Ubc9 fusion-directed SUMOylation (UFDS

Abstract SUMOylation is a post-translational modification that is involved in the regulation of proteins of different cellular processes. Dependent on the transient, small SUMOylated portion of most target proteins, it is difficult to identify and characterize this modification and its functions, and it is even more difficult to study the interplay between SUMOylation and other modifications on a specific protein. To facilitate the analysis of protein SUMOylation and its interplay with other protein modifications, the UFDS (Ubc9 fusion-directed SUMOylation) system has been developed. The identification of new SUMOylation substrates and the elucidation of the interplay between STAT1 (signal transducer and activator of transcription 1) phosphorylation and SUMOylation demonstrate UFDS as a useful tool for analysing protein SUMOylation

Face Coverings Differentially Alter Valence Judgments of Emotional Expressions

Face masks that prevent disease transmission obscure facial expressions, impairing nonverbal communication. We assessed the impact of lower (masks) and upper (sunglasses) face coverings on emotional valence judgments of clearly valenced (fearful, happy) and ambiguously valenced (surprised) expressions, the latter of which have both positive and negative meanings. Masks, but not sunglasses, impaired judgments of clearly valenced expressions compared to faces without coverings. Drift diffusion models revealed that lower, but not upper, face coverings slowed evidence accumulation and affected differences in non-judgment processes (i.e., stimulus encoding, response execution time) for all expressions. Our results confirm mask-interference effects in nonverbal communication. The findings have implications for nonverbal and intergroup communication, and we propose guidance for implementing strategies to overcome mask-related interference

On Passion and Sports Fans:A Look at Football

The purpose of the present research was to test the applicability of the Dualistic Model of Passion (Vallerand et al., 2003) to being a sport (football) fan. The model posits that passion is a strong inclination toward an activity that individuals like (or even love), that they value, and in which they invest time and energy. Furthermore, two types of passion are proposed: harmonious and obsessive passion. While obsessive passion entails an uncontrollable urge to engage in the passionate activity, harmonious passion entails a sense of volition while engaging in the activity. Finally, the model posits that harmonious passion leads to more adaptive outcomes than obsessive passion. Three studies provided support for this dualistic conceptualization of passion. Study 1 showed that harmonious passion was positively associated with adaptive behaviours (e.g., celebrate the team’s victory), while obsessive passion was rather positively associated with maladaptive behaviours (e.g., to risk losing one’s employment to go to the team’s game). Study 2 used a short Passion Scale and showed that harmonious passion was positively related to the positive affective life of fans during the 2006 FIFA World Cup, psychological health (self-esteem and life satisfaction), and public displays of adaptive behaviours (e.g., celebrating one’s team victory in the streets), while obsessive passion was predictive of maladaptive affective life (e.g., hating opposing team’s fans) and behaviours (e.g., mocking the opposing team’s fans). Finally, Study 3 examined the role of obsessive passion as a predictor of partner’s conflict that in turn undermined partner’s relationship satisfaction. Overall, the present results provided support for the Dualistic Model of Passion. The conceptual and applied implications of the findings are discussed

What does touch tell us about emotions in touchscreen-based gameplay?

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2012 ACM. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution.Nowadays, more and more people play games on touch-screen mobile phones. This phenomenon raises a very interesting question: does touch behaviour reflect the player’s emotional state? If possible, this would not only be a valuable evaluation indicator for game designers, but also for real-time personalization of the game experience. Psychology studies on acted touch behaviour show the existence of discriminative affective profiles. In this paper, finger-stroke features during gameplay on an iPod were extracted and their discriminative power analysed. Based on touch-behaviour, machine learning algorithms were used to build systems for automatically discriminating between four emotional states (Excited, Relaxed, Frustrated, Bored), two levels of arousal and two levels of valence. The results were very interesting reaching between 69% and 77% of correct discrimination between the four emotional states. Higher results (~89%) were obtained for discriminating between two levels of arousal and two levels of valence

Mutually exclusive STAT1 modifications identified by Ubc9/substrate dimerization-dependent SUMOylation

