Stem cell aging and cancer

Stem cells are capable of self-renewal, differentiation into various lineages, and proliferation; thus, they play critical roles in the functioning and maintenance of many biological systems. However, these unique qualities of stem cells also make them more vulnerable to mutations as the organism ages. The biggest risk factor in cancer development is age, and most scientists believe that cancers partly result from a buildup of mutations in different cell types over time. This accumulation of mutations takes place over the course of a person's lifetime, during which repeated rounds of cell division result in editing errors in the DNA. Genetic alterations can cause changes in the signaling pathways controlling proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. In the case of stem cells, such mutations would be passed on to all of the stem cell's progeny, ultimately resulting in a pool of stem cells that feeds neoplastic formation. Studies aiming to identify and characterize these putative cancer stem cells and to understand how they arise will shed light on the process of stem cell aging and its role in cancer.     

When Parents and Adolescents Disagree About Disagreeing: Observed Parent–Adolescent Communication Predicts Informant Discrepancies About Conflict

Adolescence is accompanied by increased stress in the parent–adolescent relationship, which frequently results in conflict. Researchers often rely on self‐reports to measure conflict, but these reports are frequently discrepant from one another. In two studies, we examined the extent to which communication observed during parent–adolescent discussions of conflict were associated with discrepancies in reports about conflict. We also examined links between informant depressive symptoms and discrepancies. Across studies, observed parent–adolescent conflict behaviors consistently predicted absolute discrepancies in reports of conflict. Informant depressive symptoms sometimes predicted directional discrepancies in reports. Results suggest that informant discrepancies about conflict may stem, in part, from a lack of open communication in the relationship.     

Exercise in the setting of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

The procedure of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is an intense treatment approach to cure patients from leukemia or lymphoma. Prior, during, and after HSCT, patients experience considerable physical and psychosocial distress. In light of the increasing number of successfully treated patients, the need is growing for evidence-based adjuvant therapy options, which are able to reduce treatment-related side effects and enhance the rehabilitation process. Exercise constitutes to be a promising intervention in this setting due to its multidimensional effectiveness. The purpose of this article was to review the current knowledge in the field of exercise and HSCT. Therefore, an electronic literature search in PubMed on the topic was performed. Twenty-nine articles could be identified and classified as relevant for this paper. Reviewed studies suggest that exercise training is an important therapeutic approach in the supportive care for transplant patients. Significant benefits from the exercise interventions have been reported for physical performance, quality of life (QoL), and fatigue status. Several other benefits, such as a more rapid immune recovery or alleviation of therapy-related side effects have been reported in some studies. Future studies should address existing methodological problems, identify further effect levels of exercise and integrate a long-term perspective for the participants in the context of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Furthermore, potential biological pathways of exercise in HSCT patients should be investigated.     

Parent Care as Unpaid Family Labor: How Do Spouses Share?

The study adapts theories of the household division of labor to the division of parent care between spouses and expands them by taking the kin relationship with the parent and the intensity of care into account. Tobit and weighted logit models are used to analyze the division of parent care in 2,214 couples from the British General Household Surveys. The models revealed patterns of parent care that are predominantly governed by the kin relationship. Time availability was strongly associated with couples' division of parent care, whereas the resource‐bargaining approach received little support except for dual‐earner couples that provided more intensive care for the husband's parents. Children‐in‐law's characteristics were hardly related to the division of high‐intensity caregiving in dual‐earner couples.     

Adult cardiac stem cells--where do we go from here?

A potential treatment for cardiovascular disease involves the transplantation of a patient's bone marrow stem cells into the heart of that same patient. In order to maximize the potential benefits to select patient populations, the continued clinical development of this technology will require a comprehensive understanding of the role(s) of the transplanted cells in the repair of damaged heart tissue as well as an understanding of which types of cardiac injury can be repaired by this approach. The widespread application of cardiovascular stem cell therapies, however, will likely be based on pharmacological approaches to enhance the capacity of endogenous bone marrow stem cells to provide for the replacement of cardiac muscle and vascular cells after myocardial injury.     

Telomerase and the aging heart

Telomeres are highly conserved structures that cap and protect the ends of linear chromosomes. The telomerase enzyme is present in germline cells as well as in many rapidly dividing tissues and serves to maintain chromosome length and integrity during cell division. Telomerase activity is typically reduced as an organism ages, and this phenomenon has been implicated in the aging process. In this Perspective, we focus on the effects of both gene knockout and gene replacement of telomerase in the heart and discuss the implications of these findings for potential cardiovascular therapeutics.     

