Fatal Attraction: How Bacterial Adhesins Affect Host Signaling and What We Can Learn from Them

The ability of bacterial species to colonize and infect host organisms is critically dependent upon their capacity to adhere to cellular surfaces of the host. Adherence to cell surfaces is known to be essential for the activation and delivery of certain virulence factors, but can also directly affect host cell signaling to aid bacterial spread and survival. In this review we will discuss the recent advances in the field of bacterial adhesion, how we are beginning to unravel the effects adhesins have on host cell signaling, and how these changes aid the bacteria in terms of their survival and evasion of immune responses. Finally, we will highlight how the exploitation of bacterial adhesins may provide new therapeutic avenues for the treatment of a wide range of bacterial infections.     

Psychological separation, attachment security, vocational self-concept crystallization, and career indecision: A structural equation analysis.

Structural equation modeling was used to test theoretically based models in which psychological separation and attachment security variables were related to career indecision and those relations were mediated through vocational self-concept crystallization. In contrast to previous studies, which have found either weak or no support for a relation between separation or attachment security variables and career indecision, results based on a sample of 350 college students indicated that some components of separation and attachment security did relate to career indecision in a theoretically supportable direction. Results also revealed that regardless of whether global or component career indecision measures were used, separation and attachment security effects on indecision were at least partially mediated through vocational self-concept crystallization. The strongest mediated relations were observed for the effects of attachment anxiety and maternal separation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parental Problem Drinking and Children's Adjustment: Attachment and Family Functioning as Moderators and Mediators of Risk.

Children's perceived attachments with parents, and family cohesion and adaptability were examined as predictors, mediators, and moderators in the parental problem drinking-child outcomes link. A total of 216 6- to 12-year-olds (110 boys, 106 girls) participated. Data were obtained from children and their mothers, fathers, and teachers. A higher level of family cohesion and adaptability functioned as (a) a robust protective factor against adjustment and cognitive difficulties otherwise associated with problem drinking and (b) a mediator of adjustment problems. Children's perceptions of attachments to mothers and fathers were consistent predictors of behavioral, social, and cognitive problems and further moderated relations between problem drinking and child functioning. The results support that child-parent and family functioning variables act as either pathways and/or vulnerability and protective factors for children exposed to a high-risk environment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attachment to the therapist.

This study examines the ways in which therapists function as attachment figures for patients. Patients in long-term psychoanalytic therapy answered questionnaires about their feelings about their therapists and their closest personal relationships. Components of attachment prominent in the therapeutic relationships were looking up to the therapist and feeling the therapist was responsive to emotional needs. Stronger attachment to therapists was associated with greater frequency and duration of therapy, a stronger working alliance, and greater security of the patients' attachment style, as well as with the gender of the patient and therapist. Using attachment theory to understand psychoanalytic relationships emphasizes the unique importance of a therapist to a patient and can offer new perspectives on both therapeutic and attachment processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal attraction and personality: What is attractive--self similarity, ideal similarity, complementarity or attachment security?

Little is known about whether personality characteristics influence initial attraction. Because adult attachment differences influence a broad range of relationship processes, the authors examined their role in 3 experimental attraction studies. The authors tested four major attraction hypotheses--self similarity, ideal-self similarity, complementarity, and attachment security--and examined both actual and perceptual factors. Replicated analyses across samples, designs, and manipulations showed that actual security and self similarity predicted attraction. With regard to perceptual factors, ideal similarity, self similarity, and security all were significant predictors. Whereas perceptual ideal and self similarity had incremental predictive power, perceptual security's effects were subsumed by perceptual ideal similarity. Perceptual self similarity fully mediated actual attachment similarity effects, whereas ideal similarity was only a partial mediator. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dyadic perfectionism as a predictor of relationship continuity and distress among college students.

This study examined the nature and impact of dyadic perfectionism over a 3-month interval within a sample of 116 college students who were currently involved in an intimate heterosexual relationship. Dyadic perfectionism scores were stable and correlated as expected with scores on concurrent measures of adult attachment orientations and relationship satisfaction. Logistic regression analyses revealed that, controlling for initial commitment status and adult attachment orientations, Time 1 dyadic perfectionism scores significantly and uniquely predicted relationship continuity 3 months later. Lastly, controlling for social desirability, relationship commitment status, and Time 1 adult attachment orientation scores, Time 1 dyadic perfectionism scores also uniquely predicted Time 2 relationship distress. Findings provide additional evidence that dyadic perfectionism is a risk factor for relationship dysfunction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Importance of Shared Environment in Infant-Father Attachment: A Behavioral Genetic Study of the Attachment Q-Sort.

In this first behavior genetic study on infant-father attachment, we estimated genetic and environmental influences on infant-father attachment behaviors and on temperamental dependency, both assessed with the Attachment Q-Sort (AQS; B. E.Vaughn & E. Waters, 1990; E. Waters, 1995). Mothers of mono- and dizygotic twins (N = 56 pairs) sorted the AQS with a focus on the infant's behaviors in the presence of the father. Genetic modeling showed that attachment was largely explained by shared environmental (59%) and unique environmental (41%) factors. For dependency, genetic factors explained 66% of the variance, and unique environmental factors including measurement error explained 34%. Attachment to father appears to be, to a significant degree, a function of the environment that twins share. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Treatment of Dissociation in Sexually Abused Children From a Family/Attachment Perspective.

This article outlines an approach to treatment of sexually abused children with dissociative symptoms. Dissociated self-states are seen as competing interpersonal approaches to handling the many emotional sequela of abuse, including anger, fear, and regressive needs. Parents' responses to their sexually abused children, complicated by guilt and their own histories of trauma, can promote dissociative coping in the children as they have difficulty processing their own real feelings of anger, fear, and responsibility. Children and parents may alternatively take victimizer, victim, and rescuer roles, thus mutually reinforcing a dissociative style of coping with these events. This article illustrates how sensitivity to these family dynamics, along with a problem-solving approach to the child's symptoms, can treat dissociative psychopathology in these children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The reaction of 1,2-dichloroethane with copper

The decomposition of 1,2-dichloroethane on polycrystalline copper has been studied using a microreactor. The reaction is found to have an activation energy of 81±5 kJ mol^–1 generating gaseous ethene and chemisorbed chlorine. The reaction terminates on completion of a monolayer of chemisorbed chlorine and is followed by a much slower reaction. The rate limiting step is thought to be C₂H₄Cl_2(phys)C2H₄Cl(_ads)+Cl_ads The reaction is compared with a UHV study of the same molecule on Cu(l 11) and the possibility of a negative ion transition state is discussed.