Culture Matters in Communicating the Global Response to COVID-19.

Current communication messages in the COVID-19 pandemic tend to focus more on individual risks than community risks resulting from existing inequities. Culture is central to an effective community-engaged public health communication to reduce collective risks. In this commentary, we discuss the importance of culture in unpacking messages that may be the same globally (physical/social distancing) yet different across cultures and communities (individualist versus collectivist). Structural inequity continues to fuel the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on black and brown communities nationally and globally. PEN-3 offers a cultural framework for a community-engaged global communication response to COVID-19.

Yeast proteins related to the p40/laminin receptor precursor are required for 20S ribosomal RNA processing and the maturation of 40S ribosomal subunits.

Numerous studies have linked the overexpression of the Mr 37,000 laminin receptor precursor (37-LRP) to tumor cell growth and proliferation. The role of this protein in carcinogenesis is generally considered in the context of its putative role as a precursor for the Mr 67,000 high-affinity laminin receptor. Recent studies have shown that 37-LRP, also termed p40, is a component of the small ribosomal subunit indicating that it may be a multifunctional protein. The p40/37-LRP protein is highly conserved phylogenetically, and closely related proteins have been identified in species as evolutionarily distant as humans and the yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Yeast homologues of p40/37-LRP are encoded by a duplicated pair of genes, RPS0A and RPS0B. The Rps0 proteins are essential components of the 40S ribosomal subunit. Previous results have shown that cells disrupted in either of the RPS0 genes have a reduction in growth rate and reduced amounts of 40S ribosomal subunits relative to wild-type cells. Here, we show that the Rps0 proteins are required for the processing of the 20S rRNA-precursor to mature 18S rRNA, a late step in the maturation of 40S ribosomal subunits. Immature subunits that are depleted of Rps0 protein that contain the 20S rRNA precursor are preferentially excluded from polysomes, which indicates that their activity in protein synthesis is dramatically reduced relative to mature 40S ribosomal subunits. These data demonstrate that the assembly of Rps0 proteins into immature 40S subunits and the subsequent processing of 20S rRNA represent critical steps in defining the translational capacity of yeast cells. If the function of these yeast proteins is representative of other members of the p40/37-LRP family of proteins, then the role of these proteins as key components of the protein synthetic machinery should also be considered as a basis for the linkage between the their overexpression and tumor cell growth and proliferation.

In-session change in emotionally focused therapy.

This article presents 3 different studies of in-session changes in emotionally focused couples therapy (EFT). Studies of in-session conflict events demonstrate both that couples' conflict interaction at the end of treatment is more affiliative and interdependent than at the beginning of treatment and that peak session conflict interaction is deeper in level of experience and more affiliative than the interaction in poor session conflict episodes. In addition, events beginning with intimate, affective self-disclosure by one partner were found to involve greater affiliation in spouses' responses to the self-disclosure than in a control event not involving self-disclosure. The possible change processes in EFT are discussed in light of these results.

Thermodynamic nonideality as a probe of macromolecular isomerizations: application to the acid expansion of bovine serum albumin.

The potential use of thermodynamic nonideality as an index of the coexistence of two isomeric protein states in equilibrium is explored in relation to the effect of inert space-filling macromolecular solutes on the gel chromatographic behavior of the system. Frontal gel chromatography, on Sephadex G-100, of bovine serum albumin at pH 3.2 in the presence and absence of a moderately high (15 g/liter) concentration of either Dextran T70 or Dextran T10 is then employed to establish that the progressive increase in the Stokes radius of albumin as the pH is lowered from 5 to 2 should not be viewed as a pH-dependent isomerization equilibrium between native and acid-expanded states. In addition, calculations based on parameters for the aspartate transcarbamoylase system point to the possible use of the present methodology to distinguish between preexistence and ligand induction of an isomerization equilibrium as the source of a sigmoidal effect in allosteric systems.

Effects of thermodynamic nonideality in ligand binding studies.

Effects of thermodynamic nonideality are considered in relation to the quantitative characterization of the interaction between a small ligand. S, and a macromolecular acceptor. A, by two types of experimental procedure. The first involves determination of the concentration of ligand in dialysis equilibrium with the acceptor/ligand mixture, and the second, measurement of the concentration of unbound ligand in the reaction mixture by ultrafiltration or the rate of dialysis method. For each situation explicit expressions are formulated for the appropriate binding function with allowance for composition-dependent nonideality effects expressed in terms of molar volume, charge-charge interaction and covolume contributions. The magnitudes of these effects are explored with the aid of experimental studies on the binding of tryptophan and of methyl orange to bovine serum albumin. It is concluded for experiments conducted utilizing either equilibrium dialysis or frontal gel chromatography that, provided a correction is made for any Donnan redistribution of ligand, theoretically predicted acceptor-concentration dependence is likely to be negligible and that use of the conventional binding equation written for an ideal system is appropriate to the analysis of the results. Use of ultrafiltration or the rate of dialysis method requires examination of the assumption that the activity coefficient ratio y(A)y(s)/y(AS) for the reaction mixture approximates unity; but again reassurance is provided that nonideality manifested as a dependence of the binding function on acceptor concentration is unlikely to be significant.

Experimental tests of charge conservation in macromolecular interactions.

A combination of equilibrium dialysis and ultrafiltration has been used to demonstrate the conservation of charge in the interaction between bovine serum albumin and methyl orange in Tris-HCl buffer, pH 7.4, I = 0.05 M; and also in the dimerization of alpha-chymotrypsin in acetate/chloride buffer, pH 3.9, I = 0.11 M, containing various concentrations of indole (0-10 mM) in order to displace the equilibrium position towards monomer. In the former study the magnitude of the negative charge on the albumin was shown to increase linearly with the number of molecules of methyl orange bound to the protein, the observed slope (0.96 +/- 0.08) of this relationship being in excellent agreement with that predicted on the basis of charge conservation for attachment of the univalent, negatively charged methyl orange ligand. In the study of alpha-chymotrypsin, the net charge (expressed per monomeric enzyme unit) was +10 in solutions in which the mole fraction of monomer varied between 0.47 and 0.88, the extent of this range having been established by means of constituent association equilibrium constants obtained from sedimentation equilibrium studies.

Heat activation of Bacillus spores by the use of microwave irradiation.

A study was conducted in which microwave irradiation and conventional waterbath treatment were compared as to their efficiency for heat-activating Bacillus spores. Spore suspensions were prepared from B. brevis, B. cereus, B. licheniformis, a lysogenic strain of B. megaterium (NRRL-B-3695), two strains of B. stearothermophilus, and B.Subtilis. Suspensions were either irradiated for 30 sec in a microwave oven, or conventionally heat-treated in the waterbath for 60 min at 60 degrees C, the serially diluted and plated onto nutrient agar. Colonies of each species from each treatment were isolated, and cultures were inoculated into several biochemical media. Spore suspensions heat-activated by microwave irradiation resulted in plate counts that were from 3% to 24% greater than from suspension heat-activated by conventional mean (60 degrees C for 60 min). There were no observed alterations in biochemical activities in any of the representative colonies from either of the two treatments. No induction of bacteriophage from lysogenic B. megaterium NRRL-B-3695 was observed in colonies from either of the two treatments. Microwave irradiation appears to be more efficient, less time-consuming, and at least as effective as heat activation by conventional waterbath treatment for Bacillus spores.