A Medley of Potpourri

Friday, February 21, 2025

Knockout mouse

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knockout_mouse

A knockout mouse, or knock-out mouse, is a genetically modified mouse (Mus musculus) in which researchers have inactivated, or "knocked out", an existing gene by replacing it or disrupting it with an artificial piece of DNA. They are important animal models for studying the role of genes which have been sequenced but whose functions have not been determined. By causing a specific gene to be inactive in the mouse, and observing any differences from normal behaviour or physiology, researchers can infer its probable function.

Mice are currently the laboratory animal species most closely related to humans for which the knockout technique can easily be applied. They are widely used in knockout experiments, especially those investigating genetic questions that relate to human physiology. Gene knockout in rats is much harder and has only been possible since 2003.

The first recorded knockout mouse was created by Mario R. Capecchi, Martin Evans, and Oliver Smithies in 1989, for which they were awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Aspects of the technology for generating knockout mice, and the mice themselves have been patented in many countries by private companies.

Use

Knocking out the activity of a gene provides information about what that gene normally does. Humans share many genes with mice. Consequently, observing the characteristics of knockout mice gives researchers information that can be used to better understand how a similar gene may cause or contribute to disease in humans.

Examples of research in which knockout mice have been useful include studying and modeling different kinds of cancer, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, substance abuse, anxiety, aging and Parkinson's disease. Knockout mice also offer a biological and scientific context in which drugs and other therapies can be developed and tested.

Millions of knockout mice are used in experiments each year.

Strains

A knockout mouse (left) that is a model for obesity, compared with a normal mouse

There are several thousand different strains of knockout mice. Many mouse models are named after the gene that has been inactivated. For example, the p53 knockout mouse is named after the p53 gene which codes for a protein that normally suppresses the growth of tumours by arresting cell division and/or inducing apoptosis. Humans born with mutations that deactivate the p53 gene have Li-Fraumeni syndrome, a condition that dramatically increases the risk of developing bone cancers, breast cancer and blood cancers at an early age. Other mouse models are named according to their physical characteristics or behaviours.

Procedure

There are several variations to the procedure of producing knockout mice; the following is a typical example.

The gene to be knocked out is isolated from a mouse gene library. Then a new DNA sequence is engineered which is very similar to the original gene and its immediate neighbour sequence, except that it is changed sufficiently to make the gene inoperable. Usually, the new sequence is also given a marker gene, a gene that normal mice don't have and that confers resistance to a certain toxic agent (e.g., neomycin) or that produces an observable change (e.g. colour or fluorescence). In addition, a second gene, such as herpes tk+, is also included in the construct in order to accomplish a complete selection.
Embryonic stem cells are isolated from a mouse blastocyst (a very young embryo) and grown in vitro. For this example, we will take stem cells from a white mouse.
The new sequence from step 1 is introduced into the stem cells from step 2 by electroporation. By the natural process of homologous recombination some of the electroporated stem cells will incorporate the new sequence with the knocked-out gene into their chromosomes in place of the original gene. The chances of a successful recombination event are relatively low, so the majority of altered cells will have the new sequence in only one of the two relevant chromosomes – they are said to be heterozygous. Cells that were transformed with a vector containing the neomycin resistance gene and the herpes tk+ gene are grown in a solution containing neomycin and Ganciclovir in order to select for the transformations that occurred via homologous recombination. Any insertion of DNA that occurred via random insertion will die because they test positive for both the neomycin resistance gene and the herpes tk+ gene, whose gene product reacts with Ganciclovir to produce a deadly toxin. Moreover, cells that do not integrate any of the genetic material test negative for both genes and therefore die as a result of poisoning with neomycin.
The embryonic stem cells that incorporated the knocked-out gene are isolated from the unaltered cells using the marker gene from step 1. For example, the unaltered cells can be killed using a toxic agent to which the altered cells are resistant.
The knocked-out embryonic stem cells from step 4 are inserted into a mouse blastocyst. For this example, we use blastocysts from a grey mouse. The blastocysts now contain two types of stem cells: the original ones (from the grey mouse), and the knocked-out cells (from the white mouse). These blastocysts are then implanted into the uterus of female mice, where they develop. The newborn mice will therefore be chimeras: some parts of their bodies result from the original stem cells, other parts from the knocked-out stem cells. Their fur will show patches of white and grey, with white patches derived from the knocked-out stem cells and grey patches from the recipient blastocyst.
Some of the newborn chimera mice will have gonads derived from knocked-out stem cells, and will therefore produce eggs or sperm containing the knocked-out gene. When these chimera mice are crossbred with others of the wild type, some of their offspring will have one copy of the knocked-out gene in all their cells. These mice do not retain any grey mouse DNA and are not chimeras, however they are still heterozygous.
When these heterozygous offspring are interbred, some of their offspring will inherit the knocked-out gene from both parents; they carry no functional copy of the original unaltered gene (i.e. they are homozygous for that allele).

A detailed explanation of how knockout (KO) mice are created is located at the website of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2007.

Limitations

The National Institutes of Health discusses some important limitations of this technique.

