO genotypes provided powerful classifiers to predict breast cancer risk and a model with epistatic interactions further improved the prediction accuracy with a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves of 0.68.
In conclusion we have shown a significant expression of FTO in malignant and normal breast tissue and that FTO SNPs in intron 1 are significantly associated with breast cancer risk. Furthermore, these FTO SNPs are powerful classifiers in predicting breast cancer risk.
Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women in developed countries. In 2009 an estimated 194,280 new cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in the US[1]. Several studies have associated obesity and weight gain with breast cancer risk[2, 3] and there is evidence that weight loss, as well as, decrease in fat consumption may lead to decreased risk for breast cancer[4, 5]. Diabetes mellitus (DM) has also been associated with breast cancer risk [6]. This association between DM, obesity and breast cancer lead us to evaluate the role of genes, which have been found to be associated with diabetes and obesity, in predicting breast cancer risk.
The fat mass and obesity (FTO) associated gene was recently found in several genome wide association studies (GWAS) to be associated with obesity and type II DM[7–11]. More specifically single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in intron 1 of FTO, such as rs9939609 have been significantly associated with obesity[7–11]. Although its role remains essentially unclear, it seems that FTO encodes a 2-oxoglutarate-dependent nucleic acid demethylase[12]. It is localized in the nucleus and is abundant in the brain[12]. FTO has been shown to be expressed in other tissue as well including the pancreas, skeletal muscle and white adipose tissue although its expression in these tissues is significantly lower than its expression in the hypothalamus and the cerebellum[12].
Given the association between obesity and breast cancer [2, 3] we elected to perform a case control study to evaluate the role of SNPs in intron 1 of FTO in predicting breast cancer risk. We selected SNPs in intron 1 because that was the region that was more strongly associated with obesity [8, 13].
Study Participants
Our case-control study included 354 cases of breast cancer and 364 controls from Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. Cases and controls were frequency matched for age by 5 years, race, and sex. Race was included as a variable because breast cancer risk varies among various ethnic groups. Consecutive cases with a biopsy-confirmed diagnosis of breast adenocarcinoma were recruited from the medical oncology clinics affiliated with the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation from August 1, 2007, through October 28, 2008. Information on the subtype of breast cancer was obtained from the chart review and had been confirmed at Northwestern University. The response rate was 96% and a blood sample was obtained from each recruited patient. All cases signed an informed consent for genetic studies and the protocol was approved by the Institutional Board Review (IRB) of Northwestern University. Controls were chosen randomly from a total of 5578 patients without a diagnosis of cancer at the time of enrollment who were recruited between October 31, 2002, and December 31, 2007. Controls were matched for age within 5 years, sex, and ethnic status. Cases and controls were not matched by chronic disease status. Controls came from the NUgene Project, a biospecimen repository compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and approved by the IRB, with questionnaire data and longitudinal medical information from participating patients treated at hospitals and outpatient clinics affiliated with Northwestern University. Potential participants are approached either by a genetic counselor or by a physician. The overall response rate has been 25%. The 2 main reasons for refusal to participate were lack of time and concerns about privacy. The repository represents a clinically diverse population with housing samples and data from healthy individuals and patients with the most common health conditions such as diabetes, cancer, and autoimmune and cardiovascular diseases. Participants signed an IRB-approved informed consent to allow distribution and use of de-identified samples and data for a broad range of research. The ability to regularly update participant health status allows NUgene to provide investigators with the most appropriate samples for their research. Controls were selected from NUgene participants without any self-reported history of cancer. Participants with International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision codes indicating a diagnosis of cancer were excluded.
DNA Isolation
DNA from whole blood lymphocytes was extracted using the QIAamp DNA Blood Mini Kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany) and was stored at -20°C until use for genotyping. The samples were stored at -20°C.
Selection of SNPs
We selected four SNPs in FTO to evaluate. These SNPs were selected based on previous data from GWAS. More specifically rs9939609 has been previously identified to be significantly associated with obesity and DM [8–11]. Furthermore, other SNPs in the same linkage disequilibrium (LD) block (rs1121980, rs9939973, rs7193144, rs9940128, rs8050136) were found to be associated with obesity [13]. The SNPs we selected to evaluate are all in intron 1 of FTO and represent LD block 6 (rs7206790 and rs8047395) and LD block 7 (rs9939609 and rs1477196). This region has been suggested to be strongly associated with obesity[8, 9, 13].
Genotyping for the four SNPs was performed by Taqman SNP allelic discrimination by means of an ABI 7900HT (Applied Biosystems, Forest City, California). Results were ascertained by using the SDS software version 2.3 (Applied Biosystems). All results were automatically called (ie, the device displays the genotypes automatically with a 95% certainty). A total of 5% of samples were genotyped in duplicate and showed 100% concordance.
Breast Tissue
Tissue was obtained from the tissue core facility at Northwestern University. A total of 100 samples were received. Of them 50 were normal breast tissue and 50 were breast cancer tissue. Of the breast tumor tissue 25 samples were ER negative and 25 were ER positive, 20 were PR negative and 30 were PR positive, 41 samples were Her2 negative and 7 Her2 positive. We received 30-40 mg of tissue per sample.
RNA Extraction and cDNA synthesis
Breast Tissues in RNAlater were flash frozen in liquid N2. Tissues were crushed into fine powder and were subsequently lysed in 1 ml of TRIzol® Reagent and 200 ul of chloroform for phase separation. Nucleic Acid Solution (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA) was added to the clear (RNA) phase in 3:1 ratio and then added equal volume of 70% EtOH. Mixture was passed through the red filters from the Gen Elute Mammalian Total RNA Miniprep Kit (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO). The filters were washed by wash buffers 1 and 2 then eluted using TE buffer. cDNA synthesis from RNA was performed using the TaqMan ® Reverse Transcription Reagents (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA). cDNA was amplified using TaqMan ® PreAmp Master Mix (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA). RNA was successfully extracted from all but one sample.
The transcription levels for FTO and GAPDH were quantified using the ABI 7900HT Real Time PCR System (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA). Primers and probes were designed by Applied Biosystems. Samples are heated at 50°C for 2 min, 95°C for 10 min, followed by 40 cycles of 95°C for 15 sec, and 60°C for 1 min using Taqman® Gene Expression Master Mix (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA). Results were normalized to the levels of GAPDH (Taqman® probes, Applied Biosystems) and relative quantification using the ΔΔCt formula.
Paraffin embedded sections of normal and tumor breast tissue samples are collected at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The immunohistochemistry (IHC) protocol was validated in the Northwestern Pathology Core laboratory for the FTO (SDIX, Newark, DE) and FABP4 (Epitomics, Burlingame, CA) antibodies. Sections were deparaffinized, heat (digital pressure cooker, 30 sec at 125°C) induced antigen-retrieval in citrate buffer (10 mM, pH 6.0) was used then followed by endogenous peroxidase activity blocking for 10 min at room temperature incubation in 3% hydrogen peroxide. Non-specific binding sites were blocked using Dako Protein Block (Dako, Carpinteria, CA). The FTO and FABP4 antibodies, diluted at 1:200 and 1:50 respectively, were applied on sections and incubated for 30-60 minutes at room temperature followed by a TBST (Dako, Carpinteria, CA) rinse. The secondary antibody, anti-rabbit (Dako, Carpinteria, CA) conjugated to dextran labeled polymer and horse radish peroxidase is applied for 15 min and then washed with TBST. Sections are counterstained with Mayer's Hematoxylin (Sigma, St. Louis, MO) and mounted with cover glass. All tissue samples were read by an independent pathologist (Dr Siziopikou).
Statistical Analysis
We used logistic regression models to analyze our data with two different methods. The first method simultaneously fit all main effects of the four SNPs, referred to as multiple-SNP nonepistatic analysis. We also used the traditional logistic regression analysis based on single SNPs to confirm our findings from the multiple-SNP nonepistatic analysis. The second method was the multiple-SNP epistatic analysis, simultaneously fitting all main effects and epistatic interactions using multiple logistic regression models. The motivation for including epistatic interactions is to understand how the genetic effect(s) of a SNP varies with the genotypes at another SNP, and to aid discovery of additional genetic variants. We first performed our analyses without any covariates, and then adjusted for race, age, and BMI by including them as covariates.
We coded the main-effect predictors using the commonly-used Cockerham genetic model, and constructed all epistatic interactions by multiplying two corresponding main-effect variables. We denoted common homozygote (i.e., the homozygote with higher frequency), heterozygote, and rare homozygote for each SNP by c, h, and r, respectively. The Cockerham model defines two main effects for each SNPs (i.e., additive and dominance effects) and four epistatic interactions for two SNPs (i.e., additive-additive, additive-dominance, dominance-additive, and dominance-additive interactions)[14, 15]. The additive contrast is defined as -1, 0, and 1 for c, h, and r, and the dominance contrast is defined as -0.5 for c and r and 0.5 for h, respectively. The additive effect represents the genotypic effect (r - c)/2, and the dominance effect measures h - (c + r)/2 in the logit probability of being cases. A positive additive effect (i.e., OR > 1) indicates that the rare homozygote increases cancer risk compared to the common homozygote, and a positive dominance effect means that the heterozygote increases risk compared to the mean of two homozygotes.
Multiple-SNP analyses can accommodate LD among the SNPs and have the advantages of providing potentially increased power and reduced false positives to detect causal variants, of better separating highly correlated predictors, and of more efficiently detecting epistatic interactions [16–19]. However, traditional multiple logistic regression models and procedures are highly problematic when strong LD exists and/or the number of effects is large. Thus, our multiple-SNP analyses employed Bayesian hierarchical logistic models using prior distributions for genetic effects that constrain the effects to lie in a reasonable range and results in identifiable models [20]. Specifically, we used Student-t prior distributions, i.e., and , with the hyperparameters (ν, s) reasonably preset. For main effects, we set (ν, s) to be (1, 2.5), which results in the routinely-used weakly informative prior [20]. For epistatic effects, we chose (1, 2.5 Kmain/Kepistasis), where Kmain (Kepistasis) is the total number of main (epistatic) effects in the model. This prior applies more stringent restrictions on interactions. We fitted our hierarchical logistic models by incorporating an approximate EM (expectation-maximum) algorithm into the usual iteratively weighted least squares for classical logistic regression [19].
