Cancer, emotions and mental illness: the present state of understanding

The authors review recent and current literature on the relationship between psychological factors and cancer. They discuss the roles of predisposing personality patterns and emotional stress in the development, site, and course of cancer; the influence of awareness of terminal illness on the behavior of cancer patients; and the management of psychiatric symptoms in these patients.     

DES-GENERATED CHECKSUMS FOR ELECTRONIC SIGNATURES

Secrecy and authentication are two important features of a secure communication system. Public Key Cryptosystems, based, e.g., on the Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) algorithm, provide a very elegant solution to the problem of authenticity verification or true electronic signatures. Practical problems, however, mainly the lack of execution speed, prevent a straightforward application. In order to sign a long message it is much faster to first calculate a short digest or checksum and then sign the compressed message. For this checksum calculation the fast, inexpensive and extensively tested Data Encryption Standard (DES) can be used. But care must be taken that this additional processing step does not introduce any weakness into the signature scheme. This paper investigates two DES-based hashing methods. It is shown that neither method seems to introduce any statistical regularities in the generated checksums. The “Cipher/Message to Plain Feedback,” however, is not secure under a modification compensation attack. It is further shown how the second method, the “Cipher to Plain Feedback” proposed by Davies and Price, can be broken by a “meet in the middle attack.” This checksum method, however, can be used safely with a slight modification.     

Mutagenesis of the conserved residue Glu259 of Gsalpha demonstrates the importance of interactions between switches 2 and 3 for activation

We previously reported that substitution of Arg258 within the switch 3 region of Gsalpha impaired activation and increased basal GDP release due to loss of an interaction between the helical and GTPase domains (Warner, D. R., Weng, G., Yu, S., Matalon, R., and Weinstein, L. S. (1998) J Biol. Chem. 273, 23976-23983). The adjacent residue (Glu259) is strictly conserved in G protein alpha-subunits and is predicted to be important in activation. To determine the importance of Glu259, this residue was mutated to Ala (Gsalpha-E259A), Gln (Gsalpha-E259Q), Asp (Gsalpha-E259D), or Val (Gsalpha-E259V), and the properties of in vitro translation products were examined. The Gsalpha-E259V was studied because this mutation was identified in a patient with Albright hereditary osteodystrophy. S49 cyc reconstitution assays demonstrated that Gsalpha-E259D stimulated adenylyl cyclase normally in the presence of GTPgammaS but was less efficient with isoproterenol or AlF4-. The other mutants had more severely impaired effector activation, particularly in response to AlF4-. In trypsin protection assays, GTPgammaS was a more effective activator than AlF4- for all mutants, with Gsalpha-E259D being the least severely impaired. For Gsalpha-E259D, the AlF4--induced activation defect was more pronounced at low Mg2+ concentrations. Gsalpha-E259D and Gsalpha-E259A purified from Escherichia coli had normal rates of GDP release (as assessed by the rate GTPgammaS binding). However, for both mutants, the ability of AlF4- to decrease the rate of GTPgammaS binding was impaired, suggesting that they bound AlF4- more poorly. GTPgammaS bound to purified Gsalpha-E259D irreversibly in the presence of 1 mM free Mg2+, but dissociated readily at micromolar concentrations. Sucrose density gradient analysis of in vitro translates demonstrated that all mutants except Gsalpha-E259V bind to beta gamma at 0 degreesC and were stable at higher temperatures. In the active conformation Glu259 interacts with conserved residues in the switch 2 region that are important in maintaining both the active state and AlF4- in the guanine nucleotide binding pocket. Although both Gsalpha Arg258 and Glu259 are critical for activation, the mechanisms by which these residues affect Gsalpha protein activation are distinct.     

Greater rate of decline in maximal aerobic capacity with age in physically active vs. sedentary healthy women

Using a meta-analytic approach, we recently reported that the rate of decline in maximal oxygen uptake (VO2 max) with age in healthy women is greatest in the most physically active and smallest in the least active when expressed in milliliters per kilogram per minute per decade. We tested this hypothesis prospectively under well-controlled laboratory conditions by studying 156 healthy, nonobese women (age 20-75 yr): 84 endurance-trained runners (ET) and 72 sedentary subjects (S). ET were matched across the age range for age-adjusted 10-km running performance. Body mass was positively related with age in S but not in ET. Fat-free mass was not different with age in ET or S. Maximal respiratory exchange ratio and rating of perceived exertion were similar across age in ET and S, suggesting equivalent voluntary maximal efforts. There was a significant but modest decline in running mileage, frequency, and speed with advancing age in ET. VO2 max (ml . kg-1 . min-1) was inversely related to age (P < 0.001) in ET (r = -0.82) and S (r = -0.71) and was higher at any age in ET. Consistent with our meta-analysic findings, the absolute rate of decline in VO2 max was greater in ET (-5.7 ml . kg-1 . min-1 . decade-1) compared with S (-3.2 ml . kg-1 . min-1 . decade-1; P < 0. 01), but the relative (%) rate of decline was similar (-9.7 vs -9. 1%/decade; not significant). The greater absolute rate of decline in VO2 max in ET compared with S was not associated with a greater rate of decline in maximal heart rate (-5.6 vs. -6.2 beats . min-1 . decade-1), nor was it related to training factors. The present cross-sectional findings provide additional evidence that the absolute, but not the relative, rate of decline in maximal aerobic capacity with age may be greater in highly physically active women compared with their sedentary healthy peers. This difference does not appear to be related to age-associated changes in maximal heart rate, body composition, or training factors.