The relationship between personality, social capital, and life satisfaction of elderly Koreans.

BACKGROUND: There are very few studies that explain the life satisfaction of the elderly by considering both internal factors such as personality and social capital. Therefore, this study analyzed the relationship between personality, social capital, and life satisfaction among elderly Koreans. METHODS: This study analyzed the survey data on Koreans' happiness and quality of life 2019. Participants included a total of 1280 elderly adults aged 60-79 years. RESULTS: A multiple hierarchical regression analysis indicated that higher health status was related to higher life satisfaction, while neuroticism was negatively related to life satisfaction. Of particular note, increased structural and cognitive social capital were associated with higher life satisfaction. However, income, financial problems, and extraversion were not related to life satisfaction. The total explanatory amount of the regression model was 38.5%. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that researchers and clinicians should consider a combination of factors associated with both personality and social capital when aiming to improve life satisfaction for the elderly.

Genome Resource of Podosphaera xanthii, the Host-Specific Fungal Pathogen That Causes Cucurbit Powdery Mildew.

Approximately 33 types of commonly consumed fruits and vegetables are members of the family Cucurbitaceae, making it an important crop family worldwide. However, pathogen resistance to pesticides and fungicides has become a growing problem in cultivation practices. The identification of the effector proteins in each unique fungus-host pair would help toward the development of strategies for preventing the infection of important crops. In this study, we characterized the genome of Podosphaera xanthii, the fungal pathogen that causes powdery mildew disease in cucurbitaceous plants. A first-draft genome of 209.08 MB was assembled and compared with those of 25 other fungal pathogens, particularly for identifying candidate secreted effector proteins. This draft genome can serve as a valuable resource for future genomic and proteomic studies of P. xanthii and its host-specific pathogenesis.[Formula: see text] Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.

Mitochondrial genome of the Podosphaera xanthii: a plant pathogen causes powdery mildew in cucurbits.

In this study, we sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome of the Podosphaera xanthii, which is the powdery mildew diseases causative pathogen for cucurbits. The total size of the mitochondrial genome is 26,052 bp, which includes 15 coding genes, 25 tRNAs, and 2 rRNAs. The cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COXI) used for the phylogenetic construction, which grouped this species into Hypocreomycetidae taxonomy family, which could aid the researchers to place the fungal in an appropriate taxonomy clade.

Validation of the Korean Version of the Children's Revised Impact of Event Scale.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the psychometric properties of the Korean version of the Children's Revised Impact of Event Scale (CRIES) and its validity as a screening instrument for the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). METHODS: The study population consisted of two samples. The clinical sample consisted of 60 child and adolescent patients from the Department of Neuropsychiatry, Ilsan Paik Hospital, Inje University College of Medicine. The normal sample consisted of 291 students from four schools (primary, middle, and high schools). We administered four self-report questionnaires (the CRIES, Child Reports of Post-traumatic Symptoms [CROPS], State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children [STAI-C], and Children's Depression Inventory [CDI]) to 351 children and adolescents after obtaining informed consent from all participants and their parents. RESULTS: The CRIES showed good reliability (Cronbach's α for the full scale and subscales ranged from 0.85 to 0.93). The total CRIES score was positively correlated with CROPS, STAI-C, and CDI. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that a three-factor structure for the CRIES (intrusion, avoidance, and hyper-arousal) had a significantly better fit than a two-factor model (intrusion/hyper-arousal and avoidance). Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis indicated that a cutoff of 26 offered the optimum predictive point. That is, this cutoff maximized the balance between sensitivity (0.88) and specificity (0.85). Using this cutoff, the positive predictive value was 0.86, and the negative predictive value was 0.99. CONCLUSION: These findings imply that the CRIES is a highly accurate diagnostic test in clinical settings.

Efficacy of percutaneous vocal fold injections for benign laryngeal lesions: Prospective multicenter study.

CONCLUSION: Percutaneous steroid injection (PSI) may be a useful alternative modality for treatment of benign vocal fold lesions. OBJECTIVES: When patients refuse general anesthesia or voice therapy for benign vocal fold diseases (Reinke's edema, vocal polyp, nodule, and scarring), there are no other options available. We conducted an analysis of the effects of PSI as an alternative treatment for benign vocal fold diseases. METHODS: From October 2008 to March 2010, 130 patients with benign vocal fold disease who refused general anesthesia or showed no response to voice therapy underwent PSI. From this group, the present study included 115 patients who completed the evaluation before PSI and at the first and third month after PSI and also an additional 25 patients who completed evaluation at the sixth month after PSI. RESULTS: Among 115 patients in the study, 40 cases (34.8%) showed complete remission and 57 cases (49.6%) showed partial remission. As a result, overall improvement rates were 84.4%. Almost all objective and subjective parameters showed statistical improvement at the first and third month after PSI (p < 0.05). Jitter and all subjective parameters maintained statistical improvement until the sixth month. No severe complications, such as fold atrophy, were observed.