We used two summary measures, the deviance and the Akaike information criterion (AIC), to compare different models. The deviance, defined as -2 times the log-likelihood, is a statistical summary of model fit; lower deviance means better fit to data. The AIC, defined as deviance + 2· (number of predictors), measures the predictive power; a model is estimated to reduce out-of-sample prediction error if the AIC decreases.
To evaluate the risk prediction ability of the multiple-SNP logistic models, we calculated the true positive rate (TPR, or sensitivity) and the false positive rate (FPR, or 1 - specification) that the model discriminates cases and controls. TPR (or FPR) is defined as probability that an individual is predicted as a case given that this person is truly affected (or unaffected). Because our model fitting procedure yields the predicted probabilities of a case, we could compute different sets of TPR and FPR by changing the classification threshold between 0 and 1, and thus plot the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves.
A linear regression model with FTO as the response and the indicator variable (for example, Tumor or Normal) as explanatory predictor was used to test the difference of the FTO tissue expression between the groups. This method is equivalent to a t test. Outliers were removed from the analysis.
Demographics and Genotype frequencies of cases and controls
Baseline Characteristics of breast cases and controls
Cases N = 354 n (%) | Controls N = 364 n (%) | p-value | |
Age (yr): median (range) | 50 (24-83) | 47 (19-87) | 0.60 |
Race | |||
Caucasian | 250 (72.5) | 263 (72.3) | - |
Black | 56 (16.2) | 59 (16.3) | 0.99 |
Asian | 19 (5.5) | 26 (7.1) | 0.34 |
Hispanic | 13 (3.8) | 9 (2.7) | 0.40 |
Other | 7 (2.0) | 6 (1.6) | 0.71 |
Weight (lbs): median (range) | 155 (96-317) | 157 (93-435) | 0.03 |
Height (in): median (range) | 65 (59-71) | 65 (52-73) | 0.66 |
BMI (kg/m 2 ): median (range) | 26.07 (17.61-51.43) | 26.07 (16.91-79.61) | 0.04 |
Tumor grade | |||
1 | 52 (14.7) | ||
2 | 132 (37.3) | ||
3 | 118 (33.3) | ||
Stage at diagnosis | - | ||
ER status | - | ||
+ | 270 (78.9) | ||
- | 72 (21.1) | ||
PR status | - | ||
+ | 238 (70.8) | ||
- | 98 (29.2) | ||
Her2 status | - | ||
+ | 58 (18.0) | ||
- | 264 (82.0) | ||
LN status | - | ||
+ | 176 (53.8) | ||
- | 151 (46.2) | ||
Family history | - | ||
+ | 138 (48.1) | ||
- | 149 (51.9) | ||
Median follow-up (mo) | 29 | - |
Genotype characteristics of cases and controls.
SNP | Genotype | Cases N = 354 n (%) | Controls N = 364 n (%) | p-value |
rs9939609 | AA (c) | 129 (42.7) | 136 (38.9) | 0.92 |
AT (h) | 124 (41.1) | 161 (46.1) | ||
TT (r) | 49 (16.2) | 52 (14.8) | ||
rs1477196 | AA (c) | 123 (39.5) | 164 (45.8) | 0.91 |
AG (h) | 130 (41.8) | 154 (43.0) | ||
GG (r) | 58 (18.6) | 40 (11.2) | ||
rs7206790 | CC (c) | 102 (32.4) | 121 (33.8) | 0.38 |
CG (h) | 142 (45.1) | 163 (45.5) | ||
GG (r) | 71 (22.5) | 74 (20.7) | ||
rs8047395 | AA (c) | 89 (28.8) | 101 (28.5) | 0.86 |
AG (h) | 140 (45.3) | 172 (48.5) | ||
GG (r) | 80 (25.9) | 82 (23.1) |
LD Analysis
We calculated the LD measures, D' and r 2 from the control samples for different races. Due to the small sample sizes of several races (Table 1), we only used Caucasian, Black, and Asian samples. To compare our LD patterns with those from the HapMap project, we extracted LD values from corresponding HapMap samples from U.S. residents with northern and western European ancestry (CEU), Ibadan of Nigeria (YRI), and Tokyo of Japan (JPT), respectively. Additional File 1 shows the D' and r 2 values from our study and the HapMap project. The LD values from our study were comparable with those from the HapMap project. We found that four SNPs were in strong LD for Caucasian and Asian samples but had reduced LD values for Black samples.
Non-epistatic analysis
Multiple-SNP nonepistatic and single SNP models: odds ratios (OR), and 95% confidence intervals for all main effects of SNPs.
Additive effects | Dominance effects | |||||
Nonepistatic | Model 1a | Model 2 | Model 3 | Model 1 | Model 2 | Model 3 |
rs9939609 | 0.919 (0.56-1.50) | 0.935 (0.56-1.55) | 0.956 (0.57-1.61) | 0.780 (0.52-1.17) | 0.796 (0.52-1.20) | 0.778 (0.50-1.12) |
rs1477196 | 2.379** (1.46-3.87) | 2.436** (1.48-4.00) | 2.611** (1.56-4.37) | 0.820 (0.55-1.22) | 0.787 (0.52-1.17) | 0.727 (0.47-1.10) |
rs7206790 | 1.573 (0.97-2.54) | 1.599 (0.98-2.61) | 1.652 (0.98-2.78) | 1.131 (0.76-1.68) | 1.140 (0.76-1.70) | 1.155 (0.76-1.76) |
rs8047395 | 0.772 (0.45-1.30) | 0.811 (0.47-1.38) | 0.787 (0.45-1.37) | 1.017 (0.66-1.55) | 1.041 (0.67-1.60) | 1.073 (0.68-1.69) |
Additive effects | Dominance effects | |||||
Single SNP | Model 1 a | Model 2 | Model 3 | Model 1 | Model 2 | Model 3 |
rs9939609 | 0.997 (0.79,1.25) | 0.975 (0.77,1.23) | 0.992 (0.78, 1.26) | 0.814 (0.59,1.13) | 0.831 (0.60,1.16) | 0.776 (0.55,1.09) |
rs1477196 | 1.390* (1.10,1.76) | 1.408* (1.11,1.79) | 1.447* (1.13,1.85) | 0.809 (0.58,1.13) | 0.781 (0.56,1.09) | 0.693* (0.49,0.98) |
rs7206790 | 1.066 (0.87,1.32) | 1.054 (0.85,1.31) | 1.022 (0.82,1.28) | 0.969 (0.71,1.32) | 0.980 (0.72,1.34) | 0.949 (0.69,1.31) |
rs8047395 | 1.052 (0.85,1.30) | 1.054 (0.85,1.31) | 1.075 (0.86,1.34) | 0.878 (0.65,1.19) | 0.876 (0.64,1.19) | 0.812 (0.59.1.12) |
We performed single SNP analyses to confirm the main effects of all SNPs on breast cancer risk. Table 3 shows the estimated odds ratios along with the 95% confidence intervals for all main effects under three models. From these analyses we confirmed that rs1477196 was significantly associated with the risk of breast cancer through the additive effect, indicating that compared to the common homozygote AA the rare homozygote GG significantly increased the risk of breast cancer. The p-values of additive effect in three models were 0.0055, 0.005, and 0.003, respectively. After the Bonferroni Correction for the multiple testing, the p-values were 0.044, 0.04, and 0.024, respectively, which were still significant at the nominal level of 0.05,
Epistatic analysis
Epistatic models: odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for all main effects of SNPs.
Additive effects | Dominance effects | |||||
aModel 1 | Model 2 | Model 3 | Model 1 | Model 2 | Model 3 | |
rs9939609 | 3.515* (1.41-8.708) | 3.281* (1.32-8.16) | 3.719* (1.43-9.68) | 0.515* (0.31-0.84) | 0.531* (0.32-0.87) | 0.506* (0.30-0.88) |
rs1477196 | 31.589** (10.27-97.11) | 27.551** (8.98-84.52) | 30.111** (9.65-94.80) | 0.509* (0.31-0.83) | 0.515* (0.32-0.84) | 0.458* (0.27-0.77) |
rs7206790 | 1.865* (1.11-3.13) | 1.802* (1.07-3.03) | 1.888* (1.08-3.29) | 1.074 (0.71-1.63) | 1.094 (0.72-1.66) | 1.088 (0.68-1.65) |
rs8047395 | 0.247* (0.10-0.61) | 0.262* (0.11-0.64) | 0.281* (0.12-0.68) | 0.822 (0.52-1.30) | 0.841 (0.53-1.33) | 0.847 (0.52-1.38) |
Epistatic analyses: odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for epistatic effects with p-value < 0.05.
Epistatic effect | aModel 1 | Model 2 | Model 3 |
rs1477196a:rs9939609a | 11.525** (2.76-48.17) | 9.773* (2.32-41.21) | 12.031* (2.68-53.95) |
rs1477196d:rs8047395d | 0.0416** (0.01-0.15) | 0.048** (0.01-0.18) | 0.054** (0.01-0.20) |
Based on the fitted epistatic models, we calculated the odds ratios of three genotypes for each SNP and the probabilities of being case for two SNP pairs, rs1477196 and rs9939609, rs1477196 and rs8047395, which showed significant interactions. Additional File 2 and 3 display the results from the epistatic models including race, age, and BMI as covariates. Other epistatic models produced similar results. From Additional File 2, we can see that the rare homozygotes of rs9939609, rs1477196, and rs7206790 increased the risk of breast cancer compared to the common homozygotes, while the common homozygote for rs8047395 was associated with an increased risk. Additional File 3 shows that the genetic effect(s) of a SNP varied with the genotypes at another SNP.
