4NCL

The 4NCL, or Four Nations Chess League, is a chess league in the United Kingdom and named after its four nations: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. However, the league is truly international, with players from as many as 27 different countries taking part. It is the United Kingdom's foremost chess league, run independently as a limited company and outside of the control of the individual nations' chess governing bodies.

The format of the 4NCL might be described as a prestigious team tournament, held annually, over a number of weekends (October through May), at a variety of venues in the South and Midlands of England. It is run on a league basis, containing four divisions and about 600 players. As an event, it is in many ways comparable to the French Nationale and long established German Bundesliga.

Some prize money is on offer, but the top teams seek to attract outside sponsorship and this occasionally allows them to secure the services of the world's leading grandmasters, typically for critical end of season clashes. Players of the calibre of Michael Adams, Nigel Short, Viktor Korchnoi, Alexander Morozevich, Alexei Shirov and Peter Svidler have participated in recent years.

NCL

NCL may refer to:

Nucleolin

Nucleolin is a protein that in humans is encoded by the NCL gene.

Gene

The human NCL gene is located on chromosome 2 and consists of 14 exons with 13 introns and spans approximately 11kb. The intron 11 of the NCL gene encodes a small nucleolar RNA, termed U20.

Function

Nucleolin (NCL), a eukaryotic nucleolar phosphoprotein, is involved in the synthesis and maturation of ribosomes. The protein is located mainly in dense fibrillar regions of the nucleolus.

Nucleolin is also able to act as a transcriptional coactivator with Chicken Ovalbumin Upstream Promoter Transcription Factor II (COUP-TFII).

Clinical significance

Midkine and pleiotrophin bind to cell-surface nucleolin as a low affinity receptor. This binding can inhibit HIV infection.

Nucleolin at the cell surface is the receptor for the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) fusion protein. Interference with the nucleolin - RSV fusion protein interaction has been shown to be therapeutic against RSV infection in cell cultures and animal models.