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Introduction: Police employees undertake challenging duties which may adversely impact their health. This study explored the prevalence of and risk factors for probable mental disorders amongst a representative sample of UK police employees. The association between mental illness and alterations in blood pressure was also explored., Methods: Data were used from the Airwave Health Monitoring Study which was established to monitor the possible physical health impacts of a new communication system on police employees. Data included sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle habits, depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and blood pressure. Descriptive statistics were used to explore the prevalence of probable mental disorders and associated factors. Stepwise linear regression was conducted, controlling for confounding variables, to examine associations between mental disorders and blood pressure., Results: The sample included 40,299 police staff, police constable/sergeants and inspectors or above. Probable depression was most frequently reported (9.8%), followed by anxiety (8.5%) and PTSD (3.9%). Groups at risk for probable mental disorders included police staff, and police employees who reported drinking heavily. Police employees exposed to traumatic incidents in the past six months had a doubling in rates of anxiety or depression and a six-fold increase in PTSD compared to those with no recent trauma exposure. Adjusted logistic regression models did not reveal any significant association between probable mental disorders and systolic blood pressure but significantly elevated diastolic blood pressure (≈1mmHg) was found across mental disorders., Conclusions: These results show lower rates of probable mental disorders, especially PTSD, than reported in other studies focusing on police employees. Although mental ill health was associated with increased diastolic blood pressure, this was unlikely to be clinically significant. These findings highlight the importance of continued health monitoring of members of the UK police forces, focusing on employees recently exposed to traumatic incidents, heavy drinkers and police staff., Competing Interests: The authors have read the journal's policy and have the following conflicts: SAMS and NTF salaries are part funded by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD). NTF is a trustee (unpaid) of The Warrior Programme and the ADVANCE study charity, and is an independent advisor to the Independent Group Advising on the Release of Data (IGARD) for NHS Digital. NG is a trustee with two military charities, undertakes voluntary roles with the Royal College of Psychiatrists and runs his own psychological health consultancy. PE is associate director of the Health Data Research UK London funded by a consortium led by the UK Medical Research Council. This does not alter our adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Heavy alcohol consumption is an established risk factor for hypertension; the mechanism by which alcohol consumption impact blood pressure (BP) regulation remains unknown. We hypothesized that a genome-wide association study accounting for gene-alcohol consumption interaction for BP might identify additional BP loci and contribute to the understanding of alcohol-related BP regulation. We conducted a large two-stage investigation incorporating joint testing of main genetic effects and single nucleotide variant (SNV)-alcohol consumption interactions. In Stage 1, genome-wide discovery meta-analyses in ≈131K individuals across several ancestry groups yielded 3,514 SNVs (245 loci) with suggestive evidence of association (P < 1.0 x 10-5). In Stage 2, these SNVs were tested for independent external replication in ≈440K individuals across multiple ancestries. We identified and replicated (at Bonferroni correction threshold) five novel BP loci (380 SNVs in 21 genes) and 49 previously reported BP loci (2,159 SNVs in 109 genes) in European ancestry, and in multi-ancestry meta-analyses (P < 5.0 x 10-8). For African ancestry samples, we detected 18 potentially novel BP loci (P < 5.0 x 10-8) in Stage 1 that warrant further replication. Additionally, correlated meta-analysis identified eight novel BP loci (11 genes). Several genes in these loci (e.g., PINX1, GATA4, BLK, FTO and GABBR2) have been previously reported to be associated with alcohol consumption. These findings provide insights into the role of alcohol consumption in the genetic architecture of hypertension., Competing Interests: The authors have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: Bruce M. Psaty (BMP) serves on the DSMB of a clinical trial funded by Zoll Lifecor and on the Steering Committee of the Yale Open Data Access Project funded by Johnson & Johnson. Barbara