Model comparison
We estimated deviance and AIC in the multiple-SNP nonepistatic and epistatic analyses under the three models (Additional File 4). The epistatic models had lower deviance and AIC than the non-epistatic models. This indicated that inclusion of the significant epistatic interactions improved the fit of the model to data and reduced out-of-sample prediction error. The epistatic model adjusting for age, race and BMI had the lowest deviance and AIC and thus best fit to data. For this reason we have selected this model for the interpretation of our results.
Breast cancer risk prediction
To evaluate the ability of the multiple-SNP models of the FTO pathway genotypes to predict breast cancer risk we plotted the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve (Additional File 4). The ROC curve shows the estimated true positive and the false positive rates for different classification thresholds between 0 and 1. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was used to measure the discrimination power of our genotypes. The AUC number represents the probability that given two random individuals, one who will develop the disease and the other who will not, the genotypes will assign the former as a positive test and the latter as a negative test. A perfect genotype would have an AUC of 1. It has been suggested that an AUC > 0.5 has some discriminatory ability and for screening high risk individuals an AUC > 0.75 should be used[21].
We performed analyses based on three models: the epistatic model adjusted for race, age and BMI, the nonepistatic model adjusted for race, age and BMI, and the model including race, age and BMI and no SNPs. The epistatic model achieved higher true positive rate and lower false positive rate than the nonepistatic model did for any thresholds. The areas under the ROC curves (AUC) were 0.68, 0.60, and 0.53, respectively. This indicated that FTO genotypes provided powerful classifiers to predict breast cancer risk and a model with epistatic interactions further improved the prediction accuracy.
Subgroup analyses
We estimated category-specific risks by comparing the genotype distribution of cases and controls within each category for age or between each case category and all controls for case category variables, i.e., tumor grade, stage at diagnosis, ER, PR, Her2, LN, and family history (see Table 1). To investigate the effects of age, subjects were separated into four groups (under 39, 39-49, 50-59 and 60+) according to age at diagnosis (cases) or interview (controls). Since sample sizes were largely reduced, all these subgroup analyses fit only main effects.
Subgroup analyses: odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for main effects with p-value < 0.05.
Age < 39 | ER- | ER+ | PR- | PR+ | ||
Additive | Additive | Additive | Additive | Additive | ||
rs1477196 | 5.209* (1.61-16.91) | 2.466* (1.05-5.79) | 2.437** (1.44-4.11) | 2.202* (1.05-4.64) | 2.649** (1.54-4.57) | |
rs7206790 | 3.487* (1.22-9.97) | 1.81* (1.08-3.02) | 1.860* (1.08-3.21) | |||
rs8047395 | 0.349* (0.14-0.89) | |||||
Stage II | Stage III/IV | Grade I | Grade II | Grade III | ||
Additive | Additive | Additive | Dominance | Additive | Additive | |
rs1477196 | 2.368* (1.21-4.63) | 3.640* (1.63-8.14) | 2.766* (1.07-7.13) | 0.345* (0.15-0.78) | 2.405* (1.22-4.75) | 3.067* (1.49-6.31) |
rs7206790 | 2.319* (1.12-4.79) | 1.921* (0.99-3.71) | ||||
rs8047395 | 0.361* (0.16-0.78) | |||||
No LN | Yes LN | Her2- | Family hx - | Family hx + | ||
Additive | Additive | Additive | Additive | Additive | ||
rs1477196 | 2.722* (1.42-5.22) | 2.318* (1.28-4.18) | 2.709** (1.60-4.58) | 3.017** (1.60-5.67) | 2.501* (1.26-4.93) | |
rs7206790 | 1.868* (1.04-3.35) | 2.449* (1.28-4.69) |
Tissue FTO expression
In this clinic-based case-control study we found that SNPs located in intron 1 of FTO are associated with breast cancer risk. More specifically rs1477196, rs9939609, rs7206790 and rs8047395 were significantly associated with breast cancer risk. Furthermore, with an AUC of 0.68 these FTO genotypes provided powerful classifiers to predict breast cancer risk. This is to our knowledge the first report of an association between FTO and breast cancer risk.
There has also been extensive research on the association of DM and breast cancer. In a recent meta-analysis of 20 case-control studies there was a 20% increased risk for breast cancer in women with DM[6]. In the four cohort studies, which were included in the same meta-analysis, breast cancer risk increased by 24% in patients with DM. We recently showed that adiponectin, an adipokine which is linked to obesity and type II DM, plays an important role in breast cancer risk[22–24]. We therefore sought out to find other links between obesity, DM and breast cancer, which lead us to evaluate the role of FTO in breast cancer risk.
We performed several analyses using epistatic and nonepistatic genetic models. The nonepistatic models take into account all SNPs simultaneously (Multiple-SNP analysis). In the epistatic models the interaction between the SNPs is also taken into account as to how it changes individual SNP effects. In the nonepistatic model rs1477196 was found to be significantly associated with breast cancer risk. Of all models performed the epistatic model, which controls for age, race and BMI had the best fit. That model showed that all four SNPs (rs1477196, rs9939609, rs7206790 and rs8047395) are significantly and jointly associated with breast cancer risk. Furthermore, the interactions between rs1477196 and rs9939609, as well as, rs1477196 and rs8047395 were significantly associated with breast cancer risk.
In subset analyses we observed that rs1477196 was significantly associated with breast cancer regardless of hormone receptor status, tumor grade, stage at diagnosis or presence of family history. However rs7206790 predicted hormone receptor positive breast cancers, in young women with a positive family history and was associated with more advanced stages at diagnosis.
We performed a breast cancer risk prediction model using the ROC curve. This curve utilizes the genotypes measured in all individuals and assesses the combination of sensitivity and specificity of different combinations of genotypes. We observed an AUC of 0.68 for the epistatic model, significantly higher than the models ignoring epistasis and genetic factors. This result shows that there is utility of prediction of breast cancer risk using the FTO genotype. It has been suggested by others that an AUC > 0.5 has some discriminatory ability [21]. In a recent paper by Watcholder et al[25] et al a genetic model, that included 10 SNPs found in genome wide association studies (GWAS) to be associated with breast cancer risk, produced an AUC of 58.9%. In that study the SNP-only model predicted risk slightly better than the Gail model. Another study by Mealiffe et al[26] also confirmed that a SNP-only model produced a higher AUC (58.7%) compared with the Gail model (55.7%). The AUCs in these studies are somewhat lower compared with the AUC obtained in our study. The major reasons for this prediction improvement are: 1) we used a Bayesian hierarchical model to fit the data and to predict the disease risk. As described in Gelman et al. [27], a Bayesian hierarchical model can improve the prediction accuracy; 2) the previous studies have not included interactions into the predictive models. If genetic interactions are present, adding these interactions to a predictive model can increase the accuracy of prediction[28–30]. However we do recognize that this is a single study and we would need to validate our results before we can be certain of the magnitude of our findings.
We also showed the presence of FTO in breast tissue and found that normal breast tissue had significantly higher FTO RNA expression compared with breast cancer tissue. Furthermore, when comparing subtypes of breast cancer risk by ER, PR and Her2 expression we did not find any significant differences in FTO RNA expression according to these subtypes. We confirmed the presence of FTO expression by performing IHC where we found that both normal breast tissue and breast cancer tissue have a positive cytoplasmic stain for FTO. FTO has a potential role in nucleic acid demethylation. Its expression in breast tissue points toward an important role in the demethylation process[12]. Recent studies have shown that mice overexpressing FTO are obese. Moreover, ubiquitous overexpression of FTO has been shown to lead to a dose-dependent increase in body and fat mass, irrespective of whether mice are fed a standard or a high-fat diet suggesting that increased body mass results primarily from increased food intake[31].
Our study has several strengths and limitations. Cases and controls were similar in respect to age, race and geographic location but differed significantly in regard to BMI. However we controlled for age, race and BMI. Information on chronic diseases was not recorded for cases and controls with the possibility of discrepancy between the two groups. However FTO has only shown to play a role in obesity and we controlled for BMI. Therefore such discrepancy would likely not affect our findings. The selection of our SNPs was based on previous data from GWAS that correlated them with obesity. Although exposure was assessed in the context of a case control study, it is impossible that breast cancer would have changed SNP classification, which is already determined at birth. Thus this study does fulfill the "time sequence" criterion for causality. This in association with existing epidemiologic evidence and biologic plausibility support a causal association between these SNPs and risk for breast cancer. Strengths of the study include the use of state of the art methods for evaluation of SNPs as well as FTO IHC and that we have controlled for known potential confounders. Confounding from unknown factors remains a possibility, however. Some random misclassification is unavoidable but such misclassification leads to suppression of effect estimates and p-values away from statistical significance. Thus, our statistically significant results of this study could not have been attributed to misclassification.
To our knowledge this is the first study reporting an association between FTO pathway SNPs and breast cancer risk. This is also the first study to show expression of FTO in normal and malignant breast tissue. If confirmed in subsequent studies, our findings suggest that genetic variants of FTO alter breast cancer risk. The fact that FTO is expressed in human breast tissue as well as its role in nucleic acid demethylation[12] point toward a direct effect of FTO in breast cancer. The FTO axis may emerge as an important modifier of breast cancer risk. Our findings point toward an important role of FTO in breast cancer.
This work was supported by the Walter S. Mander Foundation, Chicago, IL, the Lynn Sage Foundation, Chicago, IL, the Lynn Sage Scholar Award, Chicago, IL (Kaklamani); R01 CA112520 (Pasche), R01-GM74913 (Zhang) and 2R01GM069430-06 (Yi). In loving memory of Dolores Knes, who reminds us every day that the goal of our research is to improve the lives of our patients.
Fat mass and obesity gene
single nucleotide polymorphism
Akaike information criterion
genome wide association study
Receiver operating characteristic
area under the curve
diabetes mellitus
institutional board review
Linkage disequilibrium
real time polymerase chain reaction
estrogen receptor
progesterone receptor
lymph node
- Her2:
human epidermal receptor 2
Deoxyribonucleic acid
Odds ratio
confidence interval
true positive rate
false positive rate
fatty acid binding protein 4.
