Evidence for mood-dependent attentional processing in asthma: attentional bias towards health-threat in depressive mood and attentional avoidance in neutral mood.

Attentional biases have been observed in populations with psychological disorders, but have been under-investigated in populations with physical illnesses. This study investigated potential attentional biases in asthma as a function of mood. Asthma (N = 45), and healthy (N = 39) participants were randomly allocated to a depressed or a neutral mood state induction.

New Molecular Insight into Mechanism of Evolution of Mammalian Synthetic Prions.

Previous studies established that transmissible prion diseases could be induced by in vitro-produced recombinant prion protein (PrP) fibrils with structures that are fundamentally different from that of authentic PrP scrapie isoform (PrP(Sc)). To explain evolution of synthetic prions, a new mechanism referred to as deformed templating was introduced. Here, we asked whether an increase in expression level of the cellular form of PrP (PrP(C)) speeds up the evolution of synthetic strains in vivo.

Synthesis and Comparative Study of Anti-Adenoviral Activity of 6-Azacytidine and Its Analogues.

This paper presents the results of synthesis and study of cytotoxicity and the anti-adenoviral activity of new N4-derivatives of 6-azacytidine and its α-L-glycopyranosyl analogues obtained by the simplified one-pot version of the silyl condensation method. The resulting acylated 4-methylmercapto-1,2,4-triazin-3(2Н)-one glycosides then underwent the amination and/or ammonolysis to provide 6-azacytidine glycoside analogues (2-6, 12, 15, 17) and compounds with modifications at both base and sugar fragments (11, 15). The evaluation of cytotoxicity and antiviral activity of new compounds against AdV5 showed high selectivity indexes for N4-methyl-6-azacytidine (2) and N,O-tetraacetyl-6-azacytidine (8).

Stabilization of a prion strain of synthetic origin requires multiple serial passages.

Transmission of prions to a new host is frequently accompanied by strain adaptation, a phenomenon that involves reduction of the incubation period, a change in neuropathological features and, sometimes, tissue tropism. Here we show that a strain of synthetic origin (SSLOW), although serially transmitted within the same species, displayed the key attributes of the strain adaptation process. At least four serial passages were required to stabilize the strain-specific SSLOW phenotype.

A new mechanism for transmissible prion diseases.

The transmissible agent of prion disease consists of prion protein (PrP) in β-sheet-rich state (PrP(Sc)) that can replicate its conformation according to a template-assisted mechanism. This mechanism postulates that the folding pattern of a newly recruited polypeptide accurately reproduces that of the PrP(Sc) template. Here, three conformationally distinct amyloid states were prepared in vitro using Syrian hamster recombinant PrP (rPrP) in the absence of cellular cofactors.