While knockout mouse technology represents a valuable research tool, some important limitations exist. About 15 percent of gene knockouts are developmentally lethal, which means that the genetically altered embryos cannot grow into adult mice. This problem is often overcome through the use of conditional mutations. The lack of adult mice limits studies to embryonic development and often makes it more difficult to determine a gene's function in relation to human health. In some instances, the gene may serve a different function in adults than in developing embryos.

Knocking out a gene also may fail to produce an observable change in a mouse or may even produce different characteristics from those observed in humans in which the same gene is inactivated. For example, mutations in the p53 gene are associated with more than half of human cancers and often lead to tumours in a particular set of tissues. However, when the p53 gene is knocked out in mice, the animals develop tumours in a different array of tissues.

There is variability in the whole procedure depending largely on the strain from which the stem cells have been derived. Generally cells derived from strain 129 are used. This specific strain is not suitable for many experiments (e.g., behavioural), so it is very common to backcross the offspring to other strains. Some genomic loci have been proven very difficult to knock out. Reasons might be the presence of repetitive sequences, extensive DNA methylation, or heterochromatin. The confounding presence of neighbouring 129 genes on the knockout segment of genetic material has been dubbed the "flanking-gene effect". Methods and guidelines to deal with this problem have been proposed.

Another limitation is that conventional (i.e. non-conditional) knockout mice develop in the absence of the gene being investigated. At times, loss of activity during development may mask the role of the gene in the adult state, especially if the gene is involved in numerous processes spanning development. Conditional/inducible mutation approaches are then required that first allow the mouse to develop and mature normally prior to ablation of the gene of interest.

Another serious limitation is a lack of evolutive adaptations in knockout model that might occur in wild type animals after they naturally mutate. For instance, erythrocyte-specific coexpression of GLUT1 with stomatin constitutes a compensatory mechanism in mammals that are unable to synthesize vitamin C.

Asymmetry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Asymmetry is the absence of, or a violation of, symmetry (the property of an object being invariant to a transformation, such as reflection). Symmetry is an important property of both physical and abstract systems and it may be displayed in precise terms or in more aesthetic terms. The absence of or violation of symmetry that are either expected or desired can have important consequences for a system.

In organisms

Due to how cells divide in organisms, asymmetry in organisms is fairly usual in at least one dimension, with biological symmetry also being common in at least one dimension.

Louis Pasteur proposed that biological molecules are asymmetric because the cosmic [i.e. physical] forces that preside over their formation are themselves asymmetric. While at his time, and even now, the symmetry of physical processes are highlighted, it is known that there are fundamental physical asymmetries, starting with time.

Asymmetry in biology

Asymmetry is an important and widespread trait, having evolved numerous times in many organisms and at many levels of organisation (ranging from individual cells, through organs, to entire body-shapes). Benefits of asymmetry sometimes have to do with improved spatial arrangements, such as the left human lung being smaller, and having one fewer lobes than the right lung to make room for the asymmetrical heart. In other examples, division of function between the right and left half may have been beneficial and has driven the asymmetry to become stronger. Such an explanation is usually given for mammal hand or paw preference (handedness), an asymmetry in skill development in mammals. Training the neural pathways in a skill with one hand (or paw) may take less effort than doing the same with both hands.

Nature also provides several examples of handedness in traits that are usually symmetric. The following are examples of animals with obvious left-right asymmetries:

Most snails, because of torsion during development, show remarkable asymmetry in the shell and in the internal organs.
Male fiddler crabs have one big claw and one small claw.
The narwhal's tusk is a left incisor which can grow up to 10 feet in length and forms a left-handed helix.
Flatfish have evolved to swim with one side upward, and as a result have both eyes on one side of their heads.
Several species of owls exhibit asymmetries in the size and positioning of their ears, which is thought to help locate prey.
Many animals (ranging from insects to mammals) have asymmetric male genitalia. The evolutionary cause behind this is, in most cases, still a mystery.

As an indicator of unfitness

Certain disturbances during the development of the organism, resulting in birth defects.
Injuries after cell division that cannot be biologically repaired, such as a lost limb from an accident.

Since birth defects and injuries are likely to indicate poor health of the organism, defects resulting in asymmetry often put an animal at a disadvantage when it comes to finding a mate. For example, a greater degree of facial symmetry is seen as more attractive in humans, especially in the context of mate selection. In general, there is a correlation between symmetry and fitness-related traits such as growth rate, fecundity and survivability for many species. This means that, through sexual selection, individuals with greater symmetry (and therefore fitness) tend to be preferred as mates, as they are more likely to produce healthy offspring.

In structures

Pre-modern architectural styles tended to place an emphasis on symmetry, except where extreme site conditions or historical developments lead away from this classical ideal. To the contrary, modernist and postmodern architects became much more free to use asymmetry as a design element.

While most bridges employ a symmetrical form due to intrinsic simplicities of design, analysis and fabrication and economical use of materials, a number of modern bridges have deliberately departed from this, either in response to site-specific considerations or to create a dramatic design statement.