Authors' Affiliations
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- Larsson SC, Mantzoros CS, Wolk A: Diabetes mellitus and risk of breast cancer: a meta-analysis. Int J Cancer. 2007, 121: 856-862. 10.1002/ijc.22717.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
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- Grant SF, Li M, Bradfield JP, Kim CE, Annaiah K, Santa E, et al: Association analysis of the FTO gene with obesity in children of Caucasian and African ancestry reveals a common tagging SNP. PLoS One. 2008, 3: e1746-10.1371/journal.pone.0001746.View ArticlePubMedPubMed CentralGoogle Scholar
- Thorleifsson G, Walters GB, Gudbjartsson DF, Steinthorsdottir V, Sulem P, Helgadottir A, et al: Genome-wide association yields new sequence variants at seven loci that associate with measures of obesity. Nat Genet. 2009, 41: 18-24. 10.1038/ng.274.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
- van HM, Dehghan A, Witteman JC, van Duijn CM, Uitterlinden AG, Oostra BA, et al: Predicting type 2 diabetes based on polymorphisms from genome-wide association studies: a population-based study. Diabetes. 2008, 57: 3122-3128. 10.2337/db08-0425.View ArticleGoogle Scholar
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- Gerken T, Girard CA, Tung YC, Webby CJ, Saudek V, Hewitson KS, et al: The obesity-associated FTO gene encodes a 2-oxoglutarate-dependent nucleic acid demethylase. Science. 2007, 318: 1469-1472. 10.1126/science.1151710.View ArticlePubMedPubMed CentralGoogle Scholar
- Hinney A, Nguyen TT, Scherag A, Friedel S, Bronner G, Muller TD, et al: Genome wide association (GWA) study for early onset extreme obesity supports the role of fat mass and obesity associated gene (FTO) variants. PLoS One. 2007, 2: e1361-10.1371/journal.pone.0001361.View ArticlePubMedPubMed CentralGoogle Scholar
- Cordell HJ: Epistasis: what it means, what it doesn't mean, and statistical methods to detect it in humans. Hum Mol Genet. 2002, 11: 2463-2468. 10.1093/hmg/11.20.2463.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
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- Hoggart CJ, Whittaker JC, De Iorio M, Balding DJ: Simultaneous analysis of all SNPs in genome-wide and re-sequencing association studies. PLoS Genet. 2008, 4: e1000130-10.1371/journal.pgen.1000130.View ArticlePubMedPubMed CentralGoogle Scholar
- Malo N, Libiger O, Schork NJ: Accommodating linkage disequilibrium in genetic-association analyses via ridge regression. Am J Hum Genet. 2008, 82: 375-385. 10.1016/j.ajhg.2007.10.012.View ArticlePubMedPubMed CentralGoogle Scholar
- Yi N, Banerjee S: Hierarchical generalized linear models for multiple quantitative trait locus mapping. Genetics. 2009, 181: 1101-1113. 10.1534/genetics.108.099556.View ArticlePubMedPubMed CentralGoogle Scholar
- Yi N, Kaklamani VG, Pasche B: Bayesian analysis of genetic interactions in case-control studies, with application to adiponectin genes and colorectal cancer risk. Ann Hum Genet. 2011, 75: 90-104. 10.1111/j.1469-1809.2010.00605.x.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
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- Kaklamani VG, Sadim M, Hsi A, Offit K, Oddoux C, Ostrer H, et al: Variants of the adiponectin and adiponectin receptor 1 genes and breast cancer risk. Cancer Res. 2008, 68: 3178-3184. 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-08-0533.View ArticlePubMedPubMed CentralGoogle Scholar
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- Mantzoros CS, Li T, Manson JE, Meigs JB, Hu FB: Circulating adiponectin levels are associated with better glycemic control, more favorable lipid profile, and reduced inflammation in women with type 2 diabetes. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2005, 90: 4542-4548. 10.1210/jc.2005-0372.View ArticlePubMedGoogle Scholar
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- Mealiffe ME, Stokowski RP, Rhees BK, Prentice RL, Pettinger M, Hinds DA: Assessment of clinical validity of a breast cancer risk model combining genetic and clinical information. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2010, 102: 1618-1627. 10.1093/jnci/djq388.View ArticlePubMedPubMed CentralGoogle Scholar
- Gelman A, Jakulin A, Pittau MG, Su YS: A weakly informative default prior distribution for logistic and other regression models. Annals of Applied Statistics. 2008, 2: 1360-1383. 10.1214/08-AOAS191.View ArticleGoogle Scholar
- Clark AG: Limits to prediction of phenotype from knowledge of genotypes. Limits to knowledge in evolutionary genetics. Edited by: Clegg M, et al. 2000, Kluwer Academic/Penum Publishers, New York, 205-224.Google Scholar
- Moore JH, Williams SM: Epistasis and its implications for personal genetics. Am J Hum Genet. 2009, 85: 309-320. 10.1016/j.ajhg.2009.08.006.View ArticlePubMedPubMed CentralGoogle Scholar
- Yi N: Statistical analysis of genetic interactions. Genetics Research. 2011, Ref Type,Google Scholar
- Church C, Moir L, McMurray F, Girard C, Banks GT, Teboul L, et al: Overexpression of Fto leads to increased food intake and results in obesity. Nat Genet. 2010, 42: 1086-1092. 10.1038/ng.713.View ArticlePubMedPubMed CentralGoogle Scholar
- The pre-publication history for this paper can be accessed here:http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2350/12/52/prepub
Pre-publication history
This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


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This week's Mystery Banks Photo: These cousins all lived in Ramsey at the time of this photo, more than 50 years ago.
15 Years Ago
1997 – Carey Oldfield of Vandalia, the 1996 Miss Fayette County Fair queen, was in Springfield to compete in the Illinois Miss County Fair pageant. Fayette County was hit with several bursts of snow and freezing rain. The Vandalia wrestling team held on to the No. 1 spot in Class A in the state.
20 Years Ago
1992 – St. Louis-based Laclede Steel selected Vandalia for its new pipe finishing and warehouse facility. It was to employ 54 workers.
Named for the man who owned the land, Nathaniel Dressor of Bond County, this Ramsey township village is a Fayette County ghost town.
Though the state has appropriated about $5.6 million for the construction of the second phase of the Kaskaskia College Vandalia Campus, those funds still have not been released. With Phase I of the campus now four years old, it's time for the state to release those funds – which were originally appropriated for Phase I of the project but never released. As a result, the first phase was built with local funds that should've been matched by the state.
HIGHLAND – Taking 100 or more extra shots every weekday since the summer has paid off for Amber Bruno.
The Vandalia junior lifted a 3-pointer with about a minute left in the first quarter of Tuesday's game at the Highland Tournament to score her 1,000th career point, becoming the 10th female in school history to reach the mark.
Vandalia senior Haley Wollerman needs three more points to reach 1,000 for her career. Those points should be scored on Monday, during a home game against Litchfield.
With an "emotional" team win at Litchfield last Thursday, the Vandalia wrestlers secured a perfect South Central Conference record, and the Vandals followed that with a split at a home tri-meet on Saturday.
Freshman Ryne Lispey – who earned the clinching pin against Litchfield, during a 33-31 victory – had a chance to secure another team win against Monticello on Saturday, but he was pinned by a more-experience opponent.
HIGHLAND – The Lady Vandals were unable to earn a win at the Highland Tournament and will not play again until next Monday.
Hopefully, the time off will give them a chance to figure out their new offense.
Belleville West found many open shots and grabbed plenty of offensive rebounds during a 66-40 win against Vandalia on Tuesday.
Teutopolis scored 51 points in the first half en route to an 81-44 rout of Vandalia on Tuesday.
Senior Dathan Berning paced the Vandals with 14 points, but a consistent outpouring of offense from the Wooden Shoes could not be overcome.
The loss was the second straight for the Vandals, who are now 15-5 on the season.
Their next game is on Tuesday against Hillsboro.
Many athletes that spent their high school years in Fayette County have moved on to play for college or professional teams. Below are the athletes who played this past week.
Jessica Earnest • Junior • Vanderbilt University

subset: commoncrawl


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I have been actively fishing for forty-five years! For nearly 15 of those years I was able to fish nearly 200 days per year. Those wonderful days have left me with a plethora of knowledge to share. I have fished from the Marianas of the Pacific to the quiet tidewaters of Virginia and North Carolina, Antigua the gulf coast of Texas and many places in between. My home waters are those of the west. I am passionate about bass fishing, tournament as well as recreational. In addition, I am well versed in fishing for most other species...(Okay, although interesting, I'm not an expert on British or European style competitive carp fishing...chumming with a slingshot anyone?). I am intimately acquainted with the San Diego County Lakes, Diamond Valley reservoir in Riverside County California and numerous other exciting fishing waters from Texas (Travis County) to the Pacific Coast and south to Cabo San Lucas. I have many years of experience in blue-water as well as inshore angling of all types in Southern California with both artificial and live baits; high country fishing in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of my beloved Golden State with nothing but a backpack and a fly-rod. There are still a lifetime of adventures to undertake, together with my lovely wife, Christine. I am an expert rod smith and have vast experience with both the construction and repair all types of rods including split bamboo (new or vintage) and hickory as well as graphite, boron composites and all types of fiberglass. I spent 20 years in the retail business of which 6 were spent owning and operating a successful tackle shop, specializing in custom rod making, rod and reel repairs and a full scale tackle selection. Uncommon topics I love to discuss: Fisheries Management; Tackle Shop/ retail management; Ethics and responsibilities of anglers; Repair and maintenance of rods/reels; "How to"...any topic in fishing.
I took a few years off,(5 to be exact) from answering questions for AllExperts.com but I'm back now! My experience? Forty-Five years of bio-observation, fishing numerous types of waters with virtually every type of tackle: Casting, Fly, Spinning, Offshore/blue-water, Coastal, Surf, Tournaments: ( Bass, Local Saltwater), Alpine lakes/streams, ditches, canals, sloughs, marshes, creeks and swamps; if there is water, I usually throw a cast or two. Tackle Shop ownership and management, Expert Custom Rod Construction and repair (Big-game, Long-range stand-up, Live bait, jig sticks, Casting, Spinning and fly- including split-cane). I have personally constructed over 700 custom rods of all types...nearly half of the rods the shop turned out. I also have performed hundreds of reel repairs of all types- antique to modern. I do not typically offer valuation of tackle. This is very difficult without inspecting the tackle first hand and leaving valuation far to subjective. I will be happy to offer other experts for placing a value on your tackle.
NRA forever...(Gun rights...Guns and fishing rods belong together right?), belonged to BASS for most of my life but keep forgetting to renew. I like Trout Unlimited but again, keep forgetting to renew...gotta choose...one more tank of gas and some fresh line...or memberships? Hmmm.
None yet...why aren't they chasing me?
"Roads" Scholar. Life-long independent study of fisheries biology, ichthyology, aquatic/marine biology, ecosystems, angling techniques and observations of animals, fish and humans: both smart guys and knuckleheads.
Self-Proclaimed tackleshop of the year! The California Tackle Box- Oceanside, Ca.
Thousands served!
EVERYTHING FISHING including biomass/fisheries management, geopolitical considerations, anti-fishing movements, catch-n-release, Sushi-n-Sashimi as well as Hook'em-n-Cook'em!
International exploration and techniques of fishing in other countries around our world. Aggressive study of Mari-culture, Aquaculture and Biomass conversion to manage our only planet.
Some fish start life as male and end up female...ever been to Hollywood? Hmmm...perhaps we did come from the sea...
Catch-n-cook vs. catch-n-release
User | Date | K | C | P | Comments |
Jim | 04/01/15 | 10 | 10 | 10 | Thank you for the detailed response. It ..... |
Eric | 01/12/15 | 9 | 10 | 10 | Thanks Mark. I really appreciate your response ..... |
Steve | 01/12/15 | 10 | 10 | 10 | Outstanding knowledge!!!!! |
Robert Gregor | 12/31/14 | 10 | 10 | 10 | Thanks Mark your info was very useful ..... |
Bernard | 12/24/14 | 10 | 10 | 10 | Thank you very much for your help ..... |
Hello Michael, Thanks for the question and forgive my not getting to you more quickly. I am a Firefighter in California and this has been a horrendous fire season. I am VERY interested in helping
Hello Michael, Somehow your question slipped through the cracks in All-Experts system and don't believe I ever received a notification about your question waiting! Usually I would get a notice daily
Hello Chris, thanks for the question. The truth be told, you CAN put any size line on any size reel. The question, as you asked is what are the consequences? With every fishing reel, no matter what
Hey ya David, Thanks for the question. As you may well know, perhaps even more so than I, carp fishing techniques are virtually unlimited and pack bait recipes are as well. When you ask "how"
Hello Jon, Thanks for asking. Without markings, removed through wear or refurbishing, one can only guess. Very few, if any split cane rod makers had "signature" designs or markings that were not
Answers by Expert:


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Toadman's Tank Pictures CDs are an armor modeler's dream come true! Full of detailed pictures of armored vehicles and weaponry on display at various museums, these CDs are invaluable reference sources for modelers and military historians alike.
CD #09 features 281 pictures of a beautifully restored mid-production Sturmgeschutz III Ausf. G. Includes many interior shots.
All contents © 2017 HobbyLink Japan Ltd.
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His main opponent, Lennart Meri, won 28.8 per cent. Mr Ruutel's failure to win a 50 per cent majority meant the presidency would be decided by a new parliament in which right-wing parties favouring Mr Meri appeared to have won more seats than Mr Ruutel's left-wing Safe Home alliance.
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Pictures of my Dinner
I make food and I take pictures of it.
Meet the chef(s)
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Dinosaur chicken nuggets pizza
This was the dinner that inspired the blog. We call it "the La Brea Delicious Pits". It was created, and devoured, last week.
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Winter is setting in and one of our biggest concerns is protecting the kids health by keeping them warm. Few homes in Kathmandu have any heat source and nightime temps can get into the 30's, brrrrr. It's necessary to keep a warm jacket and cap on nearly all the time and at bed time, one wants the heaviest blanket that can be found. For most of our 140 kids their families simply cannot buy coats, hats and blankets. The average daily wage in Nepal is slightly over $1.00 a day, barely enough to survive, certainly no where near the level of thrive.
Most of the kids come to school each day in worn out or dirty clothes because they just don't have a change of clothing. That's their life, that's the reality of it.
We are making a special request as winter closes in for a few extra dollars so we can at least get some decent jackets and hats on the kids or else they will spend the winter sick and cold which makes it hard for them to come to school and hard to learn.
I'm uploading some photos for this, take a close look at basket ball boy, for example and his torn pocket and non-functional zipper or the boy who comes to school in pj's.
The nursery here at OGN will need extra blankets for winter. I attached a photo for you of nap time in the nursery. Hard to believe we've 140 kids and nursery, kindergarten and grade one now too. The first graders are begging us to add a second grade so they won't have to leave. I would expect a new project from us about that soon. ;-)
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British Columbia Parliament Buildings
British Columbia Parliament Buildings | |
General information | |
Architectural style | Neo-baroque Renaissance Revival Romanesque Revival |
Address | 501 Belleville Street Victoria, British Columbia V8V 1X4 |
Town or city | Victoria, British Columbia |
Country | Canada |
Construction started | 1893 |
Completed | 1897 |
Design and construction | |
Architect | Francis Rattenbury |
The British Columbia Parliament Buildings are located in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and are home to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia.
The Speaker and the Sergeant-At-Arms are amongst those responsible for the legislative precinct, which by statute include the Parliament Buildings and grounds.
The Neo-baroque buildings face north on Belleville street facing the Inner Harbour and diagonally across from The Empress Hotel. A statue of Queen Victoria stands on the front lawn as well a statue of a soldier to commemorate the province's World War I, World War II and Korean War dead. Atop the central dome is a gold-covered statue of Captain George Vancouver. Free guided tours of the facility are offered year-round.
From 1856 to 1860 the Legislature of the Colony of Vancouver Island met at Bachelor's Hall at Fort Victoria.[1] From 1860 to 1898 it was housed in the first permanent building at Legislative Hall or Legislative Council Court, a two storey wooden building along with four other buildings (Land Office, Colonial Office, Supreme Court, and Treasury) known colloquially as "The Birdcages" because of their shape (burned 1957).[2][3]
Construction of a new Parliament Building was first authorized by an act of the provincial legislature in 1893, the Parliament Buildings Construction Act. The province, anxious to commemorate its growing economic, social and political status, was engaged in an architectural competition to build a new legislative building in Victoria, after outgrowing "The Birdcages", which were notoriously drafty and leaked in wet weather.[4] Francis Rattenbury, a recent English immigrant, 25 years old, entered the contest and signed his drawings with the pseudonym "A B.C. Architect". He progressed to the second round, signing his drawing "For Queen and Province" and eventually won the competition.
Despite many problems, including exceeding budget—the original budget was $500,000; the final amount was $923,000—the British Columbia Parliament Buildings began operation officially during 1898.[5] The grand scale of its 500-ft (152-m) long andesite façade,[6] central dome and two end pavilions, the richness of its white marble, and combination of Baroque rigorous symmetry, use of domes and sculptural massing with the rusticated surfaces of the currently popular Romanesque Revival style contributed to its being an innovative and impressive monument for the young province.
Its success garnered Rattenbury many more commissions in Victoria and other parts of the province, including the Legislative Library (constructed between 1913-1915 and the cornerstone of which was laid by Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught),[7] the design of the Empress Hotel, the Crystal Gardens indoor swimming pool nearby, and the Vancouver Court House (now the Vancouver Art Gallery). The andesite of the British Columbia Parliament Buildings is from Haddington Island in the Alert Bay Volcanic Belt.[8] The granite used to build the buildings came from Nelson Island, at the mouth of Jervis Inlet, on the Sunshine Coast.
Besides the elected Members of the Legislative Assembly, two organizations have been granted the privilege of using the Legislative Chambers during the legislature's December recess: the British Columbia Youth Parliament (since 1924, except during its sessions of the late 1940s and early 1950s) and the British Columbia Universities' Model Parliament.
During the 1994 Commonwealth Games, free music concerts were held on the front lawns of the buildings, attracting as many as 40,000 people. Similar-sized crowds have gathered on the front lawn over the years, ranging from political protests and rallies, such as during the Solidarity Crisis of 1983, to celebrations of various kinds, including the BC 150 ceremonies.
Exterior sculpture program[edit]
The sculpture on the buildings was designed by the provincial librarian, E.O.S. Scholefield and executed by Charles Marega and his assistant Bernard Carrier. For the exterior of the library Marega created 14 figures: Chief Maquinna, Captain George Vancouver, Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie, Dr. John McLoughlin, Hon. John Sebastian Helmcken, Captain James Cook, Sir James Douglas, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Alexander McKenzie, Simon Fraser, Lord Lytton, Sir Anthony Musgrave, David Thompson, and Col. R.C. Moody. Carrier produced twelve figures of women, all allegorical, three around each of the building's four domes.[9]
Mural controversy[edit]
In 1932, artist George Southwell was commissioned to paint murals in the rotunda depicting scenes from British Columbia history from 1792 to 1843. The work was completed three years later.[10] Decades later, controversy arose over the depiction of west coast aboriginal people in the murals, which in modern times is now regarded as degrading. One mural, entitled Labour, portrays bare-breasted aboriginal women hauling timber while a white man watches. In another entitled Justice, an aboriginal chief is shown standing before a judge (said to be Matthew Baillie Begbie), suggesting the subjugation of natives to colonial law.[citation needed] However, Southwell's daughter claimed that her father depicted the chief as standing before another judge, one who championed native rights[citation needed] (notwithstanding Begbie's positive record in that regard).
A 2001 report, commissioned by the New Democrat government of the day, recommended that the murals be relocated to a museum where they could be given historical perspective.[11] However, as the murals are painted on to the walls of the rotunda, the cost of removing them was estimated at $280,000. [12] In April 2007, the legislature voted to remove murals, with only 3 of the 71 members voting against the motion.[13] Since that vote, the murals have been fully restored and hidden from public view behind false walls.
See also[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to British Columbia Parliament Buildings. |
- ^ Vancouver Island First Legislature - Vancouver Island History. Maureenduffus.com. Retrieved on 2013-07-12.
- ^ Victoria Engravings. Web.uvic.ca. Retrieved on 2014-04-12.
- ^ [1] Archived April 15, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Image of the Birdcages from BC Archives
- ^ Attractions in Victoria, BC
- ^ Natural Landscape Stones
- ^ British Columbia Archives: Chronology of Principal Royal Visits to British Columbia
- ^ Natural Landscape Stones - Bedrock Granite Sales, Andesite, Basalt, Rhyolite, Sandstone - Vancouver, BC, Canada
- ^ Segger, Martin, ed. The British Columbia Parliament Buildings, Arcon, Vancouver, 1979, pp. 66–67
- ^ Matas, Robert (2007-04-24). "Murals of bare-breasted natives to come down". Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2008-04-27.
- ^ Peter Seixas and Penney Clark, "Obsolete Icons and the Teaching of History," New Possibilities for the Past: Shaping History Education in Canada, ed. Penney Clark (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011), 284.
- ^ "B.C. legislature murals coming down". CBC News. 2007-04-25. Retrieved 2008-04-27.
- ^ murals in the legislature
Coordinates: 48°25′11″N 123°22′13″W / 48.41963°N 123.37026°W


text:
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6th September 2003, 02:53 PM | #1 |
diyAudio Member
25W almost finished
I'm almost finished with my amp now. I should put the headphone amp in the case to, then I'm finished.
What I wonder is: Should I use the transformer i use to the 25W Amp (18-0-18 before rectifie) and regulate the power to headphone-amp(-+ 5-15 V) withex:lm7812 & lm7912 or should i use a seperate PS to the headphone ?
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" |
6th September 2003, 03:49 PM | #2 |
diyAudio Member
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Brantford, ON
I would leave the headphone amp separate to avoid crosstalk in the enclosure especially if its compact
6th September 2003, 04:24 PM | #3 |
diyAudio Member
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Left Coast
If the headpone amp is based on high performance opamp(s) or another Self based design, the curcuit itself should be pretty much resistant to cross talk via the PS. I would take care that that amp input signal wiring and both in and out signal wiring for the headphone amp be shielded.
Using the same transformer makes sense with the following provisos. I've read that to get good results the power rails should be at least 3V higher than the regulator output. The next ios unlikely to be an issue but . . . . Are you going to use the headphones and power amp at the same time? If so, be sure the VA rating is just a smidgen greater than needed. Not much headphones don't draw that much current, just be sure you aren't already "at the edge". |
6th September 2003, 04:30 PM | #4 |
diyAudio Member
I will go with sam9
Use the sam transformer with seperate bridge and caps for each amp. No need to make space for yet another toroid/transformer.
Free Schematic and Service Manual downloads www.audio-circuit.dk, Spare time company (just for fun): www.dupont-audio.com |
6th September 2003, 05:33 PM | #5 |
diyAudio Member
Thanks for the answer/reply
I go for the same transformer for both amp's. Joe Dirt:No it's not compact. the case is width=19" and height=2UH deep=10". Lot of space Sam9: The headphone amp is based on OPA2134, and it's not my design. I think people call it "cmoy" And no, i dont use the headphone and amp at the same time. I gonna put a switch to select speaker/headphone
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" |
6th September 2003, 11:26 PM | #6 |
diyAudio Member
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Left Coast
The OPA134 has pretty good power supply rejection. So long off PCB wiring keep input signals away from the power supply and other signal sources you are not likely to have a problem.
8th September 2003, 02:57 PM | #7 |
diyAudio Member
Joe Dirt:
Here's a picture of the amp inside. I draw a line where i want to put the headphone-amp. As you can see there is lot of space in the case.
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" |
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I have a real love of food which includes poring over cookbooks, shopping for ingredients (I refer to my local Sainsbury's as The Temple), preparing meals, and eating. My love of food, however, does not extend to washing the dishes. I sometimes think it would be fun to run a Bed & Breakfast that serves delicious and unusual food to its appreciative, wealthy, and generous guests. Maybe that would spoil my enjoyment? For now, I remain satisfied cooking at home and welcome the opportunity to share with visiting friends and family.
Our Valentine's Day meal, 2001... |
...complete with heart-shaped, rosemary bread |
Nick about to "tuck in" |
I have included some of my current favourite recipes for you to try at home. In order for you to fully recreate the George Experience, you should light some candles, put on a Sondheim CD, pour a glass of wine, and...what's that smell? Aaaagh! I forgot to take the pine nuts out of the oven! THEY'RE RUINED!
German Chocolate Cake
Roasted Peppers with Goat's Cheese


text:
Acts of Kindness: Diane 'Lady Di' Boles
LAS VEGAS - Diane Boles knows how to connect with teenagers at a time when many of their own parents can't.
"Peer pressure, running away from home, drugs, getting with the wrong crowd, I'm trying to teach them how to stay in school to better themselves," she said.
It's not something easily learned. Boles, whom the teens call "Lady Di", was raised in many foster homes in Reno. Fortunately, she had a wonderful mentor. When Boles moved to Las Vegas in 1986, she wanted to help young girls like her.
She created a safe place for girls between the ages of eight and 17 to meet.
"It's important to me, 'cause some girls have same problems at home or in life," said Mikayla Pittman.
Once a week for the entire school year, the girls come to a west Las Vegas home, where Lady Di shows them how to properly keep a bedroom organized. She also provides computers, so they can do research for school.
The computers were donated, but Lady Di foots the bill on everything else, including the building. She lives down the road, but rents the home specifically for the program.
"This is the greatest, because girls don't have this type of stuff at home," said Boles.
Girls are also taught how to set a simple dinner table, where they can also feel comfortable expressing their feelings.
Tamar Russell has been coming to Lady Di's course since she was eight years old. Now 17 years old, she's passing on her message.
"Peer pressure has a lot more to do with how you feel about yourself than how others persuade you," she said. "I think it's very important to continue your education. No matter how hard you have it at home, it's only a point in time, a season in time. It's not going to be like that for the rest of your life."
"Might be one or two, as they grow up, and they might want to do the same thing I'm doing," Boles said. "That's the key, giving back."
"Lady Di is such an awesome person. On behalf of family and friends, she's always putting others before herself," said Yolanda Bennett.
8 News NOW is rewarding Lady Di, awarding her $800 as part of its weekly series Acts of Kindness.
If you wish to nominate someone for Acts of Kindness, visit our website or e-mail us.
More Stories
Three people were arrested for being connected to the human sex…
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Homicide detectives are investigating a stabbing related homicide,…


text:
A tree grows on Beaudry: echos of the creeks of Echo Park
October 6, 2009 § 50 Comments
Bicycling down 2nd Street one day, this arroyo willow caught my eye. Located in a vacant lot at 2nd and Beaudry, the willow has taken root in the path of the former Arroyo de los Reyes.
I wrote about Arroyo de los Reyes over a year ago, with promises of telling more -as the creek's origins are in Echo Park. As you can see, I am slow but faithful in my follow up. To be truthful, posts at Chicken Corner on LA Observed about Echo Park's creeks and the lake also nudged me considerably.
Arroyo de los Reyes originates near the Catholic school on Glendale Boulevard – right by the 2 offramp. It flowed southward, along Glendale Boulevard, occupied the area now taken by Echo Park lake, and continued down 2nd Street, crossing through downtown LA, about a block or two south of Pershing Square, where it spread and created a big muddy mess. These flows eventually connected with the Los Angeles River, when they didn't seep into the ground first.
There are historical photographs on the wall at Masa – look closely and you can see a dry wash along Glendale Boulevard (north of Sunset) – that's the one actual photograph of the creek that I've seen. Not clear, and most likely highly altered from its original state – other maps indicate a perennial stream. There it just looks like a big sandy mess.
Fellow creekfreak and mega-cyclist Ron Milam forwarded me this quote, about the creek, which he found at an exhibit at the LA Public Library. The quote is by Leo Politi, one of Echo Park's famed writers, recalling a friend's reminiscence:
He told me of his boyhood and how he learned to swim in a pond at Second and Beaudry streets. It was a natural pond formed by a brook that ran down from the Echo Park reservoir. Along this little creek grew cattails and water lilies. Also there were sweet-waterfishes which are still to be found in great quantities in Echo Park lake. He remembers frogs croaking after dark.
Another stream joined Arroyo de los Reyes at Echo Park lake – this drainage came down from Echo Park Avenue. Rumor – and that's all it is still – has it that there are capped springs up the street, possibly at Elysian Heights Elementary School. I've scouted for signs on many a walk up to FIX, and can't confirm anything. But maybe one of you can.
Echo Park Lake was indeed originally a reservoir, formed by a dam, and as noted at Chicken Corner, captured stormwater runoff from the watershed. At one time, even after burying the stream, the groundwater was quite high. A former DWP employee told me that he took borings in Glendale Boulevard, under the Sunset bridge – and hit water at 5′ below the surface! Not surprising, then, that in 1959, Arroyo de los Reyes struck back with a little flooding.
But the dam my have served another purpose early on.
This 1888 Detail Irrigation map shows us many streams in the area – and also ditches/zanjas. See the darker blue lines? Most of those are ditches/zanjas. Rusty red and fainter blue colors are streams. So we see a ditch very clearly, also coming down Glendale Blvd/2nd Street. Last year's Public Library map exhibit included a map that named the ditch coming down alongside the stream: Woolen Mill Ditch. So, conjecture – there was a wool mill, which may have needed a water wheel, which needed a dam…?
I can just imagine the little sheep running all over the hills, there's great photos of them over in Garvanza. Someone's got to shear them, and someone's got to do something with all that wool, yes?
Speaking of those rusty red creeks, pan over to the right of the map, and you'll see that Chavez Ravine and Solano Canyon both had streams (not surprisingly). Another rumor I heard in my time living in Echo Park was that staff at Barlow Respiratory Hospital could hear the flows from a capped spring in a stormdrain flowing through their parking lot – and that subsurface water flows were responsible for their parking lot needed to be fixed up a lot. Which brings to mind that we are poised on the brink of another lost opportunity if the Barlow Hospital is redeveloped as mega-housing on the edge of Elysian Park. Before even the Chavez Ravine debacle, it was bad enough that what was obviously once part of the extensive public common land – Pueblo Lands of Los Angeles (as marked in the map above) had been sold off, developed etc – the bright side at Barlow being that here's a sliver of privatized land that at least served a public good – soon to be turned over to inaccessible private property? Add to that a probable buried creek to be further lost to infrastructure. My only solace will be if the descendents of the dispossessed Chavez Ravine dwellers get first dibs on the housing.
Tagged: 2nd Street, Arroyo de los Reyes, Barlow Respiratory Hospital, Beaudry Avenue, Chavez Ravine, Echo Park Lake, Elysian Park, Glendale Boulevard, Leo Politi, Los Angeles, Pueblo Lands of Los Angeles, Ron Milam, Solano Canyon, William Hammond Hall Detail Irrigation map, Woolen Mill Ditch
§ 50 Responses to A tree grows on Beaudry: echos of the creeks of Echo Park
Joe Linton says:
ay… another beautiful story, Jessica! Thanks! Everyone should come hear you speak this Friday at noon at Farmlab!
Matt says:
This is so exciting. Thank you for helping me to envision a greener Los Angeles.
Under the pavement, the beach!
Er well, the stream! I couldn't resist referencing the situationists.
Joe Linton says:
Great quote, Matt, my friend… don't resist when situationists call!
links for 2009-10-07 says:
[…] A tree grows on Beaudry: echos of the creeks of Echo Park « L.A. Creek Freak (tags: losangeles echopark water history geography mapping) […]
Darrell Kunitomi says:
Many thanks for keeping the memory of what was once here alive. I'm a native Angeleno who fished Echo Park Lake as a boy. Rode the RTD #44 bus on Temple east from where we lived, Commonwealth and Beverly to fish on Saturdays. It was marvelous.
I know the good ol days came with certain attitudes and restrictions of the day. IOW, not all Americans were as free and equal as we would have liked. But there was a fine time after WW II when our city was cleaner, less crowded and safer from random acts of violence. And a kid going to a public school did not have to worry about a classmate carrying heat. I went to public schools in the center of the city, and it was safe.
Back to the ol days, there was good nature in the city — vacant lots with springtime weeds were a playground. Butterflies were all over, flitting through Los Angeles. Crawdads at beautiful Ferndale park, landscaped grounds, no taggings, a wonderland. And a patrolling ranger.
Things change, I know. But it's good to look back. IMHO.
Jessica Hall says:
Thanks for your comment. I am very glad for the civil rights advances we've made, but the incredible violence that we as a city (and nation) take so casually is an infuriating tragedy. And I wonder sometimes about the lack of nature in our lives here – how that affects us. Clearly there are terrible acts of violence in isolated, rural places – so don't want to over-romanticize nature either – but I do believe that in paving our streams, we paved childhood, took away something people often bond around, at a subtle level reduced our sense of commitment to one another and something bigger than ourselves.
That said, even in LA, there is so much opportunity for restoration – if only we can muster the political will to make it happen.
Glenda Cox says:
I, too, grew up in Los Angeles in the 40's and 50's. It was a wonderful place to grow up. You mentioned Ferndale Park. I would like to know where it is or if it is still there. As a kid, I didn't pay attention to where my Dad was driving. It was one of my very favorite places to go and we went there often. When guests from out of town came to visit, we always took them there as one of the great places to visit. I still have pictures of our family in the park. I grew up in the Silverlake area of L.A. My old home is still there.
Jessica Hall says:
There is a Fern Dell near Western and Franklin, that takes you into Griffith Park. There is a pretty stream there, historically spring fed – today, I'm told, augmented with other water.
Darrell Kunitomi says:
Hm, it was the 42 on Temple, and the 44 on Beverly.
Darrell Kunitomi says:
Fight on, gently. Don't lay down, unless it's in front of a developer's 'dozer. Turn the other cheek, when launching a spinning, back-kick to opponent's jaw.
Zen is fine, after your foe calls 911. Kidding.
LA MapNerd says:
Re: The Woolen Mill Ditch
From A History of California and an Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs, Vol. 1, by James Miller Guinn, 1915:
Echo park, containing thirty acres, is another park evolved from the city's refuse lands. In 1868 the city council contracted with the Los Angeles Canal & Reservoir Company, a corporation, with a capital of $200,000, of which George Hansen was president and J. J. Warner, secretary, to construct a system of reservoirs and canals in the northwestern part of the city. The reservoirs were to be filled by water from the river conducted in a canal. A dam, twenty feet high, was built across a canon near the head of the Arroyo de Los Reyes and a ditch following the canon of this arroyo down to Pearl street, now Figueroa, was constructed. This zanja in later years was known as the Woolen Mill ditch.
Los Angeles had an ambition to become a manufacturing city. The water brought down by the ditch could be used for power to propel machinery and for irrigation. The ditch was extended down to the southern part of the city. For this improvement the company was to receive several thousand acres of hill land in the northwest part of the city. In 1873 a woolen mill was built on the line of this ditch near Figueroa and Fifth streets, and for a decade or so manufactured a fair quality of blankets. Then it was turned into an ice factory. Competition froze it out. The Woolen Mill ditch disappeared before the march of improvement and all the city has left for its leagues of land is a pond or reservoir now known as Echo Lake. The other reservoirs that appear on the old maps as reservoirs 1, 2, and 3 were never completed. The land surrounding reservoir No. 4 (Echo Lake) was converted into a park and the land below the dam—about four and one half acres—belonging to the city was converted into a children's playground. Echo Lake is the largest body of water in any of the parks. It is a favorite boating resort and a few deluded fishermen occasionally angle for carp in its turbed waters.
Jessica Hall says:
Wow! Thanks MapNerd! I obviously need to get ahold of this book!
CapnMike says:
I am not sure if B F Coulter of Coulter Dry Goods which was later a department store had it built or if he took it over. There is a photo I have seen (couldn't find it just now). There is info at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~npmelton/lacou.htm
Darrell Kunitomi says:
The cutting of the 101 was the beginning of the end, IMHO. And the loss of the Echo Park Library building, at Temple and blvd. Tennis courts came in. At least the old rec center is refurbed and opened. Now comes the lake's turn.
Last sentence of above, full of snark. He say crap, I say carp, and more.
Darrell Kunitomi says:
To add — just drove past lot in photo on my way into work — sorry to report, but the lot got a going-over, plants are missing.
May they forever return.
Colleen Miyano says:
"They pave paradise & put up a parking lot!" Sad…
David Kimbrough says:
When I was a young fellow attending Elysian Heights Elementary School on the north east corner of Baxter & Valentine was a bottled water company. It was called the Elysian Springs Bottling House (it was the scene of a shocking murder in December of 1904 according the Los Angeles Times). While in room 8 I could see truck coming and going. It was later closed and the land bought by the school. There are now classrooms in that corner. The garage doors, which were on the Baxter Street side, were used in a movie once "Hearts of the West" starting Jeff Bridges which came out in 1975 so it was around at least until then. So there was some sort of well/spring on that site.
Jessica Hall says:
Thank you for this amazing information! A bottling company at Baxter! Wow!
Martin Scott says:
I really appreciate the comments about Elysian Spring Water Co..
I recently found an old 5 gallon bottle with the word "Elysian" molded to it. I have found out some stuff about the company, but not nearly enough. Your share has helped me put a little more of the puzzle together. I found the Company opened sometime in 1878.. But that is all I know other than the killing (1907) and the lawsuits (1930,1934).
Lane Barden says:
Hi Jessica,
So sorry I missed your farmlab talk. keep us posted about your next one. Thanks for your story about the Arroyo de los Reyes. I had no idea. I found in my research on the LAR that road and city workers had dug up riversand downtown and I assumed it was from an extreme River flood. This makes more sense.
BTW, maybe you know this but Leo Politi was also a painter and children's book publisher, winner of two Caldecott awards. His son, Paul Leo Politi wrote Those Oldies But Goodies (Remind Me of You) recorded by Little Caesar in 1961.
over and out,
Lane Barden
Jessica Hall says:
Thanks, Lane, for your comment. I thought Politi was a writer (children's books) but no didn't realize he was also a painter.
Sand in downtown – some may have come from Arroyo de los Reyes, but I've also read accounts of boulders being hit by excavators – about where the LA River was reputed to have crossed over to the Ballona watershed – during those untold number of years when that was its course.
Joe Linton says:
Politi did the illustrations for the children's books – beautiful, and many are recognizable L.A. places. Didn't know about his son, though!
Lane Barden says:
The Los Angeles Central Library did a show of his paintings several years back. I think they have them in their collection. A lot of them were paintings of the sadly ill-fated Victotian Bunker Hill neighborhood (now California Plaza – Yikes!)
LA MapNerd says:
Ooh, I found another bit in Guinn's "History". From the section on Central Park (today's Pershing Square):
—After the conquest of California by the Americans, a portion of the pueblo lands lying between First and Twelfth streets, Main and Grasshopper (now Figueroa) streets, was subdivided into lots and blocks by Lieutenant Ord; Central Park is block 15 of Ord's Survey.
This survey was made in 1849 and a number of the lots fronting on Main, Spring and Fort streets were put on sale. The maximum price for Ord Survey lots, 120×165 feet, in the "days of '49" was $50 each. With the decadence of mining and the decreased demand for cattle— the chief product of the South—the city became a case of arrested development.
Ord's Survey lots on Main, Spring and Fort streets could be bought in the early '60s at the price of ten years before, namely, thirty to fifty cents per front foot. There was no temptation to invest in lots beyond the settled portion of the city; consequently the blocks west of Hill street remained practically intact.