Characterization of the autophosphorylating kinase, PkaF, in Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2) M130.

Streptomyces coelicolor, the model species for morphologically complex actinomycete bacteria, has unique characteristics such as morphological and physiological differentiation, which are controlled by various factors and several protein kinases. From the whole genomic sequence of S. coelicolor A3(2), 44 putative serine/threonine (Ser/Thr) protein kinases were identified, and the pkaF gene was chosen as the best-conserved protein for typical Ser/Thr protein kinases. pkaF encodes a 667-amino acid protein with a predicted N-terminal Ser/Thr kinase domain and four repeated C-terminal penicillin-binding domains and Ser/Thr kinase-associated (PASTA) domains. Based on PCR, a pkaF gene was cloned and heterologously expressed. PkaF expressed in Escherichia coli had the bigger molecular size than the expected value (75 kDa) and was further purified by Ni2+-NTA agarose affinity column chromatography to homogeneity. The purified PkaF was autophosphorylated through the transfer of the γ-phosphate group of ATP. The extent of phosphorylation was proportional to the amount of PkaF, and the phospho-PkaF was dephosphorylated by the addition of the cell lysate of S. coelicolor A3(2). Although no change was observed in the pkaF disruptant, overexpression of pkaF induced severe repression of morphogenesis and actinorhodin production, but not undecylprodigiosin production, implying that PkaF specifically regulates morphogenesis and actinorhodin production in S. coelicolor.

Characterization of Sgr3394 produced only by the A-factor-producin Streptomyces griseus IFO 13350, not by the A-factor deficient mutant.

Protein D (9.7 kDa) is an extracellular protein detected in the culture broth of A-factor-producing Streptomyces griseus IFO 13350, but not of the A-factor-deficient mutant strain S. griseus HH1. Comparison of the N-terminal amino acid sequence with the genomic sequencing data of S. griseus IFO 13350 identified protein D as Sgr3394, which encodes a putative secretory protein with unknown function. The premature Sgr3394 consisted of 128 amino acids (13.5 kDa), showed 87.5% identity with SACT1DRAFT-0503, from Streptomyces sp. ACT-1, and 68.8% identity with SrosN15-18634, from S. roseosporus NRRL15998, and was confirmed to be matured for secretion by a peptide cleavage between the Ala-38 and Ala-39 bond. RT-PCR analysis of Sgr3394 clearly showed that it can be transcribed in the wild-type strain, but not in the A-factor-deficient strain. However, a gel-mobility shift assay of the promoter region of sgr3394 with A-factor-dependent transcriptional regulator (AdpA) showed that AdpA could not specifically recognize the putative AdpA-binding site (5'-TCCCCCGAAT-3'). All of these data strongly suggest that the expression of sgr3394 is not directly induced by AdpA but is regulated indirectly by an A-factor dependent protein. Introduction of sgr3394 on a high-copy-numbered plasmid (pWHM3-sgr3394) into S. lividans TK21 induced massive production of actinorhodin (blue pigment) and undecylprodigiosin (red pigment). Compared to the control, production of each pigment increased by 6.1 and 2.6 times, respectively, on R2YE agar, and 3.1 and 1.4 times, respectively, in R2YE broth; there was little influence on morphogenesis. In S. coelicolor A3(2)/pWHM3-sgr3394, actinorhodin and undecylprodigiosin productions were enhanced to 1.8 and 1.1 times those observed in the control, respectively, suggesting that overexpression of sgr3394 can stimulate secondary metabolism, especially actinorhodin biosynthesis, in S. lividans and S. coelicolor.

Medium optimization and application of an affinity column chromatography for streptomyces griseus trypsin production from the recombinant Streptomyces griseus.