Single-cell antisense RNA amplification and microarray analysis as a tool for studying neurological degeneration and restoration

Neurodegenerative diseases typically affect subpopulations of neurons. Characterizing these vulnerable cells and identifying the factors that make them susceptible to damage while neighboring cells remain resistant are essential to the understanding of molecular pathogenesis that underlies neurodegenerative diseases. Classically, molecular analysis of the central nervous system involves the identification and isolation of an anatomic region of interest; next, the relevant tissue is pulverized, and the resulting homogenate is analyzed. Although this method provides useful data, its effectiveness diminishes when used in areas of high cellular diversity or in instances in which one cell type is lost as a consequence of selective cell death or quiescence. A technique that affords the ability to assess molecular events in a very precise anatomical site would provide a powerful tool for this research discipline. In this review, we discuss the amplification of messenger RNA from single neural cells and the subsequent use of the RNA to probe DNA microarrays in an effort to create cell-specific molecular profiles. Specifically, recent work in single-cell expression profiling in Alzheimer's and Huntington's diseases is discussed. We also review some new work with neural stem cells and their application to restorative neurobiology. Finally, we discuss the use of cell-specific molecular profiles to better understand the basics of neuronal cell biology.     

Les promesses des cellules souches. Scientifiques, familles et santé publique dans la controverse autour des stem cells aux USA

This article describes the impact of the contested properties of stem cells in the United States. Starting from the limitations on stem cell research that the current Bush administration imposed, it is possible to follow the mobilizations of various levels of us politics, each of them being articulated around exclusive properties of the stem cell. Ranging from the role of the family in the biomedical research decisions to the threat of a disintegration of the Union, stem cells question the American body politic.     

Cultural Integration in the Muslim Second Generation in the Netherlands: The Case of Gender Ideology

In the Netherlands, relations between Muslims and non‐Muslims have become polarized around issues of religion and gender. On the basis of a dataset with 669 parent–child dyads, we assess attitudes among the second generation concerning the gendered division of paid work and family responsibilities, that is, gender ideology, as compared to their parents. The aggregate picture indicates movement toward more egalitarian attitudes, indicating mainstream assimilation. At the same time, a sizable subgroup turns out to be more traditional than their parents, indicative of reactive ethnicity. Embeddedness in the ethnic community and education are shown to explain part of these divergent patterns.     

Lipofuscin and aging: a matter of toxic waste

Lipofuscin is membrane-bound cellular waste that can be neither degraded nor ejected from the cell but can only be diluted through cell division and subsequent growth. The fate of postmitotic cells is to accumulate lipofuscin, which as an "aging pigment" has been considered a reliable biomarker for the age of cells such as neurons and, by extension, their hosts. In the aging human brain, deposits of lipofuscin are not uniformly distributed but are concentrated in specific regions of functional interest. The prevailing thought is that the major source of lipofuscin is incomplete lysosomal degradation of damaged mitochondria. Accumulating evidence suggests that lipofuscin is not benign but can impair the functioning of seemingly unrelated cellular systems, including the ubiquitin/proteasome pathway. A damaging feedback loop of lysosomal and proteasomal inhibition may occur as lipofuscin accumulates, leading to what has been appropriately named a "garbage catastrophe." Reversing this catastrophe presents a formidable challenge.     

Exploring the division of household labor outside the family context: utilizing resources for doing gender

This study tests alternative theoretical models of the division of household labor within a non-familial context of men and women operating homes for autistic children and adults. This context makes it possible to disentangle overlapping hypotheses that stem from competing models. A sample of 128 staff members completed extensive questionnaires. The analyses yielded considerably different patterns of results for men and women. The results for the men provided support for the relative resources model, showing that men's contributions to household labor decreased as their resources increased. The results for the women provided support for the human capital model, showing that women's contributions increased as their resources increased. The gender construction approach may account for these gender differences in the determinants of involvement, suggesting that men and women utilize their resources for ‘doing gender’.     

More than a sum of our cells

Cells in the body grow and die, cells in lab dishes grow and die, and individual organisms grow and die. The parallels seem maddeningly obvious, but scores of scientists still labor to draw the correct connections, to uncover the mechanisms that underlie aging in cell culture flasks and in whole animals. Do our cells stop growing, quit working, cease dividing, or start dying as we age? Do we die when our cells do, or are we somehow more than the sum of our cells? For decades, scientists have searched for evidence that links changes in cell growth, cell function, cell division, and cell death to the phenomenon we call aging. Although definitive proof eludes them, researchers continue to conduct experiments in tissue culture and in animal models, amassing information that points us toward a greater understanding of what aging is--and is not.     

Gendered stories of parental caregiving among siblings

Using data from in-depth interviews with eight pairs of male and female siblings, we investigate the influence of gender on the division of responsibility among adult children who are providing care to their elderly parent and how parental caregiving provides an opportunity for the explicit (re)negotiation of gender dynamics across household boundaries. We explore the ways that “helper brothers” and “co-provider brothers” divide care with their sisters, and the impact of this division of care on the sisters' roles as coordinators of care and their future plans for their parents' care. “Specialized knowledge” also emerges as an important factor in the gendered division of care among the respondents. Finally, we examine the consequences of our findings with regards to gender relations and discuss the limitations of this exploratory study.     

