A role for the thiol-dependent reductase ERp57 in the assembly of MHC class I molecules

An important mammalian defence strategy against intracellular pathogens is the presentation of cytoplasmically derived short peptides by major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I molecules to cytotoxic T lymphocytes. MHC class I molecules assemble in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) with chaperones, including calnexin and calreticulin, before binding to the transporter associated with antigen processing (TAP). We show here that the thiol-dependent reductase ERp57 (also known as ER60 protease) is involved in MHC class I assembly. ERp57 co-purified with the rat TAP complex (comprising TAP1 and TAP2), and associated with MHC class I molecules at an early stage in their biosynthesis. This association was sensitive to castanospermine, which inhibits the processing of glycoproteins. Human MHC class I molecules were also found to associate with ERp57. We conclude that ERp57 is a newly identified component of the MHC class I pathway, and that it appears to interact with MHC class I molecules before they associate with TAP.     

IMGT, the International ImMunoGeneTics database

IMGT, the international ImMunoGeneTics database, is an integrated database specialising in Immunoglobulins (Ig), T cell Receptors (TcR) and Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) of all vertebrate species, created by Marie-Paule Lefranc, CNRS, Montpellier II University, Montpellier, France (lefranc@ligm.crbm.cnrs-mop.fr). IMGT includes three databases: LIGM-DB (for Ig and TcR), MHC/HLA-DB and PRIMER-DB (the last two in development). IMGT comprises expertly annotated sequences and alignment tables. LIGM-DB contains more than 23 000 Immunoglobulin and T cell Receptor sequences from 78 species. MHC/HLA-DB contains Class I and Class II Human Leucocyte Antigen alignment tables. An IMGT tool, DNAPLOT, developed for Ig, TcR and MHC sequence alignments, is also available. IMGT works in close collaboration with the EMBL database. IMGT goals are to establish a common data access to all immunogenetics data, including nucleotide and protein sequences, oligonucleotide primers, gene maps and other genetic data of Ig, TcR and MHC molecules, and to provide a graphical user friendly data access. IMGT has important implications in medical research (repertoire in autoimmune diseases, AIDS, leukemias, lymphomas), therapeutical approaches (antibody engineering), genome diversity and genome evolution studies. IMGT is freely available at http://imgt.cnusc.fr:8104     

Treatment: A Report of the Commission of Inquiry Into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs.

The Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs was established May 29th, 1969. The interim report prepared by the Commission and tabled in parliament on June 19th, 1970, has resulted in the creation of the Non-Medical Drug Directorate within the National Department of Health and Welfare. However, other than providing some funds for research, no comprehensive program has been developed by the directorate to deal with abuse and addiction problems. Furthermore the government has indicated that the final direction of federal programs will not be determined until the Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs has made its final report and until a discussion of their recommendations has been held. This commentary presents the views of the Canadian Psychological Association regarding the report on "Treatment" only and will be followed by a commentary on "Cannabis" and the "Final" reports. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response to Milden's commentary.

Responds to Milden's comments (see record 2007-10564-001). In her response to my review (see record 2003-05429-013) of Lerner's The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships (see record 2006-00700-000), Dr. Milden assumes that I believe that there is no legitimate place for popular presentation of psychological knowledge and that feminist psychoanalytic writings do not represent a serious or thoughtful body of work. Quite the contrary. Although I did not expect The Dance of Anger to be a heavyweight, theoretical treatise, I did expect from someone of Lerner's stature at least a serious-popular book. What she has given us is "kitsch." This remains paradoxical, for as Milden points out, Lerner has written serious and scholarly works on the subject. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identification of autoantibodies to the I protein of the heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein complex in patients with systemic sclerosis

