Social sharing and expressive suppression in major depressive disorder and borderline personality disorder:An experience sampling study

Major depressive disorder (MDD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD) are characterized by disturbed patterns of emotional and interpersonal functioning, which might imply altered use of emotion regulation in interpersonal contexts. In the current study, we examined how individuals with MDD and/or BPD differ from healthy controls in (1) their overall daily life use of expressive suppression and social sharing and (2) their tendency to adjust the use of these strategies to the emotional context (i.e., preceding negative and positive affect). Thirty-four individuals with MDD, 20 individuals with BPD, 19 individuals with comorbid MDD and BPD, and 40 healthy controls participated in a week of experience sampling during which they reported their use of expressive suppression, social sharing, and experienced negative and positive affect. The results indicated that all clinical groups reported more expressive suppression and social sharing in their daily lives than healthy controls. Group differences remained when controlling for differences in mean experienced affect, except for increased suppression for MDD and increased sharing for BPD and comorbid MDD and BPD, which seemed related to these participants' overall higher levels of negative affect. Additionally, associations between within-person fluctuations in negative or positive affect and subsequent strategy use were equally strong for clinical and control participants, indicating that clinical groups did not differentially adjust the use of suppression and sharing to the emotional context. In conclusion, individuals with MDD and/or BPD showed increased use of suppression and sharing in daily life, which might contribute to, or follow from their emotional and interpersonal difficulties

Placing the RPL32 Promoter Upstream of a Second Promoter Results in a Strongly Increased Number of Stably Transfected Mammalian Cell Lines That Display High Protein Expression Levels

The use of high stringency selection systems commonly results in a strongly diminished number of stably transfected mammalian cell lines. Here we placed twelve different promoters upstream of an adjacent primary promoter and tested whether this might result in an increased number of colonies; this is in the context of a stringent selection system. We found that only the promoter of the human ribosomal protein, RPL32, induced a high number of colonies in CHO-DG44 cells. This phenomenon was observed when the RPL32 promoter was combined with the CMV, SV40, EF1-α, and the β-actin promoters. In addition, these colonies displayed high protein expression levels. The RPL32 promoter had to be functionally intact, since the deletion of a small region upstream of the transcription start site demolished its positive action. We conclude that adding the RPL32 promoter to an expression cassette in cis may be a powerful tool to augment gene expression levels

Inactivation of glycogen synthase kinase-3 beta (GSK-3 beta) enhances skeletal muscle oxidative metabolism

Background: Aberrant skeletal muscle mitochondrial oxidative metabolism is a debilitating feature of chronic diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, type 2 diabetes and chronic heart failure. Evidence in non-muscle cells suggests that glycogen synthase kinase-3 beta (GSK-3 beta) represses mitochondrial biogenesis and inhibits PPAR-gamma co-activator 1 (PGC-1), a master regulator of cellular oxidative metabolism. The role of GSK-3 beta in the regulation of skeletal muscle oxidative metabolism is unknown. Aims: We hypothesized that inactivation of GSK-3 beta stimulates muscle oxidative metabolism by activating PGC-1 signaling and explored if GSK-3 beta inactivation could protect against physical inactivity-induced alterations in skeletal muscle oxidative metabolism. Methods: GSK-3 beta was modulated genetically and pharmacologically in C2C12 myotubes in vitro and in skeletal muscle in vivo. Wild-type and muscle-specific GSK-3 beta knock-out (KO) mice were subjected to hind limb suspension for 14 days. Key constituents of oxidative metabolism and PGC-1. signaling were investigated. Results: In vitro, knock-down of GSK-3 beta increased mitochondrial DNA copy number, protein and mRNA abundance of oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) complexes and activity of oxidative metabolic enzymes but also enhanced protein and mRNA abundance of key PGC-1 signaling constituents. Similarly, pharmacological inhibition of GSK-3 beta increased transcript and protein abundance of key constituents and regulators of mitochondrial energy metabolism. Furthermore, GSK-3 beta KO animals were protected against unloading-induced decrements in expression levels of these constituents. Conclusion: Inactivation of GSK-3 beta up-regulates skeletal muscle mitochondrial metabolism and increases expression levels of PGC-1 signaling constituents. In vivo, GSK-3 beta KO protects against inactivity-induced reductions in muscle metabolic gene expression

Effects of a soft baby carrier on fathers’ behavior and hormones: A randomized controlled trial

Increased father–infant physical contact may promote early paternal caregiving. This randomized controlled trial, preregistered on https://osf.io/qwe3a , tested the effects of a soft baby carrier intervention on fathers’ parenting behavior and hormonal levels. Eighty first-time fathers of 2- to 4-month-old infants were randomly assigned to a baby carrier intervention group (n = 41 fathers) or a control group receiving an infant seat (n = 39 fathers). Fathers were instructed to use the baby carrier or seat for 3 weeks. Fathers’ sensitive parenting behavior, involvement, salivary oxytocin and cortisol basal levels and reactivity to interacting with the infant were assessed at pre-test (on average 2 weeks before the intervention) and at post-test (on average 1 week after the intervention period ended). The results showed that the intervention did not enhance fathers’ sensitive parenting or involvement. Involvement operationalized as hours spent with the infant decreased over time for fathers in the carrier condition compared to fathers in the control condition. The baby carrier intervention had no effect on fathers’ basal oxytocin or cortisol levels, nor did it affect fathers’ oxytocin or cortisol reactivity to interacting with their infant. Our findings indicate that 3 weeks of using a baby carrier does not have immediate beneficial effects on fathers’ parenting behavior or hormonal functioning as assessed here. Future research may examine whether infant carrying has beneficial effects on the longer term or in different groups of fathers, and how fathers’ infant carrying affects their infants.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

No side-effects of single intranasal oxytocin administration in middle childhood.

Development Psychopathology in context: famil

Methods to create a stringent selection system for mammalian cell lines

The efficient establishment of high protein producing recombinant mammalian cell lines is facilitated by the use of a stringent selection system. Here, we describe two methods to create a stringent selection system based on the Zeocin resistance marker. First, we cloned increasingly longer stretches of DNA, encoding a range of 8–131 amino acids immediately upstream of the Zeocin selection marker gene. The DNA stretches were separated from the open reading frame of the selection marker gene by a stopcodon. The idea behind this was that the translation machinery will first translate the small peptide, stop and then restart at the AUG of the Zeocin marker. This process, however, will become less efficient with increasingly longer stretches of DNA upstream of the Zeocin marker that has to be translated first. This would result in lower levels of the Zeocin selection marker protein and thus a higher selection stringency of the system. Secondly, we performed a genetic screen to identify PCR induced mutations in the Zeocin selection protein that functionally impair the selection marker protein. Both the insertion of increasingly longer peptides and several Zeocin selection protein mutants resulted in a decreasing number of stably transfected colonies that concomitantly displayed higher protein expression levels. When the Zeocin mutants were combined with very short small peptides (8–14 amino acids long), this created a flexible, high stringency selection system. The system allows the rapid establishment of few, but high protein producing mammalian cell lines