Chronic stress alters our genetic immune response

August 27, 2008

Most people would agree that stress increases your risk for illness and this is particularly true for severe long-term stresses, such as caring for a family member with a chronic medical illness. However, we still have a relatively limited understanding of exactly how stress contributes to the risk for illness. In the August 15th issue of Biological Psychiatry, researchers shed new light on one link between stress and illness by describing a mechanism through which stress alters immune function.

In a very promising preliminary study, Miller and colleagues found that the pattern of gene expression differed between caregivers of family members with cancer relative to a matched group of individuals who did not have this type of life stress. They found that among the caregivers, even though they had normal cortisol levels in their blood, the pattern of gene expression in the monocytes, a type of white blood cell involved in the body's immune response, was altered so that they were relatively less responsive to the anti-inflammatory actions of cortisol, but relatively more responsive to pro-inflammatory actions of a transcription factor called nuclear factor-kappa B, or NF-κB. Gregory Miller, Ph.D., corresponding author, explains more simply that, although "caregivers have similar cortisol levels as controls, their cells seem to be 'hearing' less of this signal. In other words, something goes awry in caregivers' white blood cells so they are not able to 'receive' the signal from cortisol that tells them to shut down inflammation."

Thus, the current findings might help to explain why the caregivers would seem to be in a chronic pro-inflammatory state, a condition of immunologic activation. This activated state could contribute to the risk for a number of medical illnesses, such as depression, heart disease, and diabetes. Dr. Miller remarks that part of the importance of these findings is "because people have traditionally thought that higher cortisol is the reason that stress contributes to disease, but this work shows that, at least in caregivers, it's actually the opposite - there's too little cortisol signal being heard by the cells, rather than too much."

However, many important related questions still remain unanswered, as noted by John H. Krystal, M.D., Editor of Biological Psychiatry and affiliated with both Yale University School of Medicine and the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. He comments that in addition to not knowing how stress produces these altered patterns of gene expression in the immune system, "we don't know how to account for the resilience of some stressed people exposed to severe sustained stress or the vulnerability of some people to relatively mild stress." He adds that "the better that we understand the underlying molecular mechanisms that link stress to illness, the more likely we are to make progress in answering these important questions," and this article is certainly a vital step in that direction.