OBJECTIVE: To assess the presence of autoantibodies to the 1 protein (polypyrimidine-tract binding protein) of the heterogeneous nuclear RNPs (hnRNP) in different connective tissue diseases. Antibodies to other hnRNP proteins (A1, A2, and B) have been previously found in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD). METHODS: Sera from 101 patients with various connective tissue diseases and 25 normal controls were investigated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and immunoblotting, for their reactivity to highly purified recombinant hnRNP I. Moreover, reactivity to cellular hnRNP I protein was investigated by immunoblotting using a partially purified preparation of hnRNP proteins (including A1, A2, B, and I), and by indirect immunofluorescence. For the analysis of the fluorescence pattern, affinity-purified antibodies to hnRNP I; obtained from a selected patient, were tested on HEp-2 cells. RESULTS: By immunoblotting, antibodies reacting to recombinant hnRNP I were found in 22 of 40 patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc), 3 of 32 with RA, 0 of 23 with SLE, and 0 of 6 with MCTD. Antibodies to recombinant hnRNP I were more frequently found in patients with pre-SSc or limited SSc (15 of 24) than in those with intermediate or diffuse SSc (7 of 16). In indirect immunofluorescence studies, affinity-purified anti-hnRNP I autoantibodies gave a diffuse nucleoplasmic staining. Using an hnRNP preparation from nuclear extracts, anti-hnRNP I reactivity was detectable in SSc sera, while it was not detectable in RA, SLE, and MCTD sera reacting with hnRNP A/B proteins. CONCLUSIONS: Human autoimmune sera show distinct patterns of anti-hnRNP reactivity, i.e., anti-A/B in SLE and RA sera, and anti-I in SSc sera. This suggests that A/B proteins and the I protein may be involved in different dynamic hnRNP complexes that elicit different autoimmune responses. From a clinical perspective, anti-hnRNP I antibodies are frequently associated with pre-SSc features, suggesting an early appearance of these antibodies during the course of the disease.     

Modeling Particle Dispersion under Human Activity Disturbance in a Multizone Indoor Environment

Human activity is an important factor influencing particle resuspension in the indoor environment. This work studies the applicability of a multizone airflow and contaminant transport model (CONTAM 2.1) in the simulation of indoor dispersion of particles under human activity disturbance. An iterative method is suggested to complement CONTAM 2.1, by tracking the transient particle concentration on floor surface due to dynamic deposition and resuspension process. A three-zone building with a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system is used as the simulation case to test the convergence and accuracy of this algorithm under different particle-release scenarios. The algorithm shows a very fast convergence speed in the simulation. Comparisons of calculation results between the multizone model and the analytical model show good agreement and verify the accuracy of the multizone model simulation. The airborne particle concentration profiles and human breathing dose are also analyzed for the three-zone building model.     

I Bought His Private Practice.

In 1975 I enjoyed a full-time faculty position at the New Jersey Medical School. I held a joint appointment in the Departments of Psychiatry and Obstetrics/Gynecology and was involved in the development of the Human Sexuality Program. In addition to my duties at the Medical School, I conducted a small, part-time private practice, seeing patients in my office at the Medical School and occasionally borrowing a friend's office in a suburban town. This arrangement is probably familiar to many neophyte practitioners. Through my work in the Human Sexuality Program of the New Jersey Medical School, I was in charge of conducting weekend "Sexual Attitude Reassessment Seminars." At the suggestion of a senior psychologist, I invited a well-known New Jersey psychologist and the then-acting Dean of the Organizing Council for the College of Professional Psychology, a forerunner of the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers, as a guest. We felt that his presence would be good publicity for our program. It was during this weekend that I was first approached by him with an offer to buy his practice. At the time of the purchase offer, I knew of no other psychologist who had bought a private practice. For details of the contract and purchase process, see the article by Robert Weitz (see record 2005-09169-002). For the young psychologist genuinely interested in developing a private practice, I would recommend seeking a seller. The choice of the seller, of course, is most important. In my case, it was an excellent choice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

News & notes.

This News & Notes section of the History of Psychology Journal includes a Preliminary Division 26 (History of Psychology) Program for the 2001 American Psychological Association Convention, a message from Division President-Elect, information from the British Psychological Society, information on a forum for History of Human Sciences Article Award and finally, personal news. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Race--Social, Biological, or Lemonade?