Some asymmetrical structures

Eastern span replacement of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge
Puente de la Mujer
Auditorio de Tenerife
Blohm & Voss BV 141 aircraft
A proa, a form of outrigger canoe

In fire protection

In fire-resistance rated wall assemblies, used in passive fire protection, including, but not limited to, high-voltage transformer fire barriers, asymmetry is a crucial aspect of design. When designing a facility, it is not always certain, that in the event of fire, which side a fire may come from. Therefore, many building codes and fire test standards outline, that a symmetrical assembly, need only be tested from one side, because both sides are the same. However, as soon as an assembly is asymmetrical, both sides must be tested and the test report is required to state the results for each side. In practical use, the lowest result achieved is the one that turns up in certification listings. Neither the test sponsor, nor the laboratory can go by an opinion or deduction as to which side was in more peril as a result of contemplated testing and then test only one side. Both must be tested in order to be compliant with test standards and building codes.

In mathematics

In mathematics, asymmetry can arise in various ways. Examples include asymmetric relations, asymmetry of shapes in geometry, asymmetric graphs et cetera.

Lines of symmetry

When determining whether an object is asymmetrical, look for lines of symmetry. For instance, a square has four lines of symmetry, while a circle has infinite. If a shape has no lines of symmetry, then it is asymmetrical, but if an object has any lines of symmetry, it is symmetrical.

Asymmetric Relation

An asymmetric relation is a binary relation $R$ defined on a set of elements such that if $a R b$ holds for elements $a$ and $b$ , then $b R a$ must be false. Stated differently, an asymmetric relation is characterized by a necessary absence of symmetry of the relation in the opposite direction.

Inequalities exemplify asymmetric relations. Consider elements $a$ and $b$ . If $a$ is less than $b$ ( $a < b$ ), then $a$ cannot be greater than $b$ ( $a ≯ b$ ). This highlights how the relations "less than", and similarly "greater than", are not symmetric.

In contrast, if $a$ is equal to $b$ ( $a = b$ ), then $b$ is also equal to $a$ ( $b = a$ ). Thus the binary relation "equal to" is a symmetric one.

Asymmetric Tensors

In general an Asymmetric tensor is defined by the change of signs $(- / +)$ of its solution under the interchange of two indexes.

The Epsilon-tensor is an example of an asymmetric tensor. It is defined as: $ϵ_{i j k} = {\begin{cases} 1 & if (i, j, k) \in {(123), (231), (312)} \\ - 1 & if (i, j, k) \in {(213), (321), (132)} \\ 0 & else \end{cases}$

,with $i, j, k \in {1, 2, 3}$ . For even or uneven permutations of the indexes the tensor is either 1 or -1.

In chemistry

Certain molecules are chiral; that is, they cannot be superposed upon their mirror image. Chemically identical molecules with different chirality are called enantiomers; this difference in orientation can lead to different properties in the way they react with biological systems.

In physics

Asymmetry arises in physics in a number of different realms.

Thermodynamics

The original non-statistical formulation of thermodynamics was asymmetrical in time: it claimed that the entropy in a closed system can only increase with time. This was derived from the Second Law (either of the two, Clausius' or Lord Kelvin's statement, can be used since they are equivalent) and using the Clausius' Theorem (see Kerson Huang ISBN 978-0471815181). The later theory of statistical mechanics, however, is symmetric in time. Although it states that a system significantly below maximum entropy is very likely to evolve towards higher entropy, it also states that such a system is very likely to have evolved from higher entropy.

Particle physics

Symmetry is one of the most powerful tools in particle physics, because it has become evident that practically all laws of nature originate in symmetries. Violations of symmetry therefore present theoretical and experimental puzzles that lead to a deeper understanding of nature. Asymmetries in experimental measurements also provide powerful handles that are often relatively free from background or systematic uncertainties.

Parity violation

Until the 1950s, it was believed that fundamental physics was left-right symmetric; i.e., that interactions were invariant under parity. Although parity is conserved in electromagnetism, strong interactions and gravity, it turns out to be violated in weak interactions. The Standard Model incorporates parity violation by expressing the weak interaction as a chiral gauge interaction. Only the left-handed components of particles and right-handed components of antiparticles participate in weak interactions in the Standard Model. A consequence of parity violation in particle physics is that neutrinos have only been observed as left-handed particles (and antineutrinos as right-handed particles).

In 1956–1957 Chien-Shiung Wu, E. Ambler, R. W. Hayward, D. D. Hoppes, and R. P. Hudson found a clear violation of parity conservation in the beta decay of cobalt-60. Simultaneously, R. L. Garwin, Leon Lederman, and R. Weinrich modified an existing cyclotron experiment and immediately verified parity violation.

CP violation

After the discovery of the violation of parity in 1956–57, it was believed that the combined symmetry of parity (P) and simultaneous charge conjugation (C), called CP, was preserved. For example, CP transforms a left-handed neutrino into a right-handed antineutrino. In 1964, however, James Cronin and Val Fitch provided clear evidence that CP symmetry was also violated in an experiment with neutral kaons.

CP violation is one of the necessary conditions for the generation of a baryon asymmetry in the early universe.

Combining the CP symmetry with simultaneous time reversal (T) produces a combined symmetry called CPT symmetry. CPT symmetry must be preserved in any Lorentz invariant local quantum field theory with a Hermitian Hamiltonian. As of 2006, no violations of CPT symmetry have been observed.

