Oxidative Stress and Disease

Typically in aerobic metabolism, organic compounds such as nucleic acids, proteins and lipids can undergo structural damage by oxidative reactions. This damage caused by reactive oxygen/nitrogen species has been recognized as “oxidative stress”. Despite the biological systems present efficient enzymatic and nonenzymatic antioxidant systems, oxidative stress indicates a pro-oxidant/antioxidant imbalance in favor of excessive generation of free radicals or decrease in the removal rate. Various diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and neurodegenerative clearly exemplify the chronic oxidative stress. Therefore, it is important to consider that at low and moderate ROS levels, it can, for example, act as signaling molecules that support cell proliferation and differentiation and activate survival pathways in response to stress. Correlations between oxidative stress and disease should be carefully investigated in order to understand whether oxidative stress actually increases susceptibility to a particular disease or opposite

Guidelines on the treatment of anemia of chronic renal failure using recombinant human erythropoietin: associação brasileira de hematologia, hemoterapia e terapia celular guidelines project: Associação médica brasileira - 2014

The guidelines project is a joint initiative of the Associação Médica Brasileira and the Conselho Federal de Medicina. It aims to collect information to standardize decisions and help create strategies during diagnosis and treatment. These data were prepa366450453sem informaçãosem informaçã

Evaluation of Broiler Breeder Housing in High Temperature Brazilian Conditions

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of different cooling systems on bird thermal comfort, litter moisture content and the performance of broiler breeders, housed in open facilities at high temperatures conditions in Brazil. The study used Hubber lineage birds, from 26 to 37 weeks of age, in summer and fall conditions, in the Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Two facilities were used, with similar dimensions and construction characteristics, oriented in an east-west direction. Six replicates of six different systems of environmental control were evaluated: (fan jet with polytube and evaporative cellulose pad material, FJS; roof sprinkling (exterior), RSS; internal fogging system, IFS; two horizontal mixing fans directing air into the room, MFS; two roof-top wind-driven turbine ventilators, RVS; and a conventional system as the control, CTL, with ventilation provided solely by wind and no additional cooling. Hatchability, AH, was measured weekly. Results demonstrated that the FJS, IFS and MFS systems, in this sequence, performed best, presenting reduced BGHTI values and improved AH as compared to the other systems. Results obtained from the RVS and the CTL systems were markedly inferior. Litter moisture content (MC) was least in the MFS system while greatest in the FJS system

Characterization of alpha thalassemic genotypes by multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification in the Brazilian population

Alpha-thalassemia is the most common inherited disorder of hemoglobin synthesis. Genomic deletions involving the alpha-globin gene cluster on chromosome 16p13.3 are the most frequent molecular causes of the disease. Although common deletions can be detected by a single multiplex gap-PCR, the rare and novel deletions depend on more laborious techniques for their identification. The multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) technique has recently been used for this purpose and was successfully used in the present study to detect the molecular alterations responsible for the alpha-thalassemic phenotypes in 8 unrelated individuals (3 males and 5 females; age, 4 months to 30 years) in whom the molecular basis of the disease could not be determined by conventional methods. A total of 44 probe pairs were used for MLPA, covering approximately 800 kb from the telomere to the MSLN gene in the 16p13.3 region. Eight deletions were detected. Four of these varied in size from 240 to 720 kb and affected a large region including the entire alpha-globin gene cluster and its upstream regulatory element (alpha-MRE), while the other four varied in size from 0.4 to 100 kb and were limited to a region containing this element. This study is the first in Brazil to use the MLPA method to determine the molecular basis of alpha-thalassemia. The variety of rearrangements identified highlights the need to investigate all cases presenting microcytosis and hypochromia, but without iron deficiency or elevated hemoglobin A2 levels and suggests that these rearrangements may be more frequent in our population than previously estimated.162