Elsevier

---

---

	Gene Control by David Latchman (Author) Gene Control offers a current description of how gene expression is controlled in eukaryotes, reviewing and summarizing the extensive primary literature into an easily accessible format.  Gene Control is a comprehensively restructured and expanded edition of Latchman’s Gene Regulation: A Eukaryotic Perspective, Fifth Edition. The first part of the book deals with the fundamental processes of gene control at the levels of chromatin structure, transcription, and post-transcriptional processes. Three pairs of chapters deal with each of these aspects, first describing the basic process itself, followed by the manner in which it is involved in controlling gene expression.  The second part of the book deals with the role of gene control in specific biological processes. Certain chapters...
	Regulation of Gene Expression by Gary H. Perdew (Author), Jack P. Vanden Heuvel (Author), Jeffrey M. Peters (Author) Regulation of Gene Expression: Molecular Mechanisms presents a comprehensive overview of methods and approaches for characterizing mechanisms of gene regulation. The text is appropriate both as a graduate textbook and a standard laboratory reference and provides the essential groundwork for an advanced understanding of the various mechanisms that may result in altered activity of a specific cell protein. Each of three sections explores mechanisms of gene regulation and expression, and presents methods and protocols for achieving specific experimental goals. Part I focuses on approaches for studying control of mRNA expression and determining target genes for a given transcription copy. Part II outlines the methods for determining how proteins can regulate each other by mediating synthesis,...
	The Psychobiology of Gene Expression by Ernest L. Rossi (Author) The new understanding of the relationships between gene expression and human experience emerging from the Human Genome Project is setting the stage for a profound expansion of our understanding of life.The new neuroscience discoveries about enriching life experiences, neurogenesis, and gene expression are poised to profoundly expand our understanding of psychotherapy and the holistic healing arts. We are just beginning to learn how the brain, the body, and our genes interact in ordinary everyday life to create our lives. Here, acclaimed author and pioneer of new approaches to mindbody communication Ernest Rossi introduces the new science of psychosocial genomics and explores how it will profoundly change our understanding of the pathways of communication among mind, body, and spirit....
	Gene Expression and Regulation by Jun Ma (Author) This book offers a comprehensive look at the science of gene expression and regulation. Focusing on topics such as actions of nuclear receptors, RNA processing, and DNA methylation and imprinting, Gene Expression and Regulation is edited by a leading biologist and includes contributions by experts in the field. The focus is on scientific concepts and issues, rather than specific organisms or experimental approaches.
	The Analysis of Gene Expression Data by Giovanni Parmigiani (Editor), Elizabeth S. Garett (Editor), Rafael A. Irizarry (Editor), Scott L. Zeger (Editor) This book presents practical approaches for the analysis of data from gene expression micro-arrays. It describes the conceptual and methodological underpinning for a statistical tool and its implementation in software. The book includes coverage of various packages that are part of the Bioconductor project and several related R tools. The materials presented cover a range of software tools designed for varied audiences.
	Advanced Analysis of Gene Expression Microarray Data (Science, Engineering, and Biology Informatics) by Aidong Zhang (Author) This book focuses on the development and application of the latest advanced data mining, machine learning, and visualization techniques for the identification of interesting, significant, and novel patterns in gene expression microarray data. Biomedical researchers will find this book invaluable for learning the cutting-edge methods for analyzing gene expression microarray data. Specifically, the coverage includes the following state-of-the-art methods: gene-based analysis - the latest novel clustering algorithms to identify co-expressed genes and coherent patterns in gene expression microarray data sets; sample-based analysis - supervised and unsupervised methods for the reduction of the gene dimensionality to select significant genes. A series of approaches to disease classification and...
	DNA Microarrays and Gene Expression: From Experiments to Data Analysis and Modeling by Pierre Baldi (Author), G. Wesley Hatfield (Author) Massive data acquisition technologies--such as genome sequencing, high-throughput drug screening, and DNA arrays--are in the process of revolutionizing biology and medicine. This concise, user-friendly and interdisciplinary guide to DNA microarray technology is an introduction and a reference for both biologists and computational scientists. The authors describe the underlying technologies and offer an awareness of the "noise" and pitfalls present in the data generated. They also provide an idea of the different data mining techniques and algorithms that are available to interpret data, and the advantages and disadvantages of each in differing situations.
	Cardiac Gene Expression: Methods and Protocols (Methods in Molecular Biology) by Jun Zhang (Editor), Gregg Rokosh (Editor) This book presents both cutting-edge and established methods for studying cardiac gene expression. The protocols provide a template for solid research, and cover the process through screening, analysis, characterization, and functional confirmation of novel genes or known genes with a new function. The concluding section of the book highlights methods that facilitate overexpression or cardiac-specific targeted gene deletion.
	Recombinant Gene Expression: Reviews and Protocols (Methods in Molecular Biology) by Paulina Balbas (Editor), Argelia Lorence (Editor) In this second updated edition, the editors have added critical reviews to a collection of cutting-edge protocols for gene expression in bacteria, fungi, plants, plant cells, animals, and animal cells. The review articles survey new directions in recombinant gene expression research, technique, and application, and point the way to using recombinant gene expression for metabolic engineering and the production of non-protein molecules. The readily reproducible protocols offer new host-vector systems, such as Anarctic bacteria and moderately halophytic bacteria, vectors for chromosomal editing and metabolic engineering, and information to aid in problem solving, strategy planning, and the promotion of protein folding. Recombinant Gene Expression: Reviews and Protocols, Second Edition offers...
	Molecular Biology of the Gene (6th Edition) by James D. Watson (Author), Tania A. Baker (Author), Stephen P. Bell (Author), Alexander Gann (Author), Michael Levine (Author), Richard Losick (Author), Inglis CSHLP (Author) Though completely up-to-date with the latest research advances, the Sixth Edition of James D. Watson’s classic book, Molecular Biology of the Gene retains the distinctive character of earlier editions that has made it the most widely used book in molecular biology. Twenty-two concise chapters, co-authored by six highly respected biologists, provide current, authoritative coverage of an exciting, fast-changing discipline. Mendelian View of the World, Nucleic Acids Convey Genetic Information,The Importance of Weak Chemical Interactions, The Importance of High Energy Bonds, Weak and Strong Bonds Determine Macromolecular Interactions, The Structures of DNA and RNA, Genome Structure, Chromatin and the Nucleosome, The Replication of DNA, The Mutability and Repair of DNA, Homologous...