Baryon asymmetry of the universe

The baryons (i.e., the protons and neutrons and the atoms that they comprise) observed so far in the universe are overwhelmingly matter as opposed to anti-matter. This asymmetry is called the baryon asymmetry of the universe.

Isospin violation

Isospin is the symmetry transformation of the weak interactions. The concept was first introduced by Werner Heisenberg in nuclear physics based on the observations that the masses of the neutron and the proton are almost identical and that the strength of the strong interaction between any pair of nucleons is the same, independent of whether they are protons or neutrons. This symmetry arises at a more fundamental level as a symmetry between up-type and down-type quarks. Isospin symmetry in the strong interactions can be considered as a subset of a larger flavor symmetry group, in which the strong interactions are invariant under interchange of different types of quarks. Including the strange quark in this scheme gives rise to the Eightfold Way scheme for classifying mesons and baryons.

Isospin is violated by the fact that the masses of the up and down quarks are different, as well as by their different electric charges. Because this violation is only a small effect in most processes that involve the strong interactions, isospin symmetry remains a useful calculational tool, and its violation introduces corrections to the isospin-symmetric results.

In collider experiments

Because the weak interactions violate parity, collider processes that can involve the weak interactions typically exhibit asymmetries in the distributions of the final-state particles. These asymmetries are typically sensitive to the difference in the interaction between particles and antiparticles, or between left-handed and right-handed particles. They can thus be used as a sensitive measurement of differences in interaction strength and/or to distinguish a small asymmetric signal from a large but symmetric background.

A forward-backward asymmetry is defined as A_FB=(N_F-N_B)/(N_F+N_B), where N_F is the number of events in which some particular final-state particle is moving "forward" with respect to some chosen direction (e.g., a final-state electron moving in the same direction as the initial-state electron beam in electron-positron collisions), while N_B is the number of events with the final-state particle moving "backward". Forward-backward asymmetries were used by the LEP experiments to measure the difference in the interaction strength of the Z boson between left-handed and right-handed fermions, which provides a precision measurement of the weak mixing angle.
A left-right asymmetry is defined as A_LR=(N_L-N_R)/(N_L+N_R), where N_L is the number of events in which some initial- or final-state particle is left-polarized, while N_R is the corresponding number of right-polarized events. Left-right asymmetries in Z boson production and decay were measured at the Stanford Linear Collider using the event rates obtained with left-polarized versus right-polarized initial electron beams. Left-right asymmetries can also be defined as asymmetries in the polarization of final-state particles whose polarizations can be measured; e.g., tau leptons.
A charge asymmetry or particle-antiparticle asymmetry is defined in a similar way. This type of asymmetry has been used to constrain the parton distribution functions of protons at the Tevatron from events in which a produced W boson decays to a charged lepton. The asymmetry between positively and negatively charged leptons as a function of the direction of the W boson relative to the proton beam provides information on the relative distributions of up and down quarks in the proton. Particle-antiparticle asymmetries are also used to extract measurements of CP violation from B meson and anti-B meson production at the BaBar and Belle experiments.

Thursday, February 20, 2025

Anti-English sentiment

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-English_sentiment

Anti-English sentiment, also known as Anglophobia (from Latin Anglus "English" and Greek φόβος, phobos, "fear"), refers to opposition, dislike, fear, hatred, oppression, persecution, and discrimination of English people and/or England. It can be observed in various contexts within the United Kingdom and in countries outside of it. In the UK, Benjamin Disraeli and George Orwell highlighted anti-English sentiments among Welsh, Irish, and Scottish nationalisms. In Scotland, Anglophobia is influenced by Scottish identity. Football matches and tournaments often see manifestations of anti-English sentiment, including assaults and attacks on English individuals. In Wales, historical factors such as English language imposition and cultural suppression have contributed to anti-English sentiment. In Northern Ireland, anti-English sentiment, arising from complex historical and political dynamics, was exemplified in the IRA's targeting of England during the Troubles.

Outside the UK, anti-English sentiment exists in countries like Australia, New Zealand, France, Ireland, Russia, India, the United States, and Argentina. In Australia and New Zealand, stereotypes of English immigrants as complainers have fueled such sentiment. France has historical conflicts with England, like the Hundred Years' War, contributing to animosity. In Ireland and, to a lesser extent, the United States, anti-English sentiment is rooted in Irish nationalism and hostility towards the Anglo-Irish community. Russia has seen waves of Anglophobia due to historical events and suspicions of British meddling. Argentina's anti-British sentiment is linked to the Falklands War and perceptions of British imperialism.

Generally, the term is sometimes used more loosely as a synonym for anti-British sentiment. Its opposite is Anglophilia.

Within the United Kingdom

British statesman and Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said that the proud English were sprung from "a horde of Baltic pirates who were never heard of in the greater annals of the world." In his essay "Notes on Nationalism", written in May 1945 and published in the first issue of the intellectual magazine Polemic (October 1945), George Orwell wrote that "Welsh, Irish and Scottish nationalism have points of difference but are alike in their anti-English orientation".

