Did my heart just leap or sink?:The role of personality for the relation between cardiac interoception and well-being

Interoceptive accuracy (IAc), the ability to perceive signals from within the body, has been linked to many beneficial health outcomes but also to psychopathologies such as anxiety disorders. Therefore, its relation to a person's subjective well-being (SWB) is unclear. Here, we predicted that individuals who are prone to interpreting interoceptive signals positively benefit from IAc and exhibit higher SWB. In contrast, individuals with predispositions towards negative interpretations suffer from it, resulting in lower SWB. Participants completed a measure of cardiac IAc, measures of extraversion, neuroticism, optimism and pessimism as personality traits that have been related to positive and negative attributional styles, and various measures of well-being. Psychiatric and physical well-being were predicted by the interaction between optimism/pessimism and IAc. While for optimistic participants, IAc did not predict higher well-being, for pessimistic individuals, it predicted lower well-being. These findings shed light on the role of interoception for SWB and its adaptiveness for individuals with different personalities

Comparison of reproducibility, accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of miRNA quantification platforms

Given the increasing interest in their use as disease biomarkers, the establishment of reproducible, accurate, sensitive, and specific platforms for microRNA (miRNA) quantification in biofluids is of high priority. We compare four platforms for these characteristics: small RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), FirePlex, EdgeSeq, and nCounter. For a pool of synthetic miRNAs, coefficients of variation for technical replicates are lower for EdgeSeq (6.9%) and RNA-seq (8.2%) than for FirePlex (22.4%); nCounter replicates are not performed. Receiver operating characteristic analysis for distinguishing present versus absent miRNAs shows small RNA-seq (area under curve 0.99) is superior to EdgeSeq (0.97), nCounter (0.94), and FirePlex (0.81). Expected differences in expression of placenta-associated miRNAs in plasma from pregnant and non-pregnant women are observed with RNA-seq and EdgeSeq, but not FirePlex or nCounter. These results indicate that differences in performance among miRNA profiling platforms impact ability to detect biological differences among samples and thus their relative utility for research and clinical use

Coordination of KSHV Latent and Lytic Gene Control by CTCF-Cohesin Mediated Chromosome Conformation

Herpesvirus persistence requires a dynamic balance between latent and lytic cycle gene expression, but how this balance is maintained remains enigmatic. We have previously shown that the Kaposi's Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus (KSHV) major latency transcripts encoding LANA, vCyclin, vFLIP, v-miRNAs, and Kaposin are regulated, in part, by a chromatin organizing element that binds CTCF and cohesins. Using viral genome-wide chromatin conformation capture (3C) methods, we now show that KSHV latency control region is physically linked to the promoter regulatory region for ORF50, which encodes the KSHV immediate early protein RTA. Other linkages were also observed, including an interaction between the 5′ and 3′ end of the latency transcription cluster. Mutation of the CTCF-cohesin binding site reduced or eliminated the chromatin conformation linkages, and deregulated viral transcription and genome copy number control. siRNA depletion of CTCF or cohesin subunits also disrupted chromosomal linkages and deregulated viral latent and lytic gene transcription. Furthermore, the linkage between the latent and lytic control region was subject to cell cycle fluctuation and disrupted during lytic cycle reactivation, suggesting that these interactions are dynamic and regulatory. Our findings indicate that KSHV genomes are organized into chromatin loops mediated by CTCF and cohesin interactions, and that these inter-chromosomal linkages coordinate latent and lytic gene control

Motivations underlying self-infliction of pain during thinking for pleasure

Previous research suggested that people prefer to administer unpleasant electric shocks to themselves rather than being left alone with their thoughts because engagement in thinking is an unpleasant activity. The present research examined this negative reinforcement hypothesis by giving participants a choice of distracting themselves with the generation of electric shock causing no to intense pain. Four experiments (N = 254) replicated the result that a large proportion of participants opted to administer painful shocks to themselves during the thinking period. However, they administered strong electric shocks to themselves even when an innocuous response option generating no or a mild shock was available. Furthermore, participants inflicted pain to themselves when they were assisted in the generation of pleasant thoughts during the waiting period, with no difference between pleasant versus unpleasant thought conditions. Overall, these results question that the primary motivation for the self-administration of painful shocks is avoidance of thinking. Instead, it seems that the self-infliction of pain was attractive for many participants, because they were curious about the shocks, their intensities, and the effects they would have on them

Large Differences in Small RNA Composition Between Human Biofluids.