Comments on an article by R. L. Sternberg, E. L. Grigorenko, and K. K. Kidd (see record 2005-00117-006) and another article by H. Tang, T. Quertermous, B. Rodriguez, S. L. Kardia, X. Zhu, X., A. Brown, et al. (2005). On the day that I read Sternberg, Grigorenko, and Kidd's (January 2005) article on race, an article from the American Journal of Human Genetics (Tang et al., 2005) also crossed my desk. As part of their research, the latter authors compared the results of a cluster analysis of people using many genetic markers with the respondent's self-identified race/ethnicity: "Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity" (Tang et al., 2005, p. 268). I would very much like to hear a response to this finding from Sternberg et al. (2005), who maintained that "race is a socially constructed concept, not a biological one" (p. 49), that reifies those physical correlates of ancient population dispersions "as deriving from some imagined natural grouping of people that does not in fact exist, except in our heads" (p. 51). My take is that if we psychologists could use genetics (or any other biological variables) to distinguish those with schizophrenia from those with bipolar disorder with an error rate even a hundredfold greater than that of Tang et al. (2005), we would announce--and do it with no small fanfare--that there are valid, biological differences between the two disorders. I suspect that much of the difficulty in discussing this issue stems from a tendency to treat "social" and "biological" (or "genetic" and "environmental") phenomena as mutually exclusive. Placing a complicated construct like race into a discrete "social" or "biological" box makes as much sense as asking whether lemonade is (a) lemon juice, (b) water, or (c) sugar. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Souplesse-inertie mentale et jugement de sens.

Studied the effects of cognitive styles (including mental flexibility, field dependence–field independence, perseverance, and responsiveness to stimulus variation) on the speed of verbal comprehension. Human subjects: 98 male and female French adults (university students). Each S's comprehension was assessed using a sentence completion task followed by a meaning judgment task. Cognitive styles were evaluated using a test of mental flexibility by M. Carlier (1973), the Embedded Figures Test by H. A. Witkin et al (1971), the Test de Persévération (Perseverance Test) by R. Zazzo and M. Stambak (1969), and the Test of Developed Designs by G. Tourette (1989). Differences in reaction time (RT) to sentence completion and meaning-judgment tests were evaluated according to cognitive styles. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) and other statistical tests were used. (English abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The significance of eating patterns: an elderly Greek case study

BACKGROUND: Endothelin-1 (ET-1), a novel vasoconstrictor, possibly plays a role in the mediation of ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. Tacrolimus (FK506) and cyclosporin A (CsA) were reported to maintain tissue microcirculation of the liver subjected to I/R. This study investigated the effects of these immunosuppressants on intestinal I/R in terms of intestinal tissue microcirculation associated with ET-1. METHODS AND RESULTS: Male S-D rats were pretreated twice with FK506 (0.2 mg/kg), CsA (10 mg/kg) or only saline solution (0.5 mL). The tissue microcirculation in the control was reduced after I/R (29% +/- 10%) accompanied by hypotension, increased tissue ET-1 expression (25.0% +/- 6.4% to 67.9% +/- 5.0% 60 minutes after reperfusion), and increased ET-1 level in the portal blood (3.4 +/- 0.9 to 23.6 +/- 6.1 pg/mL). FK506 suppressed ET-1 expression (27.3% +/- 5.2%, 4.1 +/- 2.2 pg/mL), maintained microcirculation (96% +/- 16%), and blood pressure, reduced histologic damage, and improved survival. CsA had a similar but weaker effect compared with FK506. An additional experiment was performed with BQ485Na (BQ), an ETA receptor antagonist, to evaluate the genuine role of ET-1. BQ showed almost the same effects as FK506. CONCLUSIONS: FK506 and CsA, particularly the former, maintain microcirculation and protect the tissue from I/R injury by suppressing the production and release of ET-1.     

Review of Schools of Psychology: A Symposium.