Scotland

A 2005 study by Hussain and Millar of the Department of Politics at the University of Glasgow examined the prevalence of Anglophobia in relation to Islamophobia in Scotland. One finding of the report suggested that national "phobias" have common roots independent of the nations they are directed towards. The study states that

Scottish identity comes close to rivalling low levels of education as an influence towards Anglophobia. Beyond that, having an English friend reduces Anglophobia by about as much as having a Muslim friend reduces Islamophobia. And lack of knowledge about Islam probably indicates a broader rejection of the 'other', for it has as much impact on Anglophobia as on Islamophobia.

The study goes on to say (of the English living in Scotland): "Few of the English (only 16 per cent) see the conflict between Scots and English as even 'fairly serious'." Hussain and Millar's study found that Anglophobia was slightly less prevalent than Islamophobia but that, unlike Islamophobia, Anglophobia correlated with a strong sense of Scottish identity.

In 1999, an inspector and race relations officer with Lothian and Borders Police said that a correlation had been noticed between the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and anti-English incidents. Hussain and Millar's research suggested that Anglophobia had fallen slightly since the introduction of devolution.

In 2009, a woman originally from England was assaulted in an allegedly anti-English racially motivated attack. Similar cases have been connected with football matches and tournaments, particularly international tournaments where the English and Scottish football teams often compete with each other. A spate of anti-English attacks occurred in 2006 during the FIFA World Cup. In one incident a 7-year-old boy wearing an England shirt was punched in the head in an Edinburgh park.

In 1998, 19 year-old apprentice mechanic Mark Ayton was punched to the ground and kicked to death by three youths. The father of the victim explicitly cited Ayton's English accent as a contributing factor in the attack. Court proceedings recorded the fact that the attackers were singing 'Flower of Scotland' which includes the lines 'And sent them homeward, Tae think again'; an allusion about ridding Scotland of the English, immediately prior to the attack. The attackers served less than a year in prison for the killing.

In 2017, former Scottish Journalist of the Year Kevin McKenna penned an article in The National labelling English people living in Scotland as 'colonising wankers'.

In 2020, groups of Scottish nationalists picketed the English border, airports and railway stations sporting hazmat suits and dogs intent on stopping English people from crossing the England-Scotland border. The Scottish Secretary Alistair Jack accused Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon of having incited the incident by inaccurately using Covid statistics to stoke anti-English sentiment.

Wales

The Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542, also known as the "Acts of Union", passed by the Parliament of England, annexed Wales to the Kingdom of England and replaced the Welsh language and Welsh law with the English language and English law. Section 20 of the 1535 Act made English the only language of the law courts and stated that those who used Welsh would not be appointed to any public office in Wales. The Welsh language was supplanted in many public spheres with the use of the Welsh Not in some schools. The Not, the use of which was never government policy, was later described as a symbol of English cultural oppression.

Since the Glyndŵr Rising of the early 15th century, Welsh nationalism has been primarily non-violent. The Welsh militant group Meibion Glyndŵr (English: Sons of [Owain] Glyndŵr) were responsible for arson attacks on English-owned second homes in Wales from 1979 to 1994, motivated by cultural anti-English sentiment. Meibion Glyndŵr also attempted arson against several estate agents in Wales and England and against the offices of the Conservative Party in London.

In 2000, the Chairman of Swansea Bay Race Equality Council said that "Devolution has brought a definite increase in anti-English behaviour" citing three women who believed that they were being discriminated against in their careers because they could not speak Welsh. In 2001 Dafydd Elis-Thomas, a former leader of Plaid Cymru, said that there was an anti-English strand to Welsh nationalism.

On 21 April 2023, it was reported that Plaid Cymru councillor, Terry Davies had been suspended for a rant of discriminatory xenophobia. Davies referred to two colleagues as "outsiders" after telling them that "Wales is for Welsh people."

On 11 January 2024, It was reported that a note which was sent to an address in Aberystwyth Ceredigion, with racial slurs about English people from Birmingham. The note which called for Brummies to 'go back home to Brummyland'. It also called the West Midlands accent 'vomit-inducing', and urged the occupant to 'take a few thousand, other people back with them'. The note which Dyfed-Powys Police are treating as a hate crime, read: 'Iorwerth Ave was once a nice, quiet, pleasant residential area until a load of [people] from the Midlands hit', and 'Low-life like you should be forced to live in fenced in sites, preferably back where you came from.'

Northern Ireland

During the Troubles, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) mainly attacked targets in Northern Ireland and England, not Scotland or Wales, although the IRA planted a bomb at Sullom Voe Terminal in Shetland during a visit by the Queen in May 1981.The ancestry of most people in the Loyalist and Unionist communities is Scottish rather than English. In the Protestant community, the English are identified with British politicians and are sometimes resented for their perceived abandonment of loyalist communities.

Outside the United Kingdom

In his 1859 essay A Few Words on Non-Intervention, John Stuart Mill notes that England "finds itself, in respect of its foreign policy, held up to obloquy as the type of egoism and selfishness; as a nation which thinks of nothing but of out-witting and out-generalling its neighbours" and urges his fellow countrymen against "the mania of professing to act from meaner motives than those by which we are really actuated".

