Parent-child attachment as a mediator of the relationship between parenting style and gelotophobia among adolescents.

Fear of being laughed at and family interaction are highly related. Parental over-control and over-protection influence children's excessive anxiety over being laughed at. Conversely, parental attachment is an important index of the parent-child relationship and is closely correlated to children's gelotophobia. However, is it the style of parenting or the outcome of parenting (i.e. attachment) that influences a child's gelotophobia? To answer this question, the present study analysed the relationships between gelotophobia, perceived parenting of children and parent-child attachment, as well as the mediating role of attachment between parenting and children's gelotophobia, using a sample of 373 high-school students. The results show that being highly communicative and close attachment completely weakened the negative correlation between warm, caring parenting and the child's gelotophobia; moreover, being highly communicative and close attachment, together with over-protective and over-controlling parenting, influence children's gelotophobia. In sum, this study indicates that parent-child attachment has a direct and indirect influence on perceived parental care and protection and children's fear of being laughed at.

SMYD3 Promotes Homologous Recombination via Regulation of H3K4-mediated Gene Expression.

SMYD3 is a methyltransferase highly expressed in many types of cancer. It usually functions as an oncogenic protein to promote cell cycle, cell proliferation, and metastasis. Here, we show that SMYD3 modulates another hallmark of cancer, DNA repair, by stimulating transcription of genes involved in multiple steps of homologous recombination. Deficiency of SMYD3 induces DNA-damage hypersensitivity, decreases levels of repair foci, and leads to impairment of homologous recombination. Moreover, the regulation of homologous recombination-related genes is via the methylation of H3K4 at the target gene promoters. These data imply that, besides its reported oncogenic abilities, SMYD3 may maintain genome integrity by ensuring expression levels of HR proteins to cope with the high demand of restart of stalled replication forks in cancers.

Pluripotency maintenance of amniotic fluid-derived stem cells cultured on biomaterials.

The stem cell fates of pluripotency and differentiation are regulated by not only soluble biological cues but also insoluble biochemical cues (i.e., extracellular matrix (ECM)) and the physical cues of cell culture biomaterials (i.e., elasticity). We investigated the maintenance of pluripotency and the differentiation lineages of human amniotic fluid-derived stem cells (hAFSCs) cultured on poly(vinyl alcohol-co-itaconic acid) (PVA) hydrogels grafted with several types of ECM and corresponding oligopeptides in expansion medium. hAFSCs cultured on soft PVA hydrogels (12.2 kPa) that were grafted with oligopeptides derived from fibronectin and vitronectin showed high pluripotency, which was evaluated by Oct4, Sox2 and Nanog expression. The hAFSCs grown on soft PVA hydrogels (12.2 kPa) grafted with each oligopeptide showed higher pluripotency, as assessed by Oct4 and Nanog expression, than hAFSCs grown on stiff PVA hydrogels (25.3 kPa) grafted with the same oligopeptides and a much higher pluripotency than those grown on rigid tissue-culture polystyrene dishes. Soft biomaterials appeared to be adequate to maintain the pluripotency of hAFSCs. Surprisingly, hAFSCs that showed higher pluripotency on PVA hydrogels grafted with oligopeptides derived from fibronectin and vitronectin also expressed higher levels of early differentiation markers for three germ layers in expansion medium. This result suggests that hAFSCs are heterogeneous and that this population contains highly pluripotent stem cells and stem cells that can be easily differentiated.

Suppression of cancer-initiating cells and selection of adipose-derived stem cells cultured on biomaterials having specific nanosegments.

Cancer-initiating cells [cancer stem cells (CSCs)] in colon cancer cells can be selectively suppressed when they are cultured on Pluronic (nanosegment)-grafted dishes, whereas CSCs are maintained on conventional tissue culture dishes and extracellular matrix-coated dishes. CSCs persist in tumors as a distinct population and cause relapse and metastasis by giving rise to new tumorigenic clones. The purification or depletion (suppression) of CSCs should be useful for analyzing CSC characteristics and for clinical application. CSCs can be selectively suppressed from colon cancer cells containing adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) on Pluronic-grafted dishes, while ADSCs remain on the dishes. ADSCs on Pluronic-grafted dishes after the suppression of the CSCs can differentiate into osteoblasts, chondrocytes, adipocytes, cardiomyocytes, and neuronal cells. The CSCs and ADSCs exhibited different characteristics. The selection of ADSCs was possible on Pluronic-grafted dishes that suppressed the CSCs from the fat tissues of cancer patients (i.e., cell-sorting dishes), which was explained by specific biomedical characteristics of Pluronic.