The expression vector pWHM3-TR1R2, which contains sprT encoding Streptomyces griseus trypsin (SGT) and two positive regulatory genes (sgtR1 and sgtR2), was introduced into S. griseus IFO13350 and the productivity of SGT by the transformant was investigated in various media. Among the tested media, Ferm-0 gave 1.4 times more trypsin activity than C5/L medium. In addition, replacement of 2% glucose and 1% skim milk in Ferm-0 medium with 2% dextrin and 1% tryptone (named as Ferm-II medium) yielded significantly enhanced trypsin activity, by 4.1-fold, than that of Ferm-0. For simplifying the purification process, the cultural supernatant of S. griseus transformant in Ferm-II medium was fractionated with ammonium sulfate (25%-55%), and then applied to Hitrap benzamidine FF affinity column chromatography. The specific activity of the purified SGT by one-step column chromatography was 69,550 unit/mg protein, and the overall purification yield was above 8%, which was more effective than the methods of previous reports. The trypsin activity of the purified SGT was most active at pH 8.0 and 50 degrees C, and maintained their activities between pH 7.0 and pH 9.0, and up to 70 degrees C. These enzymatic properties were very similar to those of authentic eukaryotic trypsin purified from bovine pancreas.

Distinct regulation of the sprC gene encoding Streptomyces griseus protease C from other chymotrypsin genes in Streptomyces griseus IFO13350.

The sprC gene encodes Streptomyces griseus protease C (SGPC), a bacterial chymotrypsin-like serine protease. Because the published data on sprC was not complete, we cloned and analyzed a new DNA fragment spanning downstream to upstream of the sprC gene from S. griseus IFO13350. The cloned 2.3-kb DNA fragment was placed on a high-copy number plasmid and introduced into Streptomyces lividans TK24. Chymotrypsin activity of the transformant was 8.5 times higher than that of the control after 3 days of cultivation and stably maintained until 9 days of cultivation, which clearly indicated that the cloned 2.3-kb fragment contained the entire sprC gene with its own promoter. When the same construct was introduced in the S. griseus IFO13350 (wild strain) and its two mutant strains in the A-factor regulatory cascade, deltaadpA and HO1, the chymotrypsin activity increased fivefold only in the deltaadpA strain. Transcriptional analysis based on RT-PCR revealed that the sprC gene is normally transcribed in both strains; however, earlier transcription was observed in the wild strain compared with the deltaadpA strain. A gel mobility shift assay showed that the AdpA protein did not bind to the promoter region of sprC. All these data clearly indicate that the expression of sprC is not dependent on the AdpA protein, but is distinctly regulated from other chymotrypsin genes composing an AdpA regulon. Earlier morphological differentiation was observed in S. lividans TK24, and S. griseus IFO13350 and HO1, transformed with the expression vector. The transformant of S. griseus deltaadpA formed markedly larger colonies. Antisense repression of sprC resulted in severe decrease of chymotrypsin activity, down to one-third of the control, and delayed morphological differentiation. All these data suggest that SGPC is related to normal morphogenesis in S. griseus.

Characterization of the sgtR1 and sgtR2 genes and their role in regulating expression of the sprT gene encoding Streptomyces griseus trypsin.

The sgtR1 and sgtR2 genes encoding putative regulators similar to the Aha1 and ArsR families, respectively, were identified downstream from the sprT gene. To investigate their function, expression vectors containing various combinations of sprT, sgtR1, and sgtR2 were transformed into Streptomyces lividans and Streptomyces griseus. The trypsin activity levels produced by S. lividans harboring pWHM3-TR2 (sprT and sgtR2) or pWHM3-TR1R2 (sprT, sgtR2, and sgtR2) were, respectively, 6.6 or 8.9 times that of S. lividans transformed with pWHM3-T (sprT). In the pWHM3-TR1R2 transformant, the transcription of sprT consistently occurred during the earlier stages of growth and was maintained at a higher level throughout the 6 days of cultivation. Streptomyces griseus IFO13350 harboring pWHM3-TR1R2 also produced trypsin activity 2.1 times that of the pWHM3-T transformant. However, all S. griseus Delta adpA transformants produced lower SGT activity than the wild-type strain, and none could overcome the deficiency in AdpA transcriptional activator, suggesting that AdpA is an absolute prerequisite for sprT expression. The sprT transcript was detected at a high level only in the wild-type strain, but the sgtR1 and sgtR2 transcript levels were very similar between the S. griseus IFO13350 and Delta adpA strains. This clearly demonstrates that the transcription of the sgtR1 and sgtR2 genes is not dependent on AdpA and that they are therefore not members of the AdpA regulon.