Australia and New Zealand

"Pommy" or "Pom" (acronym for 'Prisoner of [her] Majesty) is a common Australasian and South African slang word for the English, often combined with "whing[e]ing" (complaining) to make the expression "whingeing Pom" – an English immigrant who stereotypically complains about everything. Although the term is sometimes applied to British immigrants generally, it is usually applied specifically to the English, by both Australians and New Zealanders. From the 19th century, there were feelings among established Australians that many immigrants from England were poorly skilled, unwanted by their home country and unappreciative of the benefits of their new country.

In recent years, complaints about two newspaper articles blaming English tourists for littering a local beach and calling the English "Filthy Poms" in the headlines and "Poms fill the summer of our discontent", were accepted as complaints and settled through conciliation by the Australian Human Rights Commission when the newspapers published apologies. Letters and articles which referred to English people as "Poms" or "Pommies" did not meet the threshold for racial hatred. In 2007 a complaint to Australia's Advertising Standards Bureau about a television commercial using the term "Pom" was upheld and the commercial was withdrawn.

France

After the Norman Conquest of 1066, Anglo-Norman French replaced Old English as the official language of England. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Plantagenet kings of England lost most of their possessions in France, began to consider England to be their primary domain and turned to the English language. King Edward I, when issuing writs for summoning parliament in 1295, claimed that the King of France planned to invade England and extinguish the English language, "a truly detestable plan which may God avert". In 1346, Edward III exhibited in Parliament a forged ordinance, in which Philip VI of France would have called for the destruction of the English nation and country. The Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) between England and France changed societies on both sides of the Channel.

The English and French were engaged in numerous wars in the following centuries. England's conflict with Scotland provided France with an opportunity to destabilise England and there was a firm friendship (known as the Auld Alliance) between France and Scotland from the late-thirteenth century to the mid-sixteenth century. The alliance eventually foundered because of growing Protestantism in Scotland. Opposition to Protestantism became a major feature of later French Anglophobia (and conversely, fear of Catholicism was a hallmark of Francophobia). Antipathy and intermittent hostilities between France and Britain, as distinct from England, continued during later centuries.

Ireland

There is a long tradition of Anglophobia within Irish nationalism. Much of this was grounded in the hostility felt by the largely Catholic Irish for the Anglo-Irish people, which was mainly Anglican. In Ireland before the Great Famine, anti-English hostility was deep-seated and was manifested in increased anti-English hostility organised by United Irishmen. In post-famine Ireland, anti-English hostility was adopted into the philosophy and foundation of the Irish nationalist movement. At the turn of the 20th century, the Celtic Revival movement associated the search for a cultural and national identity with an increasing anti-colonial and anti-English sentiment. Anti-English themes manifested in national organisations seen as promoting native Irish values, with the emergence of groups like Sinn Féin. One popular nationalist slogan was "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity" and the well-known anti-World-War-I song "Who is Ireland's Enemy?" used past events to conclude that it was England, and furthermore that Irish people ought to "pay those devils back".

The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) was founded in 1884 as a counter-measure against the Anglo-Irish Athletic Association, which promoted and supervised British sports such as English football in Ireland. The GAA was founded in the anti-English ideas of Thomas Croke, Archbishop of Cashel and Emly. From 1886 to 1971 the GAA focused national pride into distinctly non-English activities. Members were forbidden to belong to organisations that played "English" games and the organisation countered the Anglicisation in Irish society. With the development in Ireland of Irish games and the arts, the Celtic revivalists and nationalists identified characteristics of what they defined as the "Irish Race". A nationalistic identity developed, as the opposite of the Anglo-Saxons and untainted by the Anglo-Irish. A sense of national identity and Irish distinctiveness as well as an anti-English assertiveness was reinforced to Catholics by teachers in hedge schools.

A feeling of anti-English sentiment intensified within Irish nationalism during the Boer Wars, leading to xenophobia underlined by Anglophobia. Two units of Irish commandos fought with the Boer against British forces during the Second Boer War (1899–1902). J. Donnolly, a member of the brigade, wrote to the editor of the Irish News in 1901:

It was not for the love of the Boer we were fighting; it was for the hatred of the English. (J. Donnolly letter to the Irish News, 1901)

The pro-Boer movement gained widespread support in Ireland, and over 20,000 supporters demonstrated in Dublin in 1899 where Irish nationalism, anti-English and pro-Boer attitudes were one and the same. There was a pro-Boer movement in England as well but the English pro-Boer movement was not based on anti-English sentiments. These opposing views and animosity led the English and Irish pro-Boer groups to maintain a distance from one another. Despite this, far more Irishmen joined various Irish Regiments of the British Army during this time, more so than pro-Boer commandos.

The W. B. Yeats play The Countess Cathleen, written in 1892, has anti-English overtones comparing the English gentry to demons who come for Irish souls. Films set during the Irish War of Independence, such as The Informer (1935) and the Plough and the Stars (1936), were criticised by the BBFC for the director John Ford's anti-English content and in recent years, Michael Collins and The Wind That Shakes the Barley (despite being a joint British-Irish production) have led to accusations of Anglophobia in the British press. In 2006, Antony Booth, the father-in-law of Tony Blair, claimed he was the victim of anti-English vandalism and discrimination while living in County Cavan, Ireland, with his wife. In August 2008 an English pipe fitter based in Dublin was awarded €20,000 for the racial abuse and discrimination he received at his workplace.

