Psychotrauma and effective treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder in soldiers and peacekeepers

Psychotrauma occurs as a result to a traumatic event, which may involve witnessing someone's actual death or personally experiencing serious physical injury, assault, rape and sexual abuse, being held as a hostage, or a threat to physical or psychological integrity. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder and was defined in the past as railway spine, traumatic war neurosis, stress syndrome, shell shock, battle fatigue, combat fatigue, or post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSS). If untreated, post-traumatic stress disorder can impair relationships of those affected and strain their families and society. Deployed soldiers are especially at a high risk to be affected by PTSD but often receive inadequate treatment. Reviews to date have focused only on a single type of treatment or groups of soldiers from only one country. The aim of the current review was to evaluate characteristics of therapeutic methods used internationally to treat male soldiers' PTSD after peacekeeping operations in South Eastern Europe and the Gulf wars

DNA binds to a specific site of the adhesive blood-protein von Willebrand factor guided by electrostatic interactions.

Neutrophils release their intracellular content, DNA included, into the bloodstream to form neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) that confine and kill circulating pathogens. The mechanosensitive adhesive blood protein, von Willebrand Factor (vWF), interacts with the extracellular DNA of NETs to potentially immobilize them during inflammatory and coagulatory conditions. Here, we elucidate the previously unknown molecular mechanism governing the DNA-vWF interaction by integrating atomistic, coarse-grained, and Brownian dynamics simulations, with thermophoresis, gel electrophoresis, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS), and microfluidic experiments. We demonstrate that, independently of its nucleotide sequence, double-stranded DNA binds to a specific helix of the vWF A1 domain, via three arginines. This interaction is attenuated by increasing the ionic strength. Our FCS and microfluidic measurements also highlight the key role shear-stress has in enabling this interaction. Our simulations attribute the previously-observed platelet-recruitment reduction and heparin-size modulation, upon establishment of DNA-vWF interactions, to indirect steric hindrance and partial overlap of the binding sites, respectively. Overall, we suggest electrostatics-guiding DNA to a specific protein binding site-as the main driving force defining DNA-vWF recognition. The molecular picture of a key shear-mediated DNA-protein interaction is provided here and it constitutes the basis for understanding NETs-mediated immune and hemostatic responses

<scp>ReSurveyEurope</scp>: A database of resurveyed vegetation plots in Europe

AbstractAimsWe introduce ReSurveyEurope — a new data source of resurveyed vegetation plots in Europe, compiled by a collaborative network of vegetation scientists. We describe the scope of this initiative, provide an overview of currently available data, governance, data contribution rules, and accessibility. In addition, we outline further steps, including potential research questions.ResultsReSurveyEurope includes resurveyed vegetation plots from all habitats. Version 1.0 of ReSurveyEurope contains 283,135 observations (i.e., individual surveys of each plot) from 79,190 plots sampled in 449 independent resurvey projects. Of these, 62,139 (78%) are permanent plots, that is, marked in situ, or located with GPS, which allow for high spatial accuracy in resurvey. The remaining 17,051 (22%) plots are from studies in which plots from the initial survey could not be exactly relocated. Four data sets, which together account for 28,470 (36%) plots, provide only presence/absence information on plant species, while the remaining 50,720 (64%) plots contain abundance information (e.g., percentage cover or cover–abundance classes such as variants of the Braun‐Blanquet scale). The oldest plots were sampled in 1911 in the Swiss Alps, while most plots were sampled between 1950 and 2020.ConclusionsReSurveyEurope is a new resource to address a wide range of research questions on fine‐scale changes in European vegetation. The initiative is devoted to an inclusive and transparent governance and data usage approach, based on slightly adapted rules of the well‐established European Vegetation Archive (EVA). ReSurveyEurope data are ready for use, and proposals for analyses of the data set can be submitted at any time to the coordinators. Still, further data contributions are highly welcome.</jats:sec