Extracellular microRNAs (miRNAs) and other small RNAs are implicated in cellular communication and may be useful as disease biomarkers. We systematically compared small RNAs in 12 human biofluid types using RNA sequencing (RNA-seq). miRNAs and tRNA-derived RNAs (tDRs) accounted for the majority of mapped reads in all biofluids, but the ratio of miRNA to tDR reads varied from 72 in plasma to 0.004 in bile. miRNA levels were highly correlated across all biofluids, but levels of some miRNAs differed markedly between biofluids. tDR populations differed extensively between biofluids. Y RNA fragments were seen in all biofluids and accounted for >10% of reads in blood plasma, serum, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Reads mapping exclusively to Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) were very rare, except in seminal plasma. These results demonstrate extensive differences in small RNAs between human biofluids and provide a useful resource for investigating extracellular RNA biology and developing biomarkers

Metabolomics analysis identifies sex-associated metabotypes of oxidative stress and the autotaxin-lysoPA axis in COPD.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a heterogeneous disease and a leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. The aim of this study was to investigate the sex dependency of circulating metabolic profiles in COPD.Serum from healthy never-smokers (healthy), smokers with normal lung function (smokers), and smokers with COPD (COPD; Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease stages I-II/A-B) from the Karolinska COSMIC cohort (n=116) was analysed using our nontargeted liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry metabolomics platform.Pathway analyses revealed that several altered metabolites are involved in oxidative stress. Supervised multivariate modelling showed significant classification of smokers from COPD (p=2.8×10-7). Sex stratification indicated that the separation was driven by females (p=2.4×10-7) relative to males (p=4.0×10-4). Significantly altered metabolites were confirmed quantitatively using targeted metabolomics. Multivariate modelling of targeted metabolomics data confirmed enhanced metabolic dysregulation in females with COPD (p=3.0×10-3) relative to males (p=0.10). The autotaxin products lysoPA (16:0) and lysoPA (18:2) correlated with lung function (forced expiratory volume in 1 s) in males with COPD (r=0.86; p<0.0001), but not females (r=0.44; p=0.15), potentially related to observed dysregulation of the miR-29 family in the lung.These findings highlight the role of oxidative stress in COPD, and suggest that sex-enhanced dysregulation in oxidative stress, and potentially the autotaxin-lysoPA axis, are associated with disease mechanisms and/or prevalence

Tissue signals imprint ILC2 identity with anticipatory function.

Group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s) are distributed systemically and produce type 2 cytokines in response to a variety of stimuli, including the epithelial cytokines interleukin (IL)-25, IL-33, and thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP). Transcriptional profiling of ILC2s from different tissues, however, grouped ILC2s according to their tissue of origin, even in the setting of combined IL-25-, IL-33-receptor-, and TSLP-receptor-deficiency. Single-cell profiling confirmed a tissue-organizing transcriptome and identified ILC2 subsets expressing distinct activating receptors, including the major subset of skin ILC2s, which were activated preferentially by IL-18. Tissue ILC2 subsets were unaltered in number and expression in germ-free mice, suggesting that endogenous, tissue-derived signals drive the maturation of ILC2 subsets by controlling expression of distinct patterns of activating receptors, thus anticipating tissue-specific perturbations occurring later in life

Changes in Photosynthate Unloading from Perfused Seed Coats of Phaseolus vulgaris L Induced by Osmoticum and Ethylenediaminetetraacetate (EDTA)

ABSTRACT Photosynthate unloading in Phaseolus vulgaris L. seed coats was studied by treating perfused seed coats with differing concentrations of an osmoticum and ethylenediaminetetraacetate (EDTA). Large changes in osmoticum concentration typically produced rapid changes in efflux of unlabelled sugar and steady-state-labelled l4 C-photosynthate. Osmoticum-induced changes in photosynthate efflux were caused by phloem import stimulation at low cell turgor and net efflux stimulation by high cell turgor. Even though rapid changes in sugar and tracer efflux were often induced by osmoticum treatments, the specific activity of sugar released from seed coats was not greatly affected by these treatments and was similar to the specific activity of sugar remaining in the seed coat after perfusion. Thus, tracer was transported from the phloem throughout the seed coat sugar pool before it was released to the apoplast. This result is most consistent with symplastic phloem unloading throughout perfused seed coats, because apoplastic transport between cells within the seed coat was blocked by perfusion. Photosynthate efflux was stimulated by simultaneous treatment of seed coats with EDTA and different concentrations of an osmoticum; loss of photosynthate from seed coats did not appear to be tissue-specific

The Anthropocene is best understood as an ongoing, intensifying, diachronous event

Current debate on the status and character of the Anthropocene is focussed on whether this interval of geological time should be designated as a formal unit of epoch/series rank in the International Chronostratigraphic Chart/Geological Time Scale, or whether it is more appropriate for it to be considered as an informal ‘event’ comparable in significance with other major transformative events in deeper geological time. The case for formalizing the Anthropocene as a chronostratigraphical unit with a base at approximately 1950 CE is being developed by the Anthropocene Working Group of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy. Here we outline the alternative position and explain why the time-transgressive nature of human impact on global environmental systems that is reflected in the recent stratigraphical record means that the Anthropocene is better seen not as a series/epoch with a fixed lower boundary, but rather as an unfolding, transforming and intensifying geological event