In 2011, tensions and anti-English or anti-British feelings flared in relation to the proposed visit of Queen Elizabeth II, the first British monarch to visit Ireland in 100 years. The invitation by the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, and the Irish government, was hailed by the Irish press as a historic visit but was criticised by Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams. An anti-Queen demonstration was held at the GPO Dublin by a small group of Irish Republicans on 26 February 2011, and a mock trial and decapitation of an effigy of Queen Elizabeth II were carried out by socialist republican group Éirígí. Other protests included one Dublin publican (the father of Celtic player Anthony Stokes) hanging a banner declaring "the Queen will never be welcome in this country".

In 2018, the Irish author and journalist Megan Nolan wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times that detailed how she had come to hate England and English people.

Russia

Despite having formed an alliance between the two nations since Tsarist rule, due to the Great Game, a wave of widespread Anglophobia took hold in Russia, with the fear of English meddling and intervention. During the Russo-Japanese War, there was a sentiment in Russia that England was behind Japan's militarism against Russia in the Far East, leading to a strained relationship between Britain and Russia. The UK and Russia were allies in World War I until the Bolshevik Revolution of 1918, and the capitalistic West became a target for the new Communist International ("Comintern."). In 1924, these tensions were briefly cooled when the Labour government of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald formally recognized the Soviet Union and established diplomatic relations between the two countries. The two were allies again starting in 1941. During the Cold War, Britain firmly sided with the West against the Soviet Union and the relationship between the two continues to remain dubious even today. Before 2018 FIFA World Cup, there had been controversies regarding Anglophobia in Russia.

United States

In the early years of the Republic, Anglophobia was particularly associated with the Jeffersonian Republicans in the 1790s, who warned that close ties with Great Britain were especially dangerous because that nation was an enemy of American Republicanism. By contrast, the opposing Federalist party warned that the Jeffersonians were too sympathetic to the radicalism of the French Revolution. The Origins of the War of 1812 involved claimed violations against American neutrality by the United Kingdom during the Napoleonic Wars. The Treaty of Ghent, ratified in 1815 and ending the War of 1812, established peaceful relations for the two countries that has lasted more than two centuries, though this was stressed at times in the years following the treaty by events such as the Trent Affair of 1861 and the Fenian Raids in 1866–1871.

In the final days of the 1888 presidential campaign, a Republican operative claiming to be a British immigrant in America named Charles F. Murchison tricked the British ambassador Lord Sackville-West into indicating Britain's support for the Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland. The deliberatly fabricated act forced Sackville-west to return to Britain.

The Great Rapprochement was the convergence of social and political objectives between the United Kingdom and the United States from 1895 until World War I began in 1914. The most notable sign of improving relations during the Great Rapprochement was Britain's actions during the Spanish–American War (started 1898). Initially Britain supported the Spanish Empire and its colonial rule over Cuba, since the perceived threat of American occupation and a territorial acquisition of Cuba by the United States might harm British trade and commercial interests within its own imperial possessions in the West Indies. However, after the United States made genuine assurances that it would grant Cuba's independence (which eventually occurred in 1902 under the terms dictated in the Platt Amendment), the British abandoned this policy and ultimately sided with the United States, unlike most other European powers who supported Spain. In return the US government supported Britain during the Boer War, although many Americans favoured the Boers.

In 2002, academic John Moser said that, although Anglophobia is now "almost completely absent" from American society, this was not always the case. He stated that "there were strains of Anglophobia present in virtually every populist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries," with the Populist Party, for example, "referring to England as a 'monster' that had 'seized upon the fresh energy of America and is steadily fixing its fangs into our social life.'"

Reasons suggested for the faltering of Anglophobia included the impact of the Second World War, and reduced political support for Irish nationalist movements compared with that in earlier periods. Moser also said:

In an age when the wealthiest and most influential Americans tended to be associated with things British—the vast majority were of Anglo-Saxon descent, wore English-tailored suits, drove British-made automobiles, and even spoke with affected British accents—it was quite natural for Great Britain to fall within the sights of disaffected populists. In more recent years, however, this has changed. When one thinks of wealth and influence in contemporary America, particularly when one considers those who have made their fortunes in the past thirty years, English culture does not immediately spring to mind.

The film industry is widely perceived to give a British nationality to a disproportionate number of villains.

Anglophobia in the Irish-American community

The Irish-American community in the United States has historically shown antipathy towards Britain for its role in controlling Ireland. The large Irish Catholic element provided a major base for demands for Irish independence, and occasioned anti-British rhetoric, especially at election time. Anglophobia thus has been a defining feature of the Irish-American experience. Bolstered by their support of Irish nationalism, Irish-American communities have been staunchly anti-English since the 1850s, and this sentiment is fostered within the Irish-American identity. Irish immigrants arrived poor and within a generation or two prospered. Many subscribed cash from their weekly wage to keep up the anti-English agitation. Anglophobia was a common theme in Democratic Party politics. Irish-American newspapers, like the pro-Catholic Truth Teller which was founded in 1825 by an anti-English priest, were influential in the identity of the community.

