The Raynaud's Treatment Study: Biofeedback Protocols and Acquisition of Temperature Biofeedback Skills

The Raynaud's Treatment Study (RTS) compared temperature biofeedback training and a behavioral control procedure (frontalis EMG biofeedback) with nifedipine-XL and a medication placebo for treatment of primary Raynaud's phenomenon (RP) in a large (N = 313) multicenter trial. The present study describes the RTS biofeedback protocols and presents data on the acquisition of digital skin temperature and frontalis EMG responses in the RTS. The findings point to substantial problems with acquisition of physiological self-regulation skills in the RTS. Only 34.6% of the Temperature Biofeedback group (N = 81) and 55.4% of the EMG Biofeedback group (N = 74) successfully learned the desired physiological response. In contrast, 67.4% of a Normal Temperature Biofeedback group (N = 46) learned hand warming. Multivariate analysis found that coping strategies, anxiety, gender, and clinic site predicted acquisition of hand-warming skills whereas variables related to RP disease severity did not. Physiological data showed vasoconstriction in response to the onset of biofeedback and also found that performance in the initial sessions was critical for successful acquisition. These findings indicate that attention to the emotional and cognitive aspects of biofeedback training, and a degree of success in the initial biofeedback sessions, are important for acquisition.     

EA rosette forming lymphoid cells: distribution as to cell types and organs from chickens of different developmental stages.

The interaction of chicken spleen cells with sheep erythrocytes coated with chicken antibody (EA complexes) was studied using a rosette assay. The results reported in this paper indicate that subpopulations of chicken lymphocytes, monocytes, and heterophils have a receptor for EA. The formation of rosettes between chicken lymphoid cells and sheep erythrocytes (SRBC) was dependent upon the concentration of antibody used to sensitize the SRBC. In a developmental study of rosette-forming lymphocytes (RFL), the bursa was the first site of appearance of large numbers of RFL. The percentage of RFL in the bursa reached a peak at 17 days of embryonic life, and declined to a low by hatching. The percentage of RFL in the spleen, however, began to increase at the time of hatching and by 6 weeks of age the spleen far surpassed the bursa in percentage RFL. At no age were significant numbers of RFL detected in the thymus.     

Intracellular copper transport in cultured hepatoma cells

The distribution of copper in lysates prepared anaerobically from copper-resistant hepatoma cells radiolabeled with 67Cu was examined in pulse-chase experiments. Initially, the majority of the radioactivity (greater than 85%) coeluted with copper-metallothionein. As the chase time increased there was a gradual loss of 67Cu from metallothionein, with a concomitant increase in the level of 67Cu-labeled glutathione. There was also an increase in 67Cu incorporation into superoxide dismutase. These results suggest that the chelation of copper by metallothionein from a copper-glutathione complex (Freedman, J. H., Ciriolo, M. R., and Peisach, J. (1989) J. Biol. Chem. 264, 5598-5605) is a reversible process. Further, they demonstrate that the copper bound to metallothionein is not permanently sequestered, but can be incorporated into other copper proteins.     

Physiological mechanisms of temperature biofeedback.

Research on the physiological mechanisms of finger temperature biofeedback with normal subjects and Raynaud's disease patients is reviewed. Studies conducted in the author's laboratory have shown that feedback-induced vasodilation is mediated through a non-neural, beta-adrenergic mechanism rather than through reductions in sympathetic nervous system activation. In contrast, feedback-induced vasoconstriction is mediated through the traditional, sympathetic nervous pathway. When used with primary Raynaud's disease patients, feedback-induced vasodilation has achieved reductions in reported symptom frequency ranging from 66% to 92% in controlled investigations. Future research directions are discussed.     

A physical assay for meiotic recombination in Coprinus cinereus

We have used the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method to monitor meiotic recombination in the basidiomycete Coprinus cinereus. We used DNA-mediated transformation to recover strains with modifications of the trp1 locus. The modifications were designed to introduce unique PCR priming sites separated by a homologous 2.4?kb region in which crossing over could occur. We showed that exchange occurred in this region at the frequency expected for a typical region of this genome (2.4?kb should correspond to a genetic length of 0.08?cM). We also detected products resulting from crossing over in DNAs extracted from cells in meiotic prophase. The assay should be useful for monitoring exchange in mutants that cannot complete meiosis.     

Characterization of a GTPase-activating protein for the Ras-related Ral protein

We have demonstrated the presence of a GTPase-activating protein (GAP) for the Ras-related Ral A protein in the cytosolic fraction of brain and testis. This protein, designated Ral-GAP, was distinguished from Ras-GAP by its behavior in two chromatography systems and by the fact that the two GAP proteins did not stimulate the GTPase activity of each others target GTP binding proteins. The lack of effect of Ral-GAP on Ras GTPase activity also distinguished it from the product of the neurofibromatosis gene NF-1. Ral-GAP also differed from Rho-GAP and Rap-GAP by virtue of its elution from a gel filtration column with proteins of Mr greater than 10(6). This was likely an overestimate of the protein's molecular mass, however, since it sedimented in sucrose gradients between standard proteins of 150 and 443 kDa. Ral-GAP failed to promote the GTPase activity of mutant Ral proteins containing amino acid substitutions that in Ras lead to GAP-insensitive proteins.     

Stable expression of human D3 dopamine receptors in GH4C1 pituitary cells.

Human D3 dopamine receptor DNA was stably transfected into GH4C1 pituitary cells. Displacement of iodosulpiride binding in hD3 transfected cells (Kd = 0.3 nM, Bmax = 89 fmol/mg protein) by dopaminergic ligands was indistinguishable from that of hD3 receptors in CHO cells. Only two clonal cell lines exhibited weak GppNHp-dependent shifts in [3H]N-0437 binding, and these were used for functional assays. Neither arachidonic acid metabolism, cAMP levels, inositol phosphate turnover, intracellular calcium, or potassium currents were consistently affected by dopamine (1-10 microM). The paucity of responses indicates that human D3 receptors do not couple efficiently to these second messengers in GH4C1 cells.