Maternal bonding styles in smokers and non-smokers: a comparative study

BACKGROUND: Parental bonding has been implicated in smoking behavior, and the quality of maternal bonding (MB) has been associated with poor mental health and substance use. However, little is known about the association of MB and the smoking of the offspring. METHODS: In our study, 129 smokers and 610 non-smoker medical students completed the parental bonding instrument, which measures MB along two dimensions: care and overprotection. Four categories can be created by high and low scores on care and overprotection: optimal parenting (OP; high care/low overprotection); affectionless control (ALC; low care/high overprotection); affectionate constraint (AC; high care/high overprotection), and neglectful parenting (NP; low care/low overprotection). Nicotine dependence was assessed by the Fagerstrom Nicotine Dependence Test, exhaled CO level, and daily cigarette consumption (CPD). RESULTS: Higher CPD was significantly associated with lower overprotection (p = 0.016) and higher care (p = 0.023) scores. The odds for being a smoker were significantly higher in the neglectful maternal bonding style compared to the other rearing styles (p = 0.022). Besides, smokers showed significantly higher care and lower overprotection scores with the Mann-Whitney U-test than non-smokers, although these associations did not remain significant in multiple regression models. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that focusing on early life relationship between patient and mother can be important in psychotherapeutic interventions for smoking. Registration trials retrospectively registered

Fluorescence activated cell sorting followed by small RNA sequencing reveals stable microRNA expression during cell cycle progression.

BACKGROUND: Previously, drug-based synchronization procedures were used for characterizing the cell cycle dependent transcriptional program. However, these synchronization methods result in growth imbalance and alteration of the cell cycle machinery. DNA content-based fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) is able to sort the different cell cycle phases without perturbing the cell cycle. MiRNAs are key transcriptional regulators of the cell cycle, however, their expression dynamics during cell cycle has not been explored. METHODS: Following an optimized FACS, a complex initiative of high throughput platforms (microarray, Taqman Low Density Array, small RNA sequencing) were performed to study gene and miRNA expression profiles of cell cycle sorted human cells originating from different tissues. Validation of high throughput data was performed using quantitative real time PCR. Protein expression was detected by Western blot. Complex statistics and pathway analysis were also applied. RESULTS: Beyond confirming the previously described cell cycle transcriptional program, cell cycle dependently expressed genes showed a higher expression independently from the cell cycle phase and a lower amplitude of dynamic changes in cancer cells as compared to untransformed fibroblasts. Contrary to mRNA changes, miRNA expression was stable throughout the cell cycle. CONCLUSIONS: Cell cycle sorting is a synchronization-free method for the proper analysis of cell cycle dynamics. Altered dynamic expression of universal cell cycle genes in cancer cells reflects the transformed cell cycle machinery. Stable miRNA expression during cell cycle progression may suggest that dynamical miRNA-dependent regulation may be of less importance in short term regulations during the cell cycle

Snails have stronger indirect positive effects on submerged macrophyte growth attributes than zooplankton

Phytoplankton and epiphyton often compete with submerged macrophytes. Grazing by zooplankton and/or epiphyton grazers should promote an indirect positive effect on submerged macrophyte growth rate. Hence, we mimicked shallow lakes conditions in mesocosms using a factorial design to evaluate the indirect effects of no grazers, zooplankton, snails or both grazers on macrophyte growth attributes. After 16 weeks, both snails and zooplankton had positive effects on macrophyte stem length and biomass. However, only snails had positive effects on macrophyte number of sprouts and root biomass. In addition, the positive effect size of snails on the submerged macrophytes was twice as large as the effect size of the zooplankton. Our study suggests that benthic food chains might be more capable of increasing resilience and affecting the stability of the clear-water state in shallow lakes than pelagic food chains. However, long-term experiments with varying relative proportions of herbivores and different macrophyte species, as well as in situ experiments, will be necessary to test the generality of our findings. Understanding the relative effects of benthic versus pelagic grazers on submerged macrophytes may increase the success of shallow lake restoration and should be taken into account when designing management and restoration efforts for shallow lake systems