Reviews the book, Schools of Psychology: A Symposium edited by David L. Krantz (1969). This volume contains five papers which were delivered at a symposium held on September 4, 1967 at the seventy-fifth anniversary meetings of the American Psychological Association. The participants and their topics were E. G. Boring (Titchener, Meaning and Behaviorism), Edna Heidbreder (Functionalism), R. J. Herrnstein (Behaviorism), Wolfgang Kohler (Gestalt psychology), and David Shakow (Psychoanalysis). In addition there is a discussion by Gardner Murphy and an additional paper, by the editor, on the Baldwin-Titchener controversy. An index is provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The atopy patch test: an increased rate of reactivity in patients who have an air-exposed pattern of atopic eczema

In a subgroup of patients with atopic eczema (AE), eczematous skin lesions can be induced by epicutaneous testing with aeroallergens (the atopy patch test: APT). An increased frequency of positive APT has been found in AE patients showing a predictive lesional pattern affecting air-exposed skin areas. This study investigates the dose-response of the APT in two different patient groups with AE. Petrolatum preparations of house dust mite, cat dander and grass pollen allergens in four concentrations (500-10,000 protein nitrogen units) were tested epicutaneously in 57 patients with AE, who were prospectively divided in two groups according to whether their AE pattern was with (group I) or without (group II) a predictive distribution. Sixty-nine per cent of patients in group I, and 39% in group II, had positive APT reactions (P = 0.02). The reactions in group I were elicitable with lower allergen concentrations (P = 0.03). A clinically recognizable subgroup of patients with AE showed increased cutaneous sensitivity to aeroallergens.     

Review of The IQ game: A methodological inquiry into the heredity-environment controversy and Intelligence, Heredity and Environment.

Reviews the books, The IQ Game. A Methodological Inquiry into the Heredity-Environment Controversy by Howard F. Taylor (1980); and Intelligence, Heredity and Environment by Philip E. Vernon (1979). A fundamental issue in psychology is the relation between differences in heredity and differences in human behaviour and mental characteristics. The history of vigorous debate on this question is ancient, and two recent books show that it is far from being resolved. The approaches and conclusions by the two authors are so different that they are best presented as a study of contrasts. In doing so, I have chosen three specific topics for discussion which are addressed explicitly by both authors. Taylor reviews Burt's publications as well as critiques by Kamin (1974), Dorfman (1978), Hearnshaw (1979) and others, concluding that the data 'obviously cannot be used in this analysis.' Vernon, on the other hand, reprints many of Burt's correlations for IQ scores of relatives in several tables and relies heavily on Sir Cyril's analyses. He notes there are reasons to doubt the accuracy of some of the figures, but he vigorously defends Burt against charges of fraud and accuses Leon Kamin, who first exposed Sir Cyril, of being 'a good deal more one-sided than Burt.' Both authors make extensive use of the concept of 'heritability,' but only Taylor explains it clearly and correctly. Of these two books, only the one by Taylor adds anything positive to the extensive discussions of heredity and intelligence during the last decade. The IQ Game is a major contribution, being thorough, critical and thought-provoking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What is the sensation seeker? Personality trait and experience correlates of the Sensation-Seeking Scales.

Tested correlates of the Sensation-Seeking Scale (SSS) in 7 studies and 2 replications using undergraduate Ss (N = 1,145). The SSS, or particular subscales of the SSS, were related to an MMPI triad of F, Pd, and Ma and to a cluster of scales of the l6 PF which indicated an uninhibited, nonconforming, impulsive, dominant type of extraversion, but not to scales which measure a friendly type of sociability. The SSS was related to openness to new experiences (E. Fitzgerald's Experience Inquiry scale) and to reported ranges of actual experience with sex, drugs, and alcohol. An attempt was made to develop a nonverbal SSS based on figure preferences which was only partially successful. The SSS was unrelated to scores on the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility and Rotter's Internal-External Control Scale. (33 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quelques mesures-critères de stress et la prédiction de l'état de santé physique. Une étude longitudinale.

Studied the relation of stress to physical and psychological states of health. Human subjects: 91 Canadian female adults (mean age 30.3 yrs). Ss' stress levels and physical and psychological status were evaluated via administration of a questionnaire 3 times during an 8-mo period, and sequential effects were evaluated. Tests used: The "Mesure de Stress Psychologique" (Measure of Psychological Stress), the Depression Inventory by A. T. Beck et al (1961), the General Health Questionnaire by D. P. Goldberg (1978), and a physical state questionnaire derived from the "Santé Canada" (Health Canada) instrument. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) and other statistical tests were used. (English abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)