Comparative assessment of autochthonous bacterial and fungal communities and microbial biomarkers of polluted agricultural soils of the Terra dei Fuochi

Organic and inorganic xenobiotic compounds can affect the potential ecological function of the soil, altering its biodiversity. Therefore, the response of microbial communities to environmental pollution is a critical issue in soil ecology. Here, a high-throughput sequencing approach was used to investigate the indigenous bacterial and fungal community structure as well as the impact of pollutants on their diversity and richness in contaminated and noncontaminated soils of a National Interest Priority Site of Campania Region (Italy) called “Terra dei Fuochi”. The microbial populations shifted in the polluted soils via their mechanism of adaptation to contamination, establishing a new balance among prokaryotic and eukaryotic populations. Statistical analyses showed that the indigenous microbial communities were most strongly affected by contamination rather than by site of origin. Overabundant taxa and Actinobacteria were identified as sensitive biomarkers for assessing soil pollution and could provide general information on the health of the environment. This study has important implications for microbial ecology in contaminated environments, increasing our knowledge of the capacity of natural ecosystems to develop microbiota adapted to polluted soil in sites with high agricultural potential and providing a possible approach for modeling pollution indicators for bioremediation purposes

Functional dosing of mesenchymal stromal cell-derived extracellular vesicles for the prevention of acute graft-versus-host-disease

Graft-vs-host-disease (GvHD) is currently the main complication of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Mortality and morbidity rates are particularly high, especially in steroid-refractory acute GvHD (aGvHD). Immune regulatory human bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells (hMB-MSCs) represent a therapeutic approach to address this issue. Unfortunately, their effect is hardly predictable in vivo due to several variables, that is, MSC tissue origin, concentration, dose number, administration route and timing, and inflammatory status of the recipient. Interestingly, human bone marrow MSC-derived extracellular vesicles (hBM-MSC-EVs) display many of the hBM-MSC immunoregulatory properties due to their content in paracrine factors that greatly varies according to the collection method. In this study, we focused on the immunological characterization of hBM-MSC-EVs on their capability of inducing regulatory T-cells (T-regs) both in vitro and in a xenograft mouse model of aGvHD. We correlated these data with the aGvHD incidence and degree following hBM-MSC-EV intravenous administration. Thus, we first quantified the EV immunomodulation in vitro in terms of EV immunomodulatory functional unit (EV-IFU), that is, the lowest concentration of EVs leading in vitro to at least threefold increase of the T-regs compared with controls. Second, we established the EV therapeutic dose in vivo (EV-TD) corresponding to 10-fold the in vitro EV-IFU. According to this approach, we observed a significant improvement of both mouse survival and control of aGvHD onset and progression. This study confirms that EVs may represent an alternative to whole MSCs for aGvHD prevention, once the effective dose is reproducibly identified according to EV-IFU and EV-TD definition

Browsing Isolated Population Data

BACKGROUND: In our studies of genetically isolated populations in a remote mountain area in the center of Sardinia (Italy), we found that 80–85% of the inhabitants of each village belong to a single huge pedigree with families strictly connected to each other through hundreds of loops. Moreover, intermarriages between villages join pedigrees of different villages through links that make family trees even more complicated. Unfortunately, none of the commonly used pedigree drawing tools are able to draw the complete pedigree, whereas it is commonly accepted that the visual representation of families is very important as it helps researchers in identifying clusters of inherited traits and genotypes. We had a representation issue that compels researchers to work with subsets extracted from the overall genealogy, causing a serious loss of information on familiar relationships. To visually explore such complex pedigrees, we developed PedNavigator, a browser for genealogical databases properly suited for genetic studies. RESULTS: The PedNavigator is useful for genealogical research due to its capacity to represent family relations between persons and to make a visual verification of the links during family history reconstruction. As for genetic studies, it is helpful to follow propagation of a specific set of genetic markers (haplotype), or to select people for linkage analysis, showing relations between various branch of a family tree of affected subjects. AVAILABILITY: PedNavigator is an application integrated into a Framework designed to handle data for human genetic studies based on the Oracle platform. To allow the use of PedNavigator also to people not owning the same required informatics infrastructure or systems, we developed PedNavigator Lite with mainly the same features of the integrated one, based on MySQL database server. This version is free for academic users, and it is available for download from our sit

Microwave-Assisted Synthesis of 2-Methyl-1H-indole-3-carboxylate Derivatives via Pd-Catalyzed Heterocyclization

Indole moiety is well-known as a superlative framework in many natural products and synthetic pharmaceuticals. Herein, we report an efficient procedure to synthesize a series of functionalized 2-methyl-1H-indole-3-carboxylate derivatives from commercially available anilines properly functionalized by different electron-withdrawing and -donating groups through a palladiumcatalyzed intramolecular oxidative coupling. The conversion of a variety of enamines into the relevant indole was optimized by exposing the neat mixture of reactants to microwave irradiation, obtaining the desired products in excellent yields and high regioselectivity. The synthesized compounds were confirmed by 1H and 13C spectroscopic means as well as by high-resolution mass spectrometry

Benefits of Exercise with Mini Tennis in Intellectual Disabilities: Effects on Body Image and Psychopathology

The present study is aimed at evaluating the efficacy of an introductory mini tennis programme as a therapeutic aid in the psychosocial rehabilitation of participants affected by mild/moderate intellectual disability in semi-residential care

Discovery of a new class of triazole based inhibitors of acetyl transferase KAT2A

