R Mikus | PubMed Health

PubMed1990

Correlates of adolescent sexual behavior.

116 Catholic (50 9th graders and 66 12th graders) and 92 public high school students (52 9th graders and 40 12th graders) completed questionnaires concerning sexual knowledge and information about sexual activity. Analysis indicates that 33% of the Catholic and 73% of the public 12th graders had previous sexual experience. The Catholic school 12th graders had significantly higher scores on a sex knowledge test than the public school students, however, there were no significant correlations between these scores and sexual activity for either school. The factors that students said encouraged sexual experimentation included curiosity, need for love, and peer pressure, while the factors that discouraged these behaviors were fear of pregnancy and sexually transmissible diseases. Fear of contracting AIDS and religious beliefs did not strongly influence sexual behavior.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Opposing regulation of interleukin-8 and NF-kappaB responses by lipoxin A4 and serum amyloid A via the common lipoxin A receptor.

Lipoxin A4 (LXA4) is a potent eicosanoid that inhibits IL-1beta-induced activation of human fibroblast like synoviocytes (FLS) via the ALX4 receptor. Serum amyloid A (SAA) is an acute phase reactant with cytokine-like properties. SAA has been shown to bind the same seven transmembrane G protein-coupled receptor ligated by LXA4. Here we compared the inflammatory responses of lipid (LXA4) and peptide (SAA) ligands in human FLS via the shared ALX, and characterized their downstream signaling. LXA4 induced stimulation of tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinase-2, whereas SAA induced interleukin-8 and matrix metalloproteinase-3 production. SAA up-regulated NF-kappaB and AP-1 DNA binding activity, while LXA4 markedly inhibited these responses after IL-1beta stimulation. A human IL-8 promoter luciferase construct was transfected into CHO cells stably expressing ALXR in order to determine the role of NF-kappaB and/or AP-1 in the regulation of IL-8 gene expression. The NF-kappaB pathway proved to be the preeminent for the biological responses elicited by both ligands. These findings suggest that two endogenous molecules, targeting a common receptor, could participate in the pathogenesis of inflammatory arthritis by differentially regulating inflammatory responses in tissues expressing the ALXR.

Amyloid↗