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The purposes of this article are to review literature on anger's link to cancer, to analyze the state of the science in this area, and to propose some directions for future research. Extremely low anger scores have been noted in numerous studies of patients with cancer. Such low scores suggest suppression, repression, or restraint of anger. There is evidence to show that suppressed anger can be a precursor to the development of cancer, and also a factor in its progression after diagnosis. Some studies indicate that it may be beneficial for patients to mobilize anger to battle their cancer. However, there is a paucity of research on the outcomes of various anger interventions. Longitudinal studies that repeatedly measure anger and other moods over the disease trajectory are needed.

Twenty-first century nurse clinicians, scientists, and educators must be informed of and become proficient in genetic competencies to provide the best available evidenced-based patient care. This article presents a historical context and basic applications of genetics, along with the attendant legal and ethical issues, to provide a framework for understanding genetics and the genomics applications used in clinical nursing practice. The implications of genomics are relevant to all areas of nursing practice, including risk assessment, education, clinical management, and future research.

Patients treated for head and neck cancer frequently develop dysphagia. Bolus characteristics are altered during fluoroscopic swallowing studies to observe the impact on swallowing function. The purpose of this study was to determine bolus volume and consistency effects on oropharyngeal swallowing physiology and patient awareness of swallowing difficulty.Twenty-one patients with head and neck cancer were assessed pre-chemoradiation and post-chemoradiation. The Modified Barium Swallow Study (MBSS) was utilized to examine swallow physiology. Each patient provided perceptual ratings of swallowing difficulty after each swallow of varying bolus types.Oral transit times were significantly longer with pudding boluses. There were trends for higher residue percentages as well as perceptual ratings for pudding and cookie boluses. One correlation between perceptual ratings and physiology was significant.Patient awareness of swallowing difficulty and aspects of swallowing physiology vary with bolus consistency. Patient awareness does not correlate with observed changes in swallowing physiology.

The degree of stomatal sensitivity to CO2 was positively correlated with the content of abscisic acid of leaves of Xanthium strumarium grown in a greenhouse and then transferred for 24 hours or more to a cold (5/10 C, night/day) or a warm growth chamber (20/23 C). This correlation did not exist in plants kept in the greehouse continuously (high abscisic acid, no CO2 sensitivity), nor in plants transferred from the cold to the warm chamber (low abscisic acid, high CO2 sensitivity). The abscisic acid content of leaves was correlated with water content only within narrow limits, if at all. At equal water contents, prechilled leaves contained more abscisic acid than leaves of plants pretreated in the warm chamber. There appear to be at least two compartments for abscisic acid in the leaf.

Roots of young soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) seedlings inoculated with Rhizobium japonicum Kirchner USDA 110 ARS were examined in serial sections by light microscopy to ascertain the extent of infection. The location of each infection site was established in relation to the zones of root and root hair development at the time of inoculation. Each infection locus was classified as to its relative state of differentiation using a developmental scale encompassing the first 10 days of nodule development. Both the initiation and maturation of Rhizobium infections were found to be governed by the acropetal development of host root hairs. Regions of the root where mature root hairs were present at the time of inoculation were not susceptible to Rhizobium infection. Infections developed most frequently in root hairs which emerged shortly after inoculation. Many infections formed on the root but relatively few developed into nodules. Most infection loci which formed infection threads stopped developing at stages prior to meristem formation. A high proportion of the infection loci were pseudoinfections, i.e., localized areas of cortical cell division without infection thread formation. The maturation of infections in younger regions of the root was suppressed by prior exposure of older regions of the root to rhizobia. Development was suppressed at stages after meristem formation but before nodule emergence.

When stomates of Zea mays open K and Cl migrate from the subsidiary cells into the guard cells; when the stomates close both elements return to the subsidiary cells. Subsidiary cells function as reservoirs for K and Cl. Import of K and Cl into the guard cells and loss of both elements from the guard cells become observable 1 or 2 min after light is turned on or off, both when histochemical methods and the electron-probe microanalyzer are used for detection. Each stomatal complex of maize contains on the average 10±3×10(-13) gram equivalents (eq) of K and 4±1×10(-13) eq of Cl. Guard cells accumulate K in the light and CO2-free air at an average rate of 10×10(-15) eq K per minute, and Cl at approximately half that rate.

Mature leaves of Phaseolus vulgaris L. (red kidney bean), Xanthium strumarium L. (cocklebur), and Gossypium hirsutum L. (cotton) were used to study accumulation of abscisic acid (ABA) during water stress. The water status of individual, detached leaves was monitored while the leaves slowly wilted, and samples were cut from the leaves as they lost water. The leaf sections were incubated at their respecitive water contents to allow ABA to build up or not. At least 8 h were required for a new steady-state level of ABA to be established. The samples from any one leaf covered a range of known water potentials (ψ), osmotic pressures (π), and turgor pressures (p). The π and p values were calculated from “pressure-volume curves”, using a pressure bomb to measure the water potentials. Decreasing water potential had little effect on ABA levels in leaves at high turgor. Sensitivity of the production of ABA to changes in ψ progressively increased as turgor approached zero. At p=1 bar, ABA content averaged 4 times the level found in fully turgid samples. Below p=1 bar, ABA content increased sharply to as much as 40 times the level found in unstressed samples. ABA levels rose steeply at different water potentials for different leaves, according to the ψ at which turgor became zero. These differences were caused by the different osmotic pressures of the leaves that were used; ψ must cqual -π for turgor to be zero. Leaves vary in π, not only among species, but also between plants of one and the same species depending on the growing conditions. A difference of 6 bars (calculated at ψ=0) was found between the osmotic pressures of leaves from two groups of G. hirsutum plants; one group had previously experienced periodic water stress, and the other group had never been stressed. When individual leaves were subsequently wilted, the leaves from stress-conditioned plants required a lower water potential in order to accumulate ABA than did leaves from previously unstressed plants. On the basis of these results we suggest that turgor is the critical parameter of plant water relations which controls ABA production in water-stressed leaves.

Metabolism of abscisic acid (ABA) was studied after wilting and upon recovery from water stress in individual, detached leaves of Phaseolus vulgaris L. (red kidney bean). Loss of turgor was correlated with accumulation of ABA and its metabolites, resulting in a 10-fold increase in the level of phaseic acid (PA) and a doubling of the level of conjugated ABA. The level of conjugated ABA in turgid leaves was no higher than that of the free acid. These results indicate that accumulation of ABA in wilted leaves resulted from a stimulation of ABA synthesis, rather than from a release from a conjugated form or from inhibition of the metabolism of ABA. The rate of synthesis of ABA was at its maximum between 2.5 and 5 h after turgor was lost, and slackened there-after. In wilted leaves, the rate of conversion of ABA to PA climbed steadly until it matched the rate of synthesis, after about 7.5 h. Upon rehydration of sections from wilted leaves, the rate of synthesis of ABA dropped close to zero within about 3 h, while the rate of conversion to PA accelerated. Formation of PA was two to four times faster than in sections maintained in the wilted condition; it reached a rate sufficient to convert almost one-half of the ABA present in the tissue to PA within 1 h. In contrast, the alternate route of metabolism of ABA, synthesis of conjugated ABA, was not stimulated by rehydration. The role of turgor in the stimulation of the conversion of ABA to PA was investigated. When leaves that had been wilted for 5 h were rehydrated to different degrees, the amount of ABA which disappeared, or that of PA which accumulated during the next 3 h, did not depend linearly on the water potential of the rehydrated leaf. Rather, re-establishment of the slightest positive turgor was sufficient to result in maximum stimulation of conversion of ABA to PA.

The number of nodules which develop on the primary root of soybean seedlings (Glycine max L. Merr) after inoculation with Rhizobium japonicum is substantially diminished in the region of the root developmentally 10 to 15 hours younger than the region maximally susceptible to nodulation at the time of inoculation. This rapid inhibition of nodulation has been investigated by inoculating soybean seedlings with rhizobia at two different times, 15 hours apart. Living R. japonicum cells, but not heterologous rhizobia or UV-killed cells of the homologous bacterium, were capable of eliciting the rapid inhibitory response. Nodulation responses to varying inoculum concentrations showed that bacterial dosages could be superoptimal, resulting in reduced nodulation and reduced inhibition of nodulation. When suspensions of R. japonicum were dripped uniformly onto the root surfaces, the degree of inhibition of nodulation in developmentally younger regions of the root was correlated with the number of nodules formed in the older and initially most susceptible region of the root. Nodulation in the developmentally younger region of the root, however, was affected very little if the first inoculum was restricted to contact with root cells in the region initially most susceptible to nodulation. The rapid regulatory response may be an important factor contributing to the clustering of nodules in the crown region of soybean roots in field-grown plants and the sparse nodulation commonly observed in younger regions of the root.

The stomata of detached leaves of Commelina communis L., Hordeum vulgare L., Zea mays L., Vicia faba L., Phaseolus vulgaris L. and Xanthium strumarium L. closed when xanthoxin (XAN) was added to the transpiration stream. XAN was approximately half as active as (+)-abscisic acid (ABA) at an equivalent concentration. XAN, like ABA, sensitized stomata of Xanthium strumarium to CO2. In contrast to ABA, XAN was ineffective in closing stomata of isolated epidermal strips of C. communis or V. faba. This may be because XAN added to the transpiration stream is converted to ABA during passage from the xylem to the epidermis.