Constructing ‘normal childhoods’: young people talk about young carers

There has been a great deal of attention paid to young carers in recent research, social policy and service provision. In this paper we report on a survey and interview study of 46 young people aged 15 to 18, nine of whom had experience as young carers, to explore the ways in which young people construct the young carer and their disabled parent. A key theme arising from the interview data analysis is the construction of a series of normative assumptions about ‘normal’ childhood through which young carers and their disabled parent are viewed as non‐normative and deficient. The predominantly negative construction of both parent and child/carer is critically analyzed and alternatives suggested in the discussion of these findings.     

Conflict and Conflict Resolution in a Cooperative: The Case of the Nir Taxi Station

What conflict resolution mechanisms dodemocratic worker cooperatives generate and to whatextent could these mechanisms be called democratic? Thiscase study tries to address these questions by examining both conflict and conflict resolution in ademocratic organization, a 66-year-old taxi cooperative.The conflicts presented stem from three main sources:ethnic origin, local division of labor, and“class” affiliation. These conflicts are resolvedthrough different processes, ranging from a joke-tellingritual to a formal tribunal composed of elected judges.Discussion centers on unique aspects of conflict resolution in a democratic worker cooperativeand their implications for studies of conflictresolution in nondemocratic firms.     

The reproduction of gender: housework and attitudes towards gender equality in the home among Swedish boys and girls

The housework Swedish girls and boys age 10 to 18 do, and their attitudes towards gender equality in the home are studied. One aim is to see whether the work children do is gendered and if so, whether they follow their parents', often gendered, pattern in housework. A second aim is to see whether children's attitudes are influenced by their parents' attitudes and practices. When it comes to issues like these, Sweden is of special interest because in 1995, Sweden was appointed the most gender equal country in the world by the United Nations. The data used were the Swedish Child Level of Living Survey 2000 (see http://www.sofi.su.se/LNU2000/english.htm), a data set that includes extensive first-hand information from both children and their parents. The results indicate that girls and boys in two-parent families are more prone to engage in gender atypical work the more their parent of the same sex engages in this kind of work. The fact that girls still do more housework than boys in all families independent of, among other things, the parental division of housework and the mother's educational level indicates that housework to some extent signifies gender also to children. However, no clear relation is found between the parents' division of work and the child's attitude towards gender equality in the home. Neither is there any clear relation between the parents' attitude towards gender equality in the home and the children's attitude to the same topic.     

Treatment foster parent satisfaction: Survey validation and predictors of satisfaction,retention, and intent to refer

Treatment foster parents are invaluable for youth in treatment foster care, therefore it is imperative for programs to measure their satisfaction in their role. However, the concept of treatment foster parent satisfaction is not fully developed, and there is a need to develop measurement tools specifically for treatment foster parents. Based on previous research and available foster parent satisfaction surveys, we developed a brief 28-item scale that measures four constructs related to overall treatment foster parent satisfaction: Professional Parenting Role, Treatment Foster Parent Efficacy, Support from Staff, and Quality of Training. Additionally, the scale assesses overall satisfaction, likelihood to continue as a treatment foster parent, and likelihood to refer others to become treatment foster parents. We also assessed which of the four constructs predict high and low scores on these three metrics. Results can be used to target interventions to improve treatment foster parent satisfaction.     

Arbeitsteilung in Stieffamilien

In comparison to other families, families featuring stepchild-relations are more inclined to practise non-traditional forms of intra-familial division of labor. A number of these to account for the differences between families with stepchild-relations and families without stepchild-relations can be deduced from various middle-range-theories concerning intra-familial division of labor. These hypotheses are examined using the German Family Survey (Familiensurvey) 1988 data. It is shown that hypotheses which assume the type of parenthood (natural or non-natural parenthood) as determining ones participation in familial labor cannot be confirmed. It is suggested to regard the tendency towards non-traditional forms of division of labor in stepfamilies as deriving from a lack of socially mediated patterns of behavior for parents in stepfamilies.     

Creating egalitarian families among the adult children of Turkish- and Polish-origin immigrants in Sweden

This article analyzes the factors shaping egalitarian family relationships among those with two Swedish‐born parents and those with at least one parent born in Poland or Turkey. We ask: (1) What factors affect sharing domestic tasks and do they also shape the division of child care responsibilities? (2) Do these effects differ, depending on the extent of exposure to Swedish life? We analyze data from a longitudinal survey conducted between 1999 and 2003. Holding egalitarian work–family attitudes affects actual sharing of housework, but much more for those growing up in more socially integrated than in less integrated families.