Campaigns

Petition: remove women of transsexual / intersex history from the GLAAD Media Reference Guide.
[ link ] Also read Andrea Rosenfield's call for reform here at TS-Si.[ link ]

TS-Si supports open and immediate access to publicly funded research.
xkcd
TS-Si
is dedicated to the acceptance, medical
treatment, and legal
protection of individuals correcting the misalignment
of their brains and their anatomical sex, while supporting their transition
into society as hormonally reconstituted and surgically corrected citizens.
is dedicated to the acceptance, medical
treatment, and legal
protection of individuals correcting the misalignment
of their brains and their anatomical sex, while supporting their transition
into society as hormonally reconstituted and surgically corrected citizens.
PTSD Invokes Sex-Different Immune Responses |
![]() |
![]() |
SciMed - Healthcare | |||
TS-Si News Service | |||
Saturday, 30 April 2011 15:00 | |||
San Francisco, CA, USA. Men and women had starkly different
![]() While a robust immune response protects the body from foreign invaders, such as bacteria and viruses, an over-activated response causes inflammation, which can lead to such conditions as cardiovascular disease and arthritis. In a study published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, the authors took blood samples from 49 men (24 with PTSD and 25 controls) and 18 women (10 with PTSD and 8 controls). [C1] They then used gene ![]() ![]() “We were looking for evidence of inflammation caused by immune activation,” explained lead author Thomas Neylan, MD, director of the PTSD program at SFVAMC and a professor in residence of psychiatry at UCSF. “We know that people with PTSD have higher rates of cardiovascular disease and arthritis, which are diseases associated chronic inflammation. We also hoped that seeing which genes were expressed in PTSD might show us potential therapeutic approaches that we hadn’t thought of.” The researchers found no evidence of increased immune activation among the men with PTSD compared to those without PTSD. In contrast, the women with PTSD showed significant evidence of immune activation compared to women without PTSD. “Previous gene microarray studies on PTSD grouped men and women together, which gave inconclusive results,” said senior investigator Lynn Pulliam, MS, PhD, chief of microbiology at SFVAMC and professor of laboratory medicine and medicine at UCSF. “This is the first time that it’s been shown that men and women respond differently to PTSD on a very basic biological level.” Neylan characterized the finding as “unexpected.” The researchers do not know why there seems to be such a marked difference between men and women, said Neylan. However, in a study published in the journal Disease Markers, they analyzed data collected from the same subjects to explore one possible explanation: gender differences in cell signaling pathways. [2] “We know that ![]() ![]() “These signaling pathways are used by the brain and central nervous system to communicate with the immune system and tell immune cells what to do.” The researchers used sophisticated bioinformatics software to look at three different signaling pathways associated with inflammation: NF-kappa B, glucocorticoid receptor (GR), and CREB/ATF. In the NF-kappa B and GR pathways in both men and women with PTSD, they found evidence of signaling that could promote inflammation. In the CREB/ATF pathway, however, they found what O’Donovan called “totally contrasting” effects: men with PTSD had increased signaling, which in turn could possibly lead to less inflammation, while women with PTSD had decreased signaling, which could lead to more inflammation. “This particular pathway might be a clue to the gender difference in monocyte gene expression in PTSD,” said Pulliam. “It’s still very early,” cautioned O’Donovan, “but these bioinformatics results are telling us something about how PTSD could increase the risk for autoimmune disorders like arthritis as well as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other diseases of aging. They also point us in the direction of some potential treatment targets, telling us where future investigative energy might be well spent.” Neylan emphasized that because of the small sample size, particularly among the women, the results of the two studies are suggestive rather than conclusive. “The next step is to look at larger groups of men and women, and we are working on that,” he said. FundingBoth studies were supported by grants from the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research & Education Clinical Center. Some of the funds were administered by the Northern California Institute for Research and Education.
Participation[P1] Co-authors of the Brain, Behavior, and Immunity study are Bing Sun, MD, PhD, and Hans Rempel, PhD, of SFVAMC; Jessica Ross, MD, MS, of SFVAMC and UCSF; and Maryann Lenoci, MA, of SFVAMC. [cf. C1]
[P2] Co-authors of the Disease Markers study are Bing Sun, MD, PhD; Steve Cole, PhD, of UCLA; Hans Rempel, PhD; and Maryann Lenoci, MA. [cf. C1] Citation[C1] Suppressed monocyte gene expression profile in men versus women with PTSD. Thomas C. Neylan, Bing Sun, Hans Rempel, Jessica Ross, Maryann Lenoci, Aoife O’Donovan, Lynn Pulliam. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity 2011; 25(3): 524-531. doi:10.1016/j.bbi.2010.12.001
Highlights • Male subjects with PTSD had an overall pattern of under-expression of genes on monocytes (47 under-expressed versus 4 over-expressed genes). • There was no transcriptional evidence of chronic inflammation in male PTSD+ subjects. • In contrast, preliminary data from our pilot sample of female PTSD+ subjects showed a relatively balanced pattern of increased and decreased expression of genes and an increase in activity of pathways related to immune activation. • The results indicate differential patterns of monocyte gene expression in PTSD, and are suggestive of gender dimorphism in biologic pathways activated in PTSD. Abstract There have been several attempts to use gene microarrays from peripheral blood mononuclear cells to identify new biological pathways or targets for therapy in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The few studies conducted to date have yielded an unclear pattern of findings, perhaps reflecting the use of heterogeneous samples of circulating immune cells for analysis. We used gene microarrays on a homogeneous sample of circulating monocytes to test the ![]() Keywords: posttraumatic stress disorder, cdna microarray, cytokines, monocyte. [C2] Transcriptional control of monocyte gene expression in post-traumatic stress disorder. Aoife O'Donovan, Bing Sun, Steve Cole, Hans Rempel, Maryann Lenoci, Lynn Pulliam, Thomas Neylan. Disease Markers 2011; 30(2-3): 123-132. doi:10.3233/DMA-2011-0768 Abstract Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) confers an increased risk for disorders with an inflammatory etiology. PTSD-related dysregulation of the ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
Bookmark
Email this
Comments (0)
Write comment
|
|||
Last Updated on Sunday, 01 May 2011 14:02 |