Phytotherapics in tissue healing and its interface with professionals of health in Brazil / Fitoterápicos na cicatrização de tecidos e sua interface com profissionais de saúde no Brasil

The World Health Organization and many other national health conferences have stimulated the use of phytotherapeutics and medicinal plants in primary health care in Brazil. Phytotherapeutics and the use of medicinal plants are part of the folk medicine practice, which complements the treatment that is usually employed by lower income population. There is a growing interest in researches about improving the knowledge of plants’ medicinal properties used in tissue healing. This process occurs as a biological response after injury, where uncountable signaling pathways are stimulated to restore the homeostasis of the affected structure. It is observed that Brazil has been developing important researches to improve the knowledge of plants’ medicinal properties favoring a greater prescription by the health professionals and also a better use by the population. Phototherapeutics act in tissue repair in different ways, and the present review describes the use of these in healing in experimental researches and its interface with professionals of health. In this research, we checked scientific articles (Medline, Scielo, Lilacs, Coordination of Superior Level Staff Improvement (CAPES), PubMed and Google Scholar) published between years 2000 and 2018. Companies, researchers, professionals of health and the general population have shown an interest in phytotherapeutics compounds as alternatives for the treatment of various conditions and the healing of injuries. This is due to the lower side effects, easy access and low cost of herbal medicines compared to allopathic medicines and the rich biodiversity from the Brazilian flora. However, it is necessary for the health professionals training and motivation, aiming at a correct and safe prescription and the use of herbal medicines in tissue healing, as well as the insertion of this practice into their professional qualification.

Aterosclerose e lesões do endotélio vascular e as perspectivas clínicas na utilização das células progenitoras endoteliais no seu reparo / Atherosclerosis and vascular endothelium lesions and the clinical perspectives in the use of endothelial progenitor cells in their repair

O endotélio vascular desempenha um papel central na preservação funcional e estrutural da parede vascular. Além da permeabilidade vascular, a célula endotelial influencia o tônus vascular, hemóstase, proliferação celular, respostas imunológicas e inflamatórias e a expressão fenotípica das células musculares lisas da túnica média. Íntima e fisiopatologicamente relacionado com a hipertensão arterial, dislipoproteinemias e aterosclerose, o órgão endotelial é hoje enfrentado como origem e alvo de diferentes tratamentos que visam melhorar o prognóstico da doença aterosclerótica. Este trabalho objetivou estabelecer a aterosclerose, patologia que causa lesões no endotélio vascular e as perspectivas clínicas na utilização das células progenitoras endoteliais (CPEs) no seu reparo. Na pesquisa, foram verificados artigos científicos nas bases de dados Medline, Scielo, Lilacs, CAPES, PubMed, dentre outras publicados entre os anos de 1996 e 2020. Estratégias terapêuticas são promissoras com o uso das CPEs na diferenciação e regeneração do endotélio, sendo uma fonte promissora na revascularização de tecidos isquêmicos e muito embora a prevenção e o tratamento já estabelecidos permaneça crucial para a abordagem das cardiopatias, as perspectivas da terapia com CPEs são instigantes. 

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost