Kaiso

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kaiso is a type of music popular in Trinidad, which originated in West Africa, and later evolved into Calypso. Kaiso songs are generally narrative in form and often have a cleverly concealed political subtext. Kaiso performers are known as Kaisonians. 　

The term kaiso is said to derive from a Hausa word used as an exclamation of approval, such as "Bravo!" [1] The word is often used synonymously with calypso today, but often with the connotation that the former is more authentic, showing approval consistent with its original meaning.

On Barbados, kaiso refers to a form of stage presented calypso, such as at the crop over festival.

Kaiso also relates to a gene discovered and named by Dr. Juliet M. Daniel (currently an Associate Professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) during her postdoctoral tenure with Dr. Albert B. Reynolds at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Kaiso is a unique member of the BTB-POZ family of zinc finger transcription factors with established roles in development and cancer-related processes. Although the impact of Kaiso on these processes in mammalian cells is unclear, various reports suggest Kaiso critically regulates the development of Xenopus laevis (African clawed frog). Currently, various labs worldwide are investigating the role of Kaiso in mammalian cells, and some effort is directed toward designing Kaiso-specific cancer therapeutics.

[edit] References

Daniel JM, Reynolds AB. The catenin p120(ctn) interacts with Kaiso, a novel BTB/POZ domain zinc finger transcription factor. Mol Cell Biol. 1999 May;19(5):3614-23.

Kelly KF, Daniel JM. POZ for effect--POZ-ZF transcription factors in cancer and development. Trends Cell Biol. 2006 Nov;16(11):578-87.

Kim SW, Park JI, Spring CM, Sater AK, Ji H, Otchere AA, Daniel JM, McCrea PD. Non-canonical Wnt signals are modulated by the Kaiso transcriptional repressor and p120-catenin. Nat Cell Biol. 2004 Dec;6(12):1212-20.

Millington, J. (1999). “Barbados”, Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Vol. 2. Routledge, pp 813 - 821. ISBN 0-8153-1865-0.

Ruzov A, Dunican DS, Prokhortchouk A, Pennings S, Stancheva I, Prokhortchouk E, Meehan RR. Kaiso is a genome-wide repressor of transcription that is essential for amphibian development. Development. 2004 Dec;131(24):6185-94.

van Roy FM, McCrea PD. A role for Kaiso-p120ctn complexes in cancer? Nat Rev Cancer. 2005 Dec;5(12):956-64.