We have recently developed a new synthetic methodology that provided both N-aryl-5-hydroxytriazoles and N-pyridine-4-alkyl triazoles. A selection of these products was carried through virtual screening towards targets that are contemporary and validated for drug discovery and development. This study determined a number of potential structure target dyads of which N-pyridinium-4-carboxylic-5-alkyl triazole displayed the highest score specificity towards KAT2A. Binding affinity tests of abovementioned triazole and related analogs towards KAT2A confirmed the predictions of the in-silico assay. Finally, we have run in vitro inhibition assays of selected triazoles towards KAT2A; the ensemble of binding and inhibition assays delivered pyridyl-triazoles carboxylates as the prototype of a new class of inhibitors of KAT2A

Human parvovirus B19 frequency among blood donors after an epidemic outbreak: relevance of the epidemiological scenario for transfusion medicine

A retrospective, cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the frequency of human parvovirus B19 (B19V) infected individuals, viral loads and immunity among blood donors from Argentina, in a post-epidemic outbreak period. B19V DNA and specific IgG were tested in minimum study samples of donors attending a blood bank at Córdoba, Argentina, in 2014. Anti-B19V IgM and viral loads were determined in B19V-positive plasma samples. Seven of 731 samples (0.96%) resulted positive, corresponding to individuals aged 32–53 years, four of them repeat donnors and three first-time donors. Viral loads were <103 IU/mL. None had IgM and 6/7 had IgG, one of them at a high level (in the range of 100–200 IU/ml, and the remaining 5 at low to medium level, 5–50 IU/ml). Thus one case was classified as acute infection (DNA+/IgM-/IgG-) and six as potentially persistent infections (DNA+/IgM-/IgG+). No coinfections with other pathogens of mandatory control in the pre-transfusion screening were detected. Prevalence of IgG was 77.9% (279/358). This study provides the first data of B19V prevalence in blood donors in Argentina, demonstrating high rates of acute and persistent B19V infections and high prevalence of anti-B19V IgG in a post-epidemic period. Further research is needed to elucidate mechanisms/factors for B19V persistence as well as follow-up of recipients in the context of haemo-surveillance programs, contributing to the knowledge of B19V and blood transfusion safety.Fil: Adamo, Maria Pilar. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Virología Dr. J. M. Vanella; ArgentinaFil: Blanco, Sebastian. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Virología Dr. J. M. Vanella; Argentina. Fundación Banco Central de Sangre de Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Viale, Franco Agustín. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Virología Dr. J. M. Vanella; ArgentinaFil: Rivadera, Sabrina Ximena. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Virología Dr. J. M. Vanella; ArgentinaFil: Rodríguez Lombardi, Gonzalo Ramón. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Laboratorio de Hemoderivados; ArgentinaFil: Pedranti, Mauro. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Virología Dr. J. M. Vanella; ArgentinaFil: Carrizo, Rubén Horacio. Fundación Banco Central de Sangre de Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Gallego, Sandra Veronica. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Virología Dr. J. M. Vanella; Argentina. Fundación Banco Central de Sangre de Córdoba; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentin

EDA2R Is Associated with Androgenetic Alopecia

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Caracterização reológica de suspensões cimentícias mistas com cales ou filitos

   Filitos são tipos de rochas metamórficas que vêm sendo utilizados ultimamente como insumos em composições de argamassa de revestimento, em substituição à cal. A melhora da trabalhabilidade e da plasticidade dos materiais cimentícios, principais motivos para a utilização das cales, são as características obtidas também com a utilização dos filitos. Este trabalho tem como objetivo avaliar as características de suspensões cimentícias formuladas com cal ou filito, a partir de ensaios de reometria rotacional para a avaliação das propriedades das suspensões durante o fluxo, e oscilatória para a avaliação da cinética de consolidação. Os resultados mostraram que, apesar de as características físicas, químicas e mineralógicas dos pós serem muito diferentes, as cales hidratadas do tipo I (CHI) não se diferenciaram dos filitos durante o fluxo, mas durante o endurecimento foram observadas consideráveis alterações na cinética de aglomeração

Microsatellites and SNPs linkage analysis in a Sardinian genetic isolate confirms several essential hypertension loci previously identified in different populations

Background. A multiplicity of study designs such as gene candidate analysis, genome wide search (GWS) and, recently, whole genome association studies have been employed for the identification of the genetic components of essential hypertension (EH). Several genome-wide linkage studies of EH and blood pressure-related phenotypes demonstrate that there is no single locus with a major effect while several genomic regions likely to contain EH-susceptibility loci were validated by multiple studies. Methods. We carried out the clinical assessment of the entire adult population in a Sardinian village (Talana) and we analyzed 16 selected families with 62 hypertensive subjects out of 267 individuals. We carried out a double GWS using a set of 902 uniformly spaced microsatellites and a high-density SNPs map on the same group of families. Results. Three loci were identified by both microsatellites and SNP scans and the obtained linkage results showed a remarkable degree of similarity. These loci were identified on chromosome 2q24, 11q23.1–25 and 13q14.11–21.33. Further support to these findings is their broad description present in literature associated to EH or related phenotypes. Bioinformatic investigation of these loci shows several potential EH candidate genes, several of whom already associated to blood pressure regulation pathways. Conclusion. Our search for major susceptibility EH genetic factors evidences that EH in the genetic isolate of Talana is due to the contribution of several genes contained in loci identified and replicated by earlier findings in different human populations