Project description:Individual differences in basal leukocyte gene expression profiles as a function of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, and psychological and social sub-dimensions of eudaimonic well-being.
Project description:Individual differences in basal leukocyte gene expression profiles as a function of child's and parent's perception of family stress, and as a function of parent's psychological well-being.
Project description:Individual differences in basal leukocyte gene expression profiles as a function of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, and psychological and social sub-dimensions of eudaimonic well-being. Gene expression profiling was carried out on peripheral blood mononuclear cell RNA samples collected from 122 healthy adults measured for hedonic and eudaimonic dimensions of well-being using the Short Flourishing Scale (Keyes, C (2014). The Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF) for adults). Higher values of the hedonic well-being scale indicate greater levels of positive affect, higher values of eudaimonic well-being scale indicate greater experience of purpose and meaning in life, higher values of social well-being scale indicate greater experience of social well-being in life, higher values of psychological well-being scale indicate greater experience of psychological well-being in life, greater TotalMHCSF scores indicate greater experience of all forms of well-being measured by the MHC-SF, the FlourishGroup indicates idividuals showing flourishing mental health as defined by the MHC-SF scoring instructions referenced above, greater BrownPsychological scores indicate greater experience of psychological well-being as measured by the MHC-SF with an alternative scoring, and greater BrownSocial scores indicate greater experience of social well-being as measured by the MHC-SF with an alternative scoring.
Project description:Individual differences in basal leukocyte gene expression profiles as a function of child's and parent's perception of family stress, and as a function of parent's psychological well-being. Gene expression profiling was carried out on peripheral blood mononuclear cell mRNA samples collected from 273 individuals (129 parent:child pairs + 15 parent-or-child) who were also assessed on their perceptions of family stress (both parent's and child's perception). Each dyad is labeled by a case ID, with p suffix indicating parent's gene expression profile and c suffix indicating child's gene expression profile. Variations in gene expression are analyzed as a function of both parent's perception of family stress and child's perception of family stress (using UCLA Life Stress Interview, as previously described: Hammen C (1991) Generation of stress in the course of unipolar depression. J Abnorm Psychol 100:555-561; Adrian C, Hammen C (1993) Stress Exposure and Stress Generation in Children of Depressed Mothers. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 61:354-359; Rudolph KD, Hammen C (1999) Age and gender as determinants of stress exposure, generation, and reactions in youngsters: A transactional perspective. Child Development 70:660-677). Higher values indicate greater levels of subjectively perceived family stress. Additional data are available for 107 parents who completed all 6 subscales of the Psychological Well-Being (PWB) Scale (Ryff CD (1989) Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. J. Pers Soc. Psychol 57: 1069-1081), resulting in scores for PWB_Total (average score across all 6 subscales) as well as scores for subscales measuring Purpose in Life (PWB_Purpose), Environmental Mastery (PWB_Environmental_Mastery), Self-Acceptance (PWB_Self_Accept), Autonomy (PWB_Autonomy), Personal Growth (PWB_Growth), Positive Relations with Others (PWB_Relationship). Higher scores indicate greater psychological well being. Also available for those individuals are measures of age (years), male gender (0/1), ethnic group (1=White, 2=Chinese, 3=Indian, 4=Other Asian, 5=Other Ethnicity), Body Mass Index (kg/m^2), heavy alcohol consumption history (0/1), smoking history (0/1), and abundance of 8 mRNA transcripts indicating the relative prevalence of major leukocyte subsets (CD3E, CD3D, CD19, CD4, CD8A, FCGR3A, NCAM1, CD14). key word: Risk prediction
Project description:Gene expression profiling of immortalized human mesenchymal stem cells with hTERT/E6/E7 transfected MSCs. hTERT may change gene expression in MSCs. Goal was to determine the gene expressions of immortalized MSCs.
Project description:Kynureninase is a member of a large family of catalytically diverse but structurally homologous pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (PLP) dependent enzymes known as the aspartate aminotransferase superfamily or alpha-family. The Homo sapiens and other eukaryotic constitutive kynureninases preferentially catalyze the hydrolytic cleavage of 3-hydroxy-l-kynurenine to produce 3-hydroxyanthranilate and l-alanine, while l-kynurenine is the substrate of many prokaryotic inducible kynureninases. The human enzyme was cloned with an N-terminal hexahistidine tag, expressed, and purified from a bacterial expression system using Ni metal ion affinity chromatography. Kinetic characterization of the recombinant enzyme reveals classic Michaelis-Menten behavior, with a Km of 28.3 +/- 1.9 microM and a specific activity of 1.75 micromol min-1 mg-1 for 3-hydroxy-dl-kynurenine. Crystals of recombinant kynureninase that diffracted to 2.0 A were obtained, and the atomic structure of the PLP-bound holoenzyme was determined by molecular replacement using the Pseudomonas fluorescens kynureninase structure (PDB entry 1qz9) as the phasing model. A structural superposition with the P. fluorescens kynureninase revealed that these two structures resemble the "open" and "closed" conformations of aspartate aminotransferase. The comparison illustrates the dynamic nature of these proteins' small domains and reveals a role for Arg-434 similar to its role in other AAT alpha-family members. Docking of 3-hydroxy-l-kynurenine into the human kynureninase active site suggests that Asn-333 and His-102 are involved in substrate binding and molecular discrimination between inducible and constitutive kynureninase substrates.