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. 

Characterization of the Free and Membrane-Associated Fractions of the Thylakoid Lumen Proteome in Arabidopsis thaliana

The thylakoid lumen houses proteins that are vital for photosynthetic electron transport, including water-splitting at photosystem (PS) II and shuttling of electrons from cytochrome b6f to PSI. Other lumen proteins maintain photosynthetic activity through biogenesis and turnover of PSII complexes. Although all lumen proteins are soluble, these known details have highlighted interactions of some lumen proteins with thylakoid membranes or thylakoid-intrinsic proteins. Meanwhile, the functional details of most lumen proteins, as well as their distribution between the soluble and membrane-associated lumen fractions, remain unknown. The current study isolated the soluble free lumen (FL) and membrane-associated lumen (MAL) fractions from Arabidopsis thaliana, and used gel- and mass spectrometry-based proteomics methods to analyze the contents of each proteome. These results identified 60 lumenal proteins, and clearly distinguished the difference between the FL and MAL proteomes. The most abundant proteins in the FL fraction were involved in PSII assembly and repair, while the MAL proteome was enriched in proteins that support the oxygen-evolving complex (OEC). Novel proteins, including a new PsbP domain-containing isoform, as well as several novel post-translational modifications and N-termini, are reported, and bi-dimensional separation of the lumen proteome identified several protein oligomers in the thylakoid lumen

The unique photosynthetic apparatus of Pinaceae : analysis of photosynthetic complexes in Picea abies

Pinaceae are the predominant photosynthetic species in boreal forests, but so far no detailed description of the protein components of the photosynthetic apparatus of these gymnosperms has been available. In this study we report a detailed characterization of the thylakoid photosynthetic machinery of Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst). We first customized a spruce thylakoid protein database from translated transcript sequences combined with existing protein sequences derived from gene models, which enabled reliable tandem mass spectrometry identification of P. abies thylakoid proteins from two-dimensional large pore blue-native/SDS-PAGE. This allowed a direct comparison of the two-dimensional protein map of thylakoid protein complexes from P. abies with the model angiosperm Arabidopsis thaliana. Although the subunit composition of P. abies core PSI and PSII complexes is largely similar to that of Arabidopsis, there was a high abundance of a smaller PSI subcomplex, closely resembling the assembly intermediate PSI* complex. In addition, the evolutionary distribution of light-harvesting complex (LHC) family members of Pinaceae was compared in silico with other land plants, revealing that P. abies and other Pinaceae (also Gnetaceae and Welwitschiaceae) have lost LHCB4, but retained LHCB8 (formerly called LHCB4.3). The findings reported here show the composition of the photosynthetic apparatus of P. abies and other Pinaceae members to be unique among land plants

Low-level laser and adipose-derived stem cells altered remodelling genes expression and improved collagen reorganization during tendon repair

The cellular therapy using adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ASCs) aims to improve tendon healing, considering that repaired tendons often result in a less resistant tissue. Our objective was to evaluate the effects of the ASCs combination with a low-level laser (LLL), an effective photobiostimulation for the healing processes. Rats calcaneal tendons were divided into five groups: normal (NT), transected (T), transected and ASCs (SC) or LLL (L), or with ASCs and LLL (SCL). All treated groups presented higher expression of Dcn and greater organization of collagen fibres. In comparison with T, LLL also up-regulated Gdf5 gene expression, ASCs up-regulated the expression of Tnmd, and the association of LLL and ASCs down-regulated the expression of Scx. No differences were observed for the expression of Il1b, Timp2, Tgfb1, Lox, Mmp2, Mmp8 and Mmp9, neither in the quantification of hydroxyproline, TNF-alpha, PCNA and in the protein level of Tnmd. A higher amount of IL-10 was detected in SC, L and SCL compared to T, and higher amount of collagen I and III was observed in SC compared to SCL. Transplanted ASCs migrated to the transected region, and all treatments