Problematic behaviours of 3-year-old children in Japan: relationship with socioeconomic and family backgrounds.

AIM: The purpose of our study was to elucidate factors in socioeconomic and family backgrounds of 3-year-old children in Tokyo, Japan that were associated with problematic behaviours among the children. STUDY DESIGN: 670 eligible 3-year-old children underwent an evaluation of problematic behaviour by the Japanese Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL/2-3) and of socioeconomic and family backgrounds. RESULTS: Stepwise multi-logistic regression analyses using all 28 variables showed that longer hours watching TV, smoking during pregnancy, coffee drinking during and after pregnancy increased, whereas higher family income, a larger number of older brothers/sisters, higher educational level of father decreased problematic behaviours. Maternal anxiety measured by trait anxiety using the STAI was associated with behaviour problems measured by CBCL, particularly with externalizing domains composed by aggressiveness, oppositional and attention domains. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that problematic behaviours among children may be increased by adverse socioeconomic and family backgrounds that may be associated with maternal anxiety.

Gene expression profiles of peripheral and cord blood mononuclear cells altered by thymic stromal lymphopoietin.

Thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) was reported to induce dendritic cells to produce Th2-attracting chemokines, followed by allergic inflammation through stimulating not only CD4-positive T cells but also CD8-positive T cells. Therefore, in this experiment, GeneChip and hierarchical clustering were applied to screen the molecules in whole immunity triggered by TSLP directly and indirectly using both adult peripheral and cord blood mononuclear cells as well as isolated monocytes. Gene expression profiles screened a variety of molecules that are triggered by TSLP with or without CD40 ligation. In the profile, RNA expressions of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase, that is known to induce anergy of T cells and natural killer cells in protecting fetal rejection; many kinds of proteasomes that were reported to trigger cytokine production by inhibiting suppressors of NF-kappaB; and several kinds of chemokines increased, whereas RNA expression of superoxide dismutase 1 decreased, which was unexpected but considered worthy of notice. Expression of chemokines at protein levels and enzymatic activity of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase was further confirmed to increase in the presence of TSLP using ELISA and HPLC, respectively. These results suggest that the advent of microarray technology may enable us to screen novel molecular targets to treat TSLP-related allergic inflammation.