V. Howard (BVH) has a contract from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Brenda W.J.H. Penninx (BWJHP) has received research funding (non-related to the work reported here) from Jansen Research and Boehringer Ingelheim. Mike A. Nalls (MAN) is supported by a consulting contract between Data Tecnica International LLC and the National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD, USA. MAN also consults for Illumina Inc., the Michael J. Fox Foundation, and the University of California Healthcare. MAN also has commercial affiliation with Data Tecnica International, Glen Echo, MD, USA. Mark J. Caulfield (MJC) has commercial affiliation and is Chief Scientist for Genomics England, a UK government company. OHF is supported by grants from Metagenics (on women's health and epigenetics) and from Nestlé (on child health). Peter S. Sever (PSS) is financial supported from several pharmaceutical companies which manufacture either blood pressure lowering or lipid lowering agents, or both, and consultancy fees. Paul W. Franks (PWF) has been a paid consultant in the design of a personalized nutrition trial (PREDICT) as part of a private-public partnership at Kings College London, UK, and has received research support from several pharmaceutical companies as part of European Union Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) projects. Terho Lehtimäki (TL) is employed by Fimlab Ltd. Ozren Polašek (OP) is employed by Gen‐info Ltd. There are no patents, products in development, or marked products to declare. All the other authors have declared no competing interests exist. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Objectives: To characterize effects of chronically elevated blood pressure on the brain, we tested for brain white matter microstructural differences associated with normotension, pre-hypertension and hypertension in recently available brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 4659 participants without known neurological or psychiatric disease (62.3±7.4 yrs, 47.0% male) in UK Biobank., Methods: For assessment of white matter microstructure, we used measures derived from neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI) including the intracellular volume fraction (an estimate of neurite density) and isotropic volume fraction (an index of the relative extra-cellular water diffusion). To estimate differences associated specifically with blood pressure, we applied propensity score matching based on age, sex, educational level, body mass index, and history of smoking, diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease to perform separate contrasts of non-hypertensive (normotensive or pre-hypertensive, N = 2332) and hypertensive (N = 2337) individuals and of normotensive (N = 741) and pre-hypertensive (N = 1581) individuals (p<0.05 after Bonferroni correction)., Results: The brain white matter intracellular volume fraction was significantly lower, and isotropic volume fraction was higher in hypertensive relative to non-hypertensive individuals (N = 1559, each). The white matter isotropic volume fraction also was higher in pre-hypertensive than in normotensive individuals (N = 694, each) in the right superior longitudinal fasciculus and the right superior thalamic radiation, where the lower intracellular volume fraction was observed in the hypertensives relative to the non-hypertensive group., Significance: Pathological processes associated with chronically elevated blood pressure are associated with imaging differences suggesting chronic alterations of white matter axonal structure that may affect cognitive functions even with pre-hypertension.

The uppermost internode is one of the fastest elongating organs in rice, and is expected to require an adequate supply of cell-wall materials and enzymes to the cell surface to enhance mechanical strength. Although it has been reported that the phenotype of shortened uppermost internode 1 (sui1) is caused by mutations in PHOSPHATIDYLSERINE SYNTHASE (OsPSS), the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Here we show that the OsPSS-1, as a gene expressed predominantly in elongating cells, regulates post-Golgi vesicle secretion to intercellular spaces. Mutation of OsPSS-1 leads to compromised delivery of CESA4 and secGFP towards the cell surface, resulting in weakened intercellular adhesion and disorganized cell arrangement in parenchyma. The phenotype of sui1-4 is caused largely by the reduction in cellulose contents in the whole plant and detrimental delivery of pectins in the uppermost internode. We found that OsPSS-1 and its potential product PS (phosphatidylserine) localized to organelles associated with exocytosis. These results together suggest that OsPSS-1 plays a potential role in mediating cell expansion by regulating secretion of cell wall components.

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), which present in the non-specific immune system of organism, are amongst the most promising candidates for the development of novel antimicrobials. The modification of naturally occurring AMPs based on their residue composition and distribution is a simple and effective strategy for optimization of known AMPs. In this study, a series of truncated and residue-substituted derivatives of antimicrobial peptide PMAP-36 were designed and synthesized. The 24-residue truncated peptide, GI24, displayed antimicrobial activity comparable to the mother peptide PMAP-36 with MICs ranging from 1 to 4 µM, which is lower than the MICs of bee venom melittin. Although GI24 displayed high antimicrobial activity, its hemolytic activity was much lower than melittin, suggesting that GI24 have optimal cell selectivity. In addition, the crucial site of GI24 was identified through single site-mutation. An amino acid with high hydrophobicity at position 23 played an important role in guaranteeing the high antimicrobial activity of GI24. Then, lipid vesicles and whole bacteria were employed to investigate the membrane-active mechanisms. Membrane-simulating experiments showed that GI24 interacted strongly with negatively charged phospholipids and weakly with zwitterionic phospholipids, which corresponded well with the data of its biological activities. Membrane permeabilization and flow cytometry provide the evidence that GI24 killed microbial cells by permeabilizing the cell membrane and damaging membrane integrity. GI24 resulted in greater cell morphological changes and visible pores on cell membrane as determined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). Taken together, the peptide GI24 may provide a promising antimicrobial agent for therapeutic applications against the frequently-encountered bacteria.

Background: Yersinia pestis synthesizes the attached biofilms in the flea proventriculus, which is important for the transmission of this pathogen by fleas. The hmsHFRS operons is responsible for the synthesis of exopolysaccharide (the major component of biofilm matrix), which is activated by the signaling molecule 3', 5'-cyclic diguanylic acid (c-di-GMP) synthesized by the only two diguanylate cyclases HmsT, and YPO0449 (located in a putative operonYPO0450-0448)., Methodology/principal Findings: The phenotypic assays indicated that the transcriptional regulator Fur inhibited the Y. pestis biofilm production in vitro and on nematode. Two distinct Fur box-like sequences were predicted within the promoter-proximal region of hmsT, suggesting that hmsT might be a direct Fur target. The subsequent primer extension, LacZ fusion, electrophoretic mobility shift, and DNase I footprinting assays disclosed that Fur specifically bound to the hmsT promoter-proximal region for repressing the hmsT transcription. In contrast, Fur had no regulatory effect on hmsHFRS and YPO0450-0448 at the transcriptional level. The detection of intracellular c-di-GMP levels revealed that Fur inhibited the c-di-GMP production., Conclusions/significance: Y. pestis Fur inhibits the c-di-GMP production through directly repressing the transcription of hmsT, and thus it acts as a repressor of biofilm formation. Since the relevant genetic contents for fur, hmsT, hmsHFRS, and YPO0450-0448 are extremely conserved between Y. pestis and typical Y. pseudotuberculosis, the above regulatory mechanisms can be applied to Y. pseudotuberculosis.

Background: Yersinia pestis is the causative agent of plague. The two transcriptional regulators, PhoP and RovA, are required for the virulence of Y. pestis through the regulation of various virulence-associated loci. They are the global regulators controlling two distinct large complexes of cellular pathways., Methodology/principal Findings: Based on the LacZ fusion, primer extension, gel mobility shift, and DNase I footprinting assays, RovA is shown to recognize both of the two promoters of its gene in Y. pestis. The autoregulation of RovA appears to be a conserved mechanism shared by Y. pestis and its closely related progenitor, Y. pseudotuberculosis. In Y. pestis, the PhoP regulator responds to low magnesium signals and then negatively controls only one of the two promoters of rovA through PhoP-promoter DNA association., Conclusions/significance: RovA is a direct transcriptional activator for its own gene in Y. pestis, while PhoP recognizes the promoter region of rovA to repress its transcription. The direct regulatory association between PhoP and RovA bridges the PhoP and RovA regulons in Y. pestis.