Post-translational modifications control the physiological activity of the signal transducer and activator of transcription STAT1. While phosphorylation at tyrosine Y701 is a prerequisite for STAT1 dimerization, its SUMOylation represses the transcriptional activity. Recently, we have demonstrated that SUMOylation at lysine K703 inhibits the phosphorylation of nearby localized Y701 of STAT1. Here, we analysed the influence of phosphorylation of Y701 on SUMOylation of K703 in vivo. For that reason, an Ubc9/substrate dimerization-dependent SUMOylation (USDDS) system was developed, which consists of fusions of the SUMOylation substrate and of the SUMO-conjugating enzyme Ubc9 to the chemically activatable heterodimerization domains FKBP and FRB, respectively. When FKBP fusion proteins of STAT1, p53, CRSP9, FOS, CSNK2B, HES1, TCF21 and MYF6 are coexpressed with Ubc9-FRB, treatment of HEK293 cells with the rapamycin-related dimerizer compound AP21967 induces SUMOylation of these proteins in vivo. For STAT1-FKBP and p53-FKBP we show that this SUMOylation takes place at their specific SUMOylation sites in vivo. Using USDDS, we then demonstrate that STAT1 phosphorylation at Y701 induced by interferon-β treatment inhibits SUMOylation of K703 in vivo. Thus, pY701 and SUMO-K703 of STAT1 represent mutually exclusive modifications, which prevent signal integration at this molecule and probably ensure the existence of differentially modified subpopulations of STAT1 necessary for its regulated nuclear cytoplasmic activation/inactivation cycle

Music Alters Visual Perception

Background: Visual perception is not a passive process: in order to efficiently process visual input, the brain actively uses previous knowledge (e.g., memory) and expectations about what the world should look like. However, perception is not only influenced by previous knowledge. Especially the perception of emotional stimuli is influenced by the emotional state of the observer. In other words, how we perceive the world does not only depend on what we know of the world, but also by how we feel. In this study, we further investigated the relation between mood and perception. Methods and Findings: We let observers do a difficult stimulus detection task, in which they had to detect schematic happy and sad faces embedded in noise. Mood was manipulated by means of music. We found that observers were more accurate in detecting faces congruent with their mood, corroborating earlier research. However, in trials in which no actual face was presented, observers made a significant number of false alarms. The content of these false alarms, or illusory percepts, was strongly influenced by the observers ’ mood. Conclusions: As illusory percepts are believed to reflect the content of internal representations that are employed by the brain during top-down processing of visual input, we conclude that top-down modulation of visual processing is not purely predictive in nature: mood, in this case manipulated by music, may also directly alter the way we perceive the world

Dominance, reward, and affiliation smiles modulate the meaning of uncooperative or untrustworthy behaviour

We investigated the effects of different types of smiles on the perception of uncooperative or untrustworthy behaviour. In five studies, participants assigned to one group played an economic game with a representative of another group. In an initial round, the representative acted uncooperatively by favouring their group and then displayed a dominance, reward, or affiliation smile. Participants rated the motives of the representative and played a second round of the game with a different member of the same outgroup. Following uncooperative or untrustworthy behaviour, affiliation smiles communicated less positivity and superiority, and a greater desire to both repair the relationship between groups and change the uncooperative decision than reward or dominance smiles. Perceptions of a desire to repair the relationship and to change the decision were associated with trust and cooperation in a subsequent round of the game. Together, these findings show that smiles that are subtly different in their morphology can convey different messages and highlight the importance of these expressions in influencing the perceptions of others’ intentions

When language gets emotional: irony and the embodiment of affect in discourse

Although there is increasing evidence to suggest that language is grounded in perception and action, the relationship between language and emotion is less well understood. We investigate the grounding of language in emotion using a novel approach that examines the relationship between the comprehension of a written discourse and the performance of affect-related motor actions (hand movements towards and away from the body). Results indicate that positively and negatively valenced words presented in context influence motor responses (Experiment 1), whilst valenced words presented in isolation do not (Experiment 3). Furthermore, whether discourse context indicates that an utterance should be interpreted literally or ironically can influence motor responding, suggesting that the grounding of language in emo- tional states can be influenced by discourse-level factors (Experiment 2). In addition, the finding of affect-related motor responses to certain forms of ironic language, but not to non-ironic control sentences, suggests that phrasing a message ironically may influence the emotional response that is elicited

Food-induced Emotional Resonance Improves Emotion Recognition

The effect of food substances on emotional states has been widely investigated, showing, for example, that eating chocolate is able to reduce negative mood. Here, for the first time, we have shown that the consumption of specific food substances is not only able to induce particular emotional states, but more importantly, to facilitate recognition of corresponding emotional facial expressions in others. Participants were asked to perform an emotion recognition task before and after eating either a piece of chocolate or a small amount of fish sauce – which we expected to induce happiness or disgust, respectively. Our results showed that being in a specific emotional state improves recognition of the corresponding emotional facial expression. Indeed, eating chocolate improved recognition of happy faces, while disgusted expressions were more readily recognized after eating fish sauce. In line with the embodied account of emotion understanding, we suggest that people are better at inferring the emotional state of others when their own emotional state resonates with the observed one