Jogos metabólicos: uma estratégia para facilitar o aprendizado e memorização das vias metabólicas / Metabolic games: a strategy to facilitate learning and memorization of metabolic pathways

De maneira geral, o estudo de bioquímica é complexo e abstrato, em que a quantidade de informações e a apresentação das vias metabólicas geralmente assustam o aluno, resultando muitas vezes na perda de interesse e inadequada compreensão do conteúdo. Assim, o aprendizado da bioquímica necessita de uma boa compreensão, raciocínio e abstração, fatores que dificultam ainda mais o sucesso no ensino desta disciplina. Com intuito de facilitar esta tarefa, diferentes abordagens têm sido desenvolvidas com o propósito de estimular e despertar o interesse na aprendizagem. Aqui, apresentamos os Jogos Metabólicos, estratégia lúdica para auxiliar o aprendizado do metabolismo biossintético-bioenergético. Foi observado, ao longo dos vinte anos em que essa estratégia foi utilizada, um aumento no interesse e no desempenho, resultando em uma melhor compreensão da bioquímica metabólica. Além disso, decorrente da contribuição dos estudantes, a estratégia vem sendo inovada a cada edição.

University Extension Project as a Health Promotion Instrument during the Covid-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the reality, made social isolation urgent aiming at reducing the contagion of the disease and, as a consequence, had to interrupt the classes and actions of extension projects in person. In this aspect, the Internet has become a possibility of interaction between teachers, nursing students and the community in an extension project university entitled: "Aromatherapy as a tool for coping in times of pandemic. Thus, the present study is a report of the authors\u27 experience in the project of  aromatherapy as an activity for health promotion in times of pandemic by COVID-19. A descriptive qualitative report was carried out on the experiences of the authors with the use of a virtual platform as an alternative informative content on the subject, during this period. The project was carried out in five weeks, with three synchronous meetings, the programmatic content was guided by scientific evidence, with guidelines of great importance to the public assisted with the aim of promoting health and be a tool for coping in times of pandemic. Thus, access to health promotion and exchange of knowledge of the target audience of the extension project was expanded

Asymptotic Behavior of the Solution to a Nonisentropic Hydrodynamic Model of Semiconductors

AbstractWe study the asymptotic behavior of the solution for a hydrodynamic model of semiconductors where the energy equation is included. We study the case where the flow is subsonic and the doping profile is close to a negative constant, depending on the spacial variablex. We shall show that a given steady state solution is asymptotically stable or unstable depending on whether or not the density of the initial data satisfiesP=0, wherePis defined in (3.5)

Coinfection with Different Trypanosoma cruzi Strains Interferes with the Host Immune Response to Infection

A century after the discovery of Trypanosoma cruzi in a child living in Lassance, Minas Gerais, Brazil in 1909, many uncertainties remain with respect to factors determining the pathogenesis of Chagas disease (CD). Herein, we simultaneously investigate the contribution of both host and parasite factors during acute phase of infection in BALB/c mice infected with the JG and/or CL Brener T. cruzi strains. JG single infected mice presented reduced parasitemia and heart parasitism, no mortality, levels of pro-inflammatory mediators (TNF-α, CCL2, IL-6 and IFN-γ) similar to those found among naïve animals and no clinical manifestations of disease. On the other hand, CL Brener single infected mice presented higher parasitemia and heart parasitism, as well as an increased systemic release of pro-inflammatory mediators and higher mortality probably due to a toxic shock-like systemic inflammatory response. Interestingly, coinfection with JG and CL Brener strains resulted in intermediate parasitemia, heart parasitism and mortality. This was accompanied by an increase in the systemic release of IL-10 with a parallel increase in the number of MAC-3+ and CD4+ T spleen cells expressing IL-10. Therefore, the endogenous production of IL-10 elicited by coinfection seems to be crucial to counterregulate the potentially lethal effects triggered by systemic release of pro-inflammatory mediators induced by CL Brener single infection. In conclusion, our results suggest that the composition of the infecting parasite population plays a role in the host response to T. cruzi in determining the severity of the disease in experimentally infected BALB/c mice. The combination of JG and CL Brener was able to trigger both protective inflammatory immunity and regulatory immune mechanisms that attenuate damage caused by inflammation and disease severity in BALB/c mice

Trypanosoma Cruzi : Ancestral Genomes and Population Structure

Although the genome of Trypanosoma cruzi has been completely sequenced, little is known about its population structure and evolution. Since 1999, two major evolutionary lineages presenting distinct epidemiological characteristics have been recognised: T. cruzi I and T. cruzi II. We describe new and important aspects of the population structure of the parasite, and unequivocally characterise a third ancestral lineage that we propose to name T. cruzi III. Through a careful analysis of haplotypes (blocks of genes that are stably transmitted from generation to generation of the parasite), we inferred at least two hybridisation events between the parental lineages T. cruzi II and T. cruzi III. The strain CL Brener, whose genome was sequenced, is one such hybrid. �-Based on these results, we propose a simple evolutionary model based on three ancestral genomes, T. cruzi I, T. cruzi II and T. cruzi III. At least two hybridisation events produced evolutionarily viable progeny, and T. cruzi III was the cytoplasmic donor for the resulting offspring (as identified by the mitochondrial clade of the hybrid strains) in both events. This model should be useful to inform evolutionary and pathogenetic hypotheses regarding T. cruzi

