Living together apart: Perceived concealment as signal of exclusion in marital relationships

This article examines how perceiving concealment in close relationships influences marital well-being. It suggests that the perception of concealment from a partner signals separateness from one's partner and contributes to feelings of perceived partner exclusion. These feelings of exclusion, in turn, should negatively affect relational quality. These predictions are tested in a prospective study among 199 newlywed couples. Results suggest that perceiving concealment reduced marital adjustment and trust and increased conflict over time. Importantly, change in perceived partner exclusion mediated these effects. This article demonstrates that the perception of concealment (a) has deleterious effects on relational well-being in the long run and (b) is harmful in part because it elicits feelings of exclusion. © 2009 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc

Exopolymeric substances (EPS) from Salmonella enterica: polymers, proteins and their interactions with plants and abiotic surfaces

When Salmonella enterica is not in a planktonic state, it persists in organised communities encased in extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), defined as biofilms. Environmental conditions ultimately dictate the key properties of the biofilms such as porosity, density, water content, charge, sorption and ion exchange properties, hydrophobicity and mechanical stability. S. enterica has been extensively studied due to its ability to infect the gastrointestinal environment. However, only during the last decades studies on its persistence and replication in soil, plant and abiotic surfaces have been proposed. S. enterica is an environmental bacterium able to effectively persist outside the human host. It does so by using EPS as tools to cope with environmental fluctuations. We therefore address this mini-review to classify those EPS that are produced by Salmonella with focus on the environment (plant, soil, and abiotic surfaces) by using a classification of EPS proposed by Flemming and collaborators in 2007. The EPS are therefore classified as structural, sorptive, surface-active, active, and informative

From Perception to Activation: The Molecular-Genetic and Biochemical Landscape of Disease Resistance Signaling in Plants

More than 60 years ago, H.H. Flor proposed the “Gene-for-Gene” hypothesis, which described the genetic relationship between host plants and pathogens. In the decades that followed Flor's seminal work, our understanding of the plant-pathogen interaction has evolved into a sophisticated model, detailing the molecular genetic and biochemical processes that control host-range, disease resistance signaling and susceptibility. The interaction between plants and microbes is an intimate exchange of signals that has evolved for millennia, resulting in the modification and adaptation of pathogen virulence strategies and host recognition elements. In total, plants have evolved mechanisms to combat the ever-changing landscape of biotic interactions bombarding their environment, while in parallel, plant pathogens have co-evolved mechanisms to sense and adapt to these changes. On average, the typical plant is susceptible to attack by dozens of microbial pathogens, yet in most cases, remains resistant to many of these challenges. The sum of research in our field has revealed that these interactions are regulated by multiple layers of intimately linked signaling networks. As an evolved model of Flor's initial observations, the current paradigm in host-pathogen interactions is that pathogen effector molecules, in large part, drive the recognition, activation and subsequent physiological responses in plants that give rise to resistance and susceptibility. In this Chapter, we will discuss our current understanding of the association between plants and microbial pathogens, detailing the pressures placed on both host and microbe to either maintain disease resistance, or induce susceptibility and disease. From recognition to transcriptional reprogramming, we will review current data and literature that has advanced the classical model of the Gene-for-Gene hypothesis to our current understanding of basal and effector triggered immunity