Anti-English feelings among Irish-Americans spread to American culture through Irish-American performers in popular blackface minstrel shows. These imparted both elements of the Irish-American performers' own national bias, and the popular stereotypical image that the English people were bourgeois, aloof, or upper class. Sentiments quickly turned into direct and violent action when in the 1860s the Fenian Brotherhood Society invaded Canada to provoke a United States-British war in hope it would lead to Irish independence. Violence is said to have included direct action by Fenian sympathisers, with the assassination of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, himself an Irish Canadian and Irish nationalist who was against the invasion, although he was very critical of the Orange Order, and it has long been suspected they were his true killers. Goldwin Smith, professor at Cornell University, wrote in the North American Review that "hatred of England" was used as a tool to win the Irish-American vote. A similar observation was made in 1900 by U.S. Secretary of State John Hay, who criticised the Prairie Populist and his own Democratic party's political pandering to attract the support of the Irish diaspora:

State conventions put on an anti-English plank in their platforms to curry favor with the Irish (whom they want to keep) and the Germans whom they want to seduce. It is too disgusting to have to deal with such sordid lies.

Well into the early 20th century anti-English sentiment was increasing with famine memorials in the Irish-American communities, which "served as a wellspring for their obsessive and often corrosive antipathy," as noted in the British Parliament in 1915:

There is no part of the world where anti-English influences worked so powerfully than in the United States. Almost every Irishman there is the son or grandson of an evicted tenant – evicted in all the horrors of the black 40s. And most of them have heard stories of them from their mother's knee.

Some newspapers, including the San Francisco Leader and the New York Irish World, first published in 1823, were renowned for their anti-English articles. The Irish World blamed the mainland United Kingdom for the depopulation and desolate state of Ireland's industries. One newspaper, the Gaelic American, called a student performance of the British national anthem by some girls of Irish heritage from a convent school an act of disloyalty, where they were taught to reverence the traditions of the hereditary enemy of their race and religion.

A commemorative stamp by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie on a century of peace between America and Great Britain was criticised by the Irish-American press. In recent years American political commentators, such as Pat Buchanan, have highlighted the anti-English stance of the Irish Diaspora in the United States of America.

Argentina

In 1982 the two countries fought a small short conflict in the Falklands War, decisively won by the UK. Relations have become friendly since then.

Anglophobia in Argentina has been studied by the historian Ema Cibotti in "Dear Enemies. From Beresford to Maradona, the true story of relations between the English and Argentines". In its prologue, entitled "Against the English it is better", the social historian states

The anti-British sentiment is perhaps one of the most widespread and rooted in our idiosyncrasy, to the point that it has become flesh in football, our most popular sport. “Against the English it is better”, and “He who does not jump is English”, are slogans shouted by millions. Each success of the blue and white team is usually a reason for collective joy, but a victory against the English is much more; it vibrates the national spirit, no matter how dejected it may be at the time. The playing field becomes the stage where society claims the almost two hundred years of usurpation of the Malvinas Islands.

That feeling has not been constant or unanimous. Characters such as Manuel Belgrano, who had faced the English invasions of Buenos Aires in 1806 and 1807 or Mariano Moreno, among the independence leaders, supported policies similar to those of the British and the dispute over the Falkland Islands did not sour relations. The 1929 crisis and the coup that overthrew Hipólito Yrigoyen in 1930, with the fall in export prices, will be the determining factors in the appearance of an Anglophobic sentiment linked to the rejection of neo-colonialism or British imperialism. This is what the Spanish pedagogue Lorenzo Luzuriaga observed upon arriving in Argentina in 1940, who in a letter to Américo Castro analysed the different attitudes towards the outbreak of the World War

People here are very confused. On the one hand, there is economic Anglophobia about alleged British imperialism and exploitation; on the other, the Russophile extremists who have raised the banner of neutrality and indifference to the conflict; on the other, the Francophiles (Victoria Ocampo's group) who do not know what to do with the defection from France, and finally a small Anglophile minority, ready to help in the fight by all means.

Philosopher Mario Bunge, in an interview granted to Jorge Fontevecchia on May 4, 2008, collected in Reportajes 2, alluded to the spread of Anglophobic sentiment in the years of the conflict, explainable "because many of the companies had been owned by the English" and attributed to this feeling the approach to Nazism of Carlos Astrada, introducer of existentialist philosophy in Argentina. But it will be with the Falklands War in 1982 when Anglophobic sentiment spread to a good part of society.

India

Anglophobic sentiment in India is rooted in the colonial legacy of British rule, starting with the rule of the British East India Company and continuing under the British Raj. Oppressive and exploitative practices, the imposition of British culture, language, and education, along with economic policies that favoured British interests at the expense of Indian welfare, fuelled a sense of injustice and subjugation among Indians. Key events such as the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919, and the economic hardships imposed by British policies during events like the Bengal famine of 1943 intensified this animosity. Post-independence, Anglophobia has persisted in various forms, often manifesting as resistance to Western cultural dominance and the lingering impact of colonial attitudes in modern Indian society. This historical context has fostered a complex relationship with the English language and British cultural elements, where they are both integrated into Indian society and simultaneously viewed with suspicion or disdain by some. The legacy of colonial exploitation has left a deep imprint on India's collective memory, contributing to a continued wariness of British influence in both political and cultural spheres.

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