The Spliced Leader Trans-Splicing Mechanism in Different Organisms: Molecular Details and Possible Biological Roles

The spliced leader (SL) is a gene that generates a functional ncRNA that is composed of two regions: an intronic region of unknown function (SLi) and an exonic region (SLe), which is transferred to the 5’ end of independent transcripts yielding mature mRNAs, in a process known as spliced leader trans-splicing (SLTS). The best described function for SLTS is to solve polycistronic transcripts into monocistronic units, specifically in Trypanosomatids. In other metazoans, it is speculated that the SLe addition could lead to increased mRNA stability, differential recruitment of the translational machinery, modification of the 5' region or a combination of these effects. Although important aspects of this mechanism have been revealed, several features remain to be elucidated. We have analyzed 157 SLe sequences from 148 species from 7 phyla and found a high degree of conservation among the sequences of species from the same phylum, although no considerable similarity seems to exist between sequences of species from different phyla. When analyzing case studies, we found evidence that a given SLe will always be related to a given set of transcripts in different species from the same phylum, and therefore, different SLe sequences from the same species would regulate different sets of transcripts. In addition, we have observed distinct transcript categories to be preferential targets for the SLe addition in different phyla. This work sheds light into crucial and controversial aspects of the SLTS mechanism. It represents a comprehensive study concerning various species and different characteristics of this important post-transcriptional regulatory mechanism

Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA as a Valuable Tool for Epidemiological Studies of Paracoccidioides brasiliensis

Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) has been successfully used to detect genetic variations among isolates of Paracoccidioides brasiliensis. However, the usefulness of this technique for assessing important parasitic properties is still unconfirmed. In the present work we further investigated the applicability of RAPD in revealing important intrinsic and extrinsic features of this fungus associated with geographical origin, time of isolation, source of clinical specimen, clinical forms of human disease and also in vitro and in vivo susceptibility to antimicrobial and antifungal drugs. The RAPD patterns allowed us to distinguish all of the analyzed strains, which included 26 clinical isolates, 2 animal isolates, and 1 environmental isolate of P. brasiliensis obtained from different geographic regions, confirming the strong discriminating power of this technique. A phenetic tree, build from the RAPD data, showed that although the two nonclinical Brazilian strains were set together the majority of the clinical Brazilian strains were randomly distributed through different sub-branches of a major cluster without any correlation to any of the parameters analyzed. A second major cluster, however, has grouped isolates from Mato Grosso and Roraima (Brazil) that not only were susceptible in vitro to trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole but also produced a good in vivo response. These results open new vistas for epidemiological and clinical studies of P. brasiliensis

PCR assay for monitoring Trypanosoma cruzi parasitemia in childhood after specific chemotherapy

Submitted by Julio Heber Camargo Silva ([email protected]) on 2018-04-20T14:59:42Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Artigo - Lúcia Maria da Cunha Galvão - 2003.pdf: 159177 bytes, checksum: adbc2ff62ef4a48c9e3dc55f1a3f0a5d (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5)Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira ([email protected]) on 2018-04-24T13:11:45Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Artigo - Lúcia Maria da Cunha Galvão - 2003.pdf: 159177 bytes, checksum: adbc2ff62ef4a48c9e3dc55f1a3f0a5d (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5)Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-24T13:11:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Artigo - Lúcia Maria da Cunha Galvão - 2003.pdf: 159177 bytes, checksum: adbc2ff62ef4a48c9e3dc55f1a3f0a5d (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2003-11Assessment of cure of Trypanosoma cruzi infection by antibody seroconversion usually involves several years of follow-up. Parasitological negativity is useless for cure assessment, since even untreated patients mostly show negative results; conversely, positive tests are of great value because they indicate treatment failure. Here, PCR was used to assess the rate of specific chemotherapy failure in a well-characterized Brazilian cohort of T. cruzi-seropositive children, who were enrolled in a field trial of benznidazole (Bz) efficacy. Paired blood samples from 111 children were taken at baseline and 36 months after treatment with either Bz (n 58) or a placebo (n 53). DNA extraction and PCR amplification were carried out as previously described, and hybridization was performed with all PCR products. At the end of follow-up, PCR was positive for 39.6% of the patients in the Bz group versus 64.2% in the placebo group (P 0.01). Untreated patients had a 1.6-fold-higher chance of remaining positive by PCR than those in the Bz group (P < 0.05). We conclude that PCR is a useful tool for revealing therapeutic failure of T. cruzi infection on a short-term basis