There was another reason why settlers did not locate on lots on Olive and Charity (Grand avenue) streets near the base of the western hills. The Arroyo de Los Reyes, rising in the northwestern part of the city, debouched into the plain at the base of the hill on which the old Normal School stood. It crossed Olive street north of Sixth and cut a corner off the prospective park, then it zigzagged in a deep channel through the blocks between Hill, Olive and Charity streets down to Washington street.
In the spring of the year there was considerable water in it and innumerable frogs nightly held concerts along its reedy brink. As the season advanced, millions of mosquitoes hatched in the stagnant pools of the arroyo of the kings and made night a horror to the dwellers on its banks. These appurtenances to real estate in that locality made it undesirable for first-class residences.
So I guess not everyone wants to live next to a creek. 🙂
[…] By Jessica Hall Thanks to Creekfreak readers who added so much richness of detail to the post, A tree grows on Beaudry. If you are intrigued by Echo Park's former Arroyo de los Reyes, Elysian Springs and Woolen […]
vanessa acuna says:
Thank you much for this great article.
My partner & I recently opened a youth & culture center at 132 S. Beaudry Avenue…We incorporated the willow tree into our logo 🙂
Come by. Would love to meet you!
Vanessa Acuna -
Jessica Hall says:
lovely! Thanks for letting us know, and I hope to drop in to the center sometime!
Daniel says:
Hi there, I just read your article doing some research on Echo Park and this was really helpful!
Tina Mata says:
As always, such a pleasure, I am so grateful for your the passion and time invested in this blog Joe, and for all those who contribute as well.
My grandfather was born and raised in Echo Park arround the turn of the century. The maps , stories and research bring life to our families oral tradition.
Thank you
Mid Wilshire-
Joe Linton says:
Thanks for the kind words, my friend, Tina. The credit for the Echo Park post is all Jessica's!
[…] The story starts with a buried river called the Arroyo de los Reyes, which originates off of Glendale Blvd. near the 2 terminus. It flowed down Glendale, to where Echo Park Lake now is, and into downtown down 2nd Street where it ends up just south of Pershing Square and eventually connecting to the LA River (Source: LA Creek Freak). […]
RC says:
Awesome article!
I'm doing some Historic Echo Park research and I'm wondering if there's a larger version of the detail of the 1888 Irrigation Map pictured above — I've been looking through the LA Engineering vaults as well as the LAPL, and I can't seem to find the right one —
Any help?
Thanks much — !
Jessica Hall says:
Hi RC, the map actually comes from state archives in Sacramento. I have a digital copy, very large file. If you want to email me the area you're looking for I can send you a crop or yousendit.com it to you.
RC says:
Hi Jessica!
Thanks for your reply —
I've been searching through the State Library Archive Online, but have been unable to find the map online.
If you downloaded it and it's available online, I'd be happy to download it myself, otherwise, if you could yousendit to the email address on the post, I'd really appreciate it.
I'd probably go for the whole file if you didn't mind, since whatever was cropped out I'm sure I'd need to see next 🙂
Thanks much!
tina mata says:
Jessica, Joe Linton, Ron Milam, thank you. I have spoken to you of my family being raised in Echo Park and Mid Wilshire near the turn of the century, bathing at the Bimini baths, gathering watercrest from the LA River at dusk for dinner time. My husbands family arrived as migrant farmworks from Mexico and walked this land earlier. We as a couple remain deeply connected to this land. G-d help us to be wise stewards given our education, resourses, assests in people, our access to institutions, our health. Jessica, Joe, Ron, your lives and writings continue to inspire and invite us, chalange us to live and continue to become our best selves. Thank you sister. Thank you brothers.
Tina Mata
David Kimbrough says:
In 1887 an El Niño year brought severe flooding to the Los Angeles. Most of the bridges across the LA River were damaged (except the covered bridge at Macy Street – now César Chávez Blvd.). On Februray 16 of that year the LA Times ran an article about the damage. The story was a north to south review of the various bridges, beginning with Downey Street (now North Spring) down to Santa Fe Depot. The story ends with a paragraph about Reservoir No. 4 (i.e. the future Echo Park Lake). It says…
"President James McLoughlin of the Second-street Cable Road appeared in Council yesterday, and stated there was great fear that Reservoir No. 4 would break and cause great loss of life and asked that the reservoir be kept not more than half full in winter months.
The Zanjero is running water off from Reservoir No.4 as fast as he deems prudent, so that any solicitude as to a break is useless, unless very heavy rains fall. Early this morning he reported that he had lowered the reservoir a foot."
I cannot tell is this story is mountainous mole-hill or represents a real possibility. Today the idea of mighty Echo Park Lake being emptied onto what is now Glendale Blvd. and sending a torrent of flood waters down toward Pearl Street (later Figuroa) seems plain silly. However perhaps things were different then. I do know that Reservoir No. 4 was more than bit larger than is modern Echo Park Lake.
It is a mystery.
Jessica Hall says:
Once again, a fount of amazing enviro-urban history. I don't know either, about the seriousness of a flood risk today. Back then the stream was an open channel; today, a stormdrain follows its path and would likely carry the flood flows.
DarrellKuni says:
Update, depression — 8/11: the lot is asphalted over.
Jessica Hall says:
Very sad to hear that. They'd cut the tree down a while back. Visionless wonders.
tovangar Toutvabien says:
Re Woolen Mill Ditch and BF Coulter-
The following quote is from "Adobe Days" by Sarah Bixby Smith (1929)
"…Mr Coulter had a woolen mill over the hill near the present corner of Figueroa and 5th St….There was a little stream there that was called Los Reyes…"
tovangar Toutvabien says:
PS Ive read that Pershing Sq is where it is because it was always too muddy and so could not be sold as building lots.
The Ord Survey of 1849 shows Los Reyes as it enters downtown. It looks very vigorous
http://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/visual-collections/plan-de-la-ciudad-de-los-angeles-1849?page=1 -
Mike H says:
A photo of BF Coulter's Woolen Mill is at http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p15799coll65/id/1926
He made products for his store, Coulter's Dry Goods (later Coulter's). Broadway Wilshire at Hauser (torn down in the 1980's) was originally Coulter's http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p15799coll65/id/8874
Jonathan Weiss says:
More pictures of and information about Coulter's Woolen Mill and Los Reyes/Woolen Mill Ditch.
Jonathan Weiss says:
More pictures of and information about Coulter's Woolen Mill and Los Reyes/Woolen Mill Ditch. http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?s=9ab3e77af3208d96f70cb1ee3b2348f1&p=7245387&postcount=32213
tovangar Toutvabien says:
1876 photo of BF Coulter's Woolen Mill:
http://lit250v.library.ucla.edu/islandora/object/laviews%3A142Series of three pix of the mill:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=7244340&postcount=32195This zoomable 1877 birdseye map of LA shows the mill:
http://www.loc.gov/resource/g4364l.pm000260/1875 plat map of the mill. Mill Street ran behind it, parallel to and west of Figueroa:
http://hdl.huntington.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15150coll4/id/12985/rec/11BTW, Figueroa was Grasshopper Street from 1849 (when it was platted) until 1874, when it was changed to "Pearl". It was changed to "Figueroa in 1896.
tovangar Toutvabien says:
Short, but interesting, item about the woolen mill is here:
https://archive.org/stream/historyoflosange00wils#page/128/mode/2up/search/%22bernard+bros%221886, or later, photo of the woolen mill ditch leading away from the mill (a corner of the mill is on the extreme center-right margin). The ditch was piped under both Pearl/Figueroa and Flower St.
Camera is looking SW.William Henry Fletcher was the photographer:
tovangar Toutvabien says:
Another photo of Los Reyes. Looking north at the Crown Hills west of Bunker Hill (right). I think the mill is out of shot to the SE:


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3/03/2007 5:14pm, #21--
I am going to attempt to use my maxed out credit card to order it online
I am praying to the visa gods
Or I might go to my in laws house
3/03/2007 5:19pm, #22--
got lil sick coming back from vegas, probably the temp change, and lack of nutrition from the trip
but hopefully, i'll be back in the swing of things by next week and throw myself back into all the training i've set myself up for
so I'll see u tuesday brotha
3/03/2007 5:35pm, #23--
I did 2 1/2 hours of BJJ there today RARRARAA you better watch out.
My farking jaw hurts. I am not enitrly sure how one hurts their jaw in BJJ
3/03/2007 5:40pm, #24--
some elbow roughage to your jaw to open up ur neck maybe?
caught in a gullitine that u tried to hard to pull out of maybe?
RNC with some compression of your jaw?
forced into compremising positions to perform felatio?
u recall any of these 'symptoms"? =)
3/03/2007 5:43pm, #25--
I don't know I think my bones are made out of paper mache
3/03/2007 6:09pm, #26
- Join Date
- Oct 2006
- Location
- Colonie, New York
- Posts
- 393
- Style
- Wrestling and Boxing
--Honestly, I don't think there's any way Coture can win. He's too old, and Silvia has almost every advantage over him. Either way, just about all the fights will be snore fests.
3/03/2007 6:41pm, #27--
i'm calling kampmann vs mcfedries as fight of the night!
other than the main event being a possible snooze fest....i don't see franklins fight to be a bore....hopefully
the hughes fight, i hope he shows off his old self in dominating lytle....as much as i an a fan lytle, he won't be able to withstand the GnP from hughes
If you have low expectations, the show will most likely be more entertaining for u anyway, so its a good thing
3/04/2007 12:48am, #28--
"No. Listen to me because I know what I'm talking about here." -- Hannibal
3/04/2007 12:52am, #29--
save it for a spoiler thread.
And lo, Kano looked down upon the field and saw the multitudes. Amongst them were the disciples of Uesheba who were greatly vexed at his sayings. And Kano spake: "Do not be concerned with the mote in thy neighbor's eye, when verily thou hast a massive stick in thine ass".
--Scrolls of Bujutsu: Chapter 5 vs 10-14.


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