An immunohistochemical panel to assess ultraviolet radiation-associated oxidative skin injury.

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation results in a significant loss in years of healthy life, approximately 1.5 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), and is associated with greater than 60,000 deaths annually worldwide that are attributed to melanoma and other skin cancers. Currently, there are no standardized biomarkers or assay panels to assess oxidative stress skin injury patterns in human skin exposed to ionizing radiation. Using biopsy specimens from chronic solar UV-exposed and UV-protected skin, we demonstrate that UV radiation-induced oxidative skin injury can be evaluated by an immunohistochemical panel that stains 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine (8-OH-dG) to assess DNA adducts, 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (HNE) to assess lipid peroxidation, and advanced glycation end products (AGEs) to assess protein damage. We believe this panel contains the necessary cellular biomarkers to evaluate topical agents, such as sunscreens and anti-oxidants that are designed to prevent oxidative skin damage and may reduce UV-associated skin aging, carcinogenesis, and inflammatory skin diseases. We envision that this panel will become an important tool for researchers developing topical agents to protect against UV radiation and other oxidants and ultimately lead to reductions in lost years of healthy life, DALYs, and annual deaths associated with UV radiation.

g and the one-many problem: is one enough?

No one believes that g is the only construct needed to describe individual differences in intelligence. Many believe that g is a dispensable construct. Others object to what they construe as its hegemonic position in the domain of intelligence. In this paper I defend the hegemonic status of g by a brief consideration of diverse criticisms of the g construct. I argue that g is a heritable component of intelligence that accounts for approximately 50% of the covariance among diverse measures of intelligence. It derives from a core information processing ability and it influences a diverse set of social outcomes. The covariances between g and information processing ability and social outcomes are, in large measure, attributable to common genetic influences.

Suppression of the delayed type hypersensitivity response by tumor facilitating factor of B16 melanoma. A tumor factor suppresses immune responses.

BACKGROUND: Tumor facilitating factor is a cell surface glycoprotein produced by B16 melanoma that has been found to reduce the lethal inoculum for B16. Tumor facilitating factor induces macrophage spreading in vitro, reduces macrophage chemotaxis in vivo, and depresses lymphocyte mitogenesis in vitro. OBJECTIVE: It is assumed that the immune modifying effects are responsible for tumor facilitation. As tumors may be poor immunogens or inducers of inflammation, studies were conducted to determine whether tumor facilitating factor alters the inflammatory cascade of cells found in infiltrates of delayed type hypersensitivity. RESULTS: Freeze-thawed B16 cells, used as the source of TFF, caused a suppression of delayed type hypersensitivity measured as ear swelling in the mouse. When culture supernatant was substituted for freeze-thawed cells as a source of TFF and injected at different time points of the delayed type hypersensitivity response, the greater suppression was with tumor facilitating factor injections at 24 hours pre-elicitation only (82%), and 24 hours both presensitization and pre-elicitation (89%). Immunohistological staining demonstrated that tumor facilitating factor decreases ear thickness and cellular infiltrates, specifically Mac-1 staining cells, to a site of delayed hypersensitivity. Peritoneal cell analysis confirmed these findings. CONCLUSION: These data are consistent with the hypothesis that tumor facilitating factor alters immune functions including macrophage and lymphocyte mobility and recruitment to a target site, thereby allowing for facilitation of tumor growth.

A new technique for laser treatment of cutaneous tumors.

The CO2 laser was used to treat three patients with discrete, cutaneous tumors. For each patient, we established the relationship between the width of the lesions and their maximum thickness, and between pulse energy and the depth of the resultant crater. Optimal parameters for therapy were established from these results.

Auditory and visual imagery in free recall.

Three experiments varied instructions and materials to compare the influence of auditory and visual imagery on free recall. Four kinds of words were presented: words with minimal imagery, words with both visual and auditory imagery, words with visual imagery, and words with auditory imagery. Experiment 1 (n = 48 volunteer college students) found instructions to form auditory images and words with auditory imagery to have the same advantage over control instructions and minimal imagery words as did visual imagery instructions and words with visual imagery. In Experiment 2 (n = 64 volunteer college students), groups instructed to form both auditory and visual imagery had incidental recall scores no greater than those of groups instructed to form only one kind of imagery. Experiment 3 (n = 64 volunteer college students) introduced augmented visual imagery (subjects drew a picture of the visual image) and augmented auditory imagery (subjects vocalized a sound modeled after the auditory image). Recall scores for the two augmented imagery groups were not significantly different from those for the two imagery groups. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for views of the cognitive representation of imagery.

Critical importance of exposure duration for affective discrimination of stimuli that are not recognized.

Previous research has found that repeated exposure to briefly presented visual stimuli can increase the positive affect for the stimuli without enhancing their recognition. Subjects could discriminate target and distractor shapes by affective preference in the absence of recognition memory. This study examined this phenomenon as a function of stimulus exposure duration. Over exposure durations of 0, 2, 8, 12, 24, and 48 ms, the functions for affect and recognition judgments exhibited different temporal dynamics. Target selection by affect was possible at very brief exposures and was influenced little by increasing durations; target selection by recognition required longer stimulus exposures and improved with increasing durations. Affective discrimination of stimuli that are not recognized is a reliable phenomenon, but it occurs only within a narrow band of time. This parametric study has specified the relationship between exposure duration and affect and recognition judgments and has located that temporal window.

Affective discrimination of stimuli that are not recognized: effects of shadowing, masking, and cerebral laterality.

Based on his finding that subjects can show an affective preference to previously seen stimuli that they fail to recognize, Zajonc (1980) claimed that affective processing operates separately from cognitive processing. Over four experiments, we replicated and extended the finding that mere exposure to a briefly presented stimulus can increase positive affect through familiarity without enhancing the recognition of that stimulus. Among our findings, lateralized presentation of the irregular polygon stimuli showed that affect judgments were best for stimuli presented in the right visual field (left hemisphere), whereas recognition judgments were best for stimuli presented in the left visual field (right hemisphere). These effects were found only when the study stimuli were shown for 2 msec and were unmasked or for 5 msec and were pattern masked; when the stimuli were shown for 5 msec and were energy masked, target selection by affect or recognition was not greater than chance. These data, along with results from contingency probability analyses, indicate that affect and recognition judgments are different. Rather than viewing the difference between affect and recognition in terms of different features that might reside in the stimulus, the difference in judgments may reflect the manner in which a stimulus representation has been accessed. When viewed in terms of different retrieval processes that access different information, target selection by affect in the absence of recognition can be interpreted in terms of existing models of recognition memory.

The effects of tumor facilitating factor of B16 melanoma on the macrophage.

B16 cells produce a tumor facilitating factor (TFF) that increases B16 tumor incidence in mice injected with a small number of B16 cells. TFF was derived from serum-free culture supernatant concentrated on an Amicon PM10 membrane. One milliliter of concentrated material represented the product 10(8) B16 cells during a 6-h incubation. We report data that indicate TFF may act by altering macrophage function. In the nude mouse deficient in T cell, but not macrophage function, the injection of 0.8 ml of TFF facilitated tumor development. Subcutaneous injection of 0.7 ml of TFF induced mouse peritoneal macrophages to spread when removed and plated on glass coverslips. This effect peaked 3 days after injection of TFF and was abrogated by heating the TFF to 70 degrees C for 1 h. The injection of TFF was also able to induce macrophage spreading in nude mice. Injection of viable B16 cells induced spreading, as would be predicted if TFF is produced by B16 cells in vivo. In vitro incubation of peritoneal cells with TFF was also able to induce macrophage spreading. Finally, subcutaneous injection of TFF reduced by 80% the accumulation of peritoneal cells in response to intraperitoneal injection of phytohemagglutinin. We suggest that one mode by which TFF facilitates tumor growth is by reducing the numbers of macrophages chemotaxing to the tumor site.

Keratotic papules in chronic renal disease.

Three patients with renal disease had hyperkeratotic follicular and parafollicular lesions on the extremities. Since all of these patients had renal disease, we hypothesize that an abnormality in the renal-calcium-vitamin D-parathyroid chain allows the pathologic accumulation of keratinous debris that characterizes Kyrle's disease. As with other diseases with abnormal keratin generation, the retinoids, specifically topical tretinoin, ameliorate this condition. Despite controversial reports about poor results with tretinoin therapy, our patients have had good results without recurrences and tolerated tretinoin well.

North American blastomycosis in an immunosuppressed patient.

A 49-year-old man with sarcoidosis presented with a large nonhealing verrucous and eroded lesion (of two years' duration) over the left flank. Biopsy of the lesion revealed granulomatous infiltration, and special fungal stains showed the typical broad-necked budding structure of Bastomyces dermatitidis. The patient underwent en masse surgical removal of the lesion followed by systemic administration of amphotericin B. This report emphasizes the need for skin biopsy for nonhealing ulcers of unknown etiology, reviews the natural history of North American blastomycosis, and speculates on its relationship to immunosuppression.

Localized bullous pemphigoid with negative immunofluorescence.

We have reported two cases of localized BP without antibody or complement detectable at the BMZ. Several lines of evidence are discussed suggesting that the presence of immunoglobulin and complement at the BMZ serves as a convenient laboratory marker and does not play an etiologic role. This evidence includes the lack of production of a blister by BP serum in organ culture, the high incidence of immune complexes in BP patients, and the spontaneous increase in autoantibody in the elderly. It is suggested that autoantibody production (specifically anti-basement membrane zone antibody) may occur in BP as a marker of this disease without etiologic significance.

Increased incidence of tumor takes to B16 melanoma in C57BL/6J mice injected with B16 products.

The injection of either viable B16 melanoma cells, killed B16 cells, or B16 cell products increased the incidence of melanomas in C57Bl/6J mice inoculated with a threshold dose of B16 cells. In all cases the effect was seen whether the facilitating injection was at a site distant from the challenge inoculum or at the same site. Facilitation was seen with B16 cells and products both from in vivo tumors and from tissue culture. However, cells detached from tissue culture flasks with trypsin no longer had facilitating activity. Facilitating activity was found in concentrated cultured supernatants centrifuged at 100,000 X g for 1.5 hr and dialyzed. No activity was detected in the less than 10,000 mol wt fraction. Facilitation was not associated with a change in the time of tumor appearance nor with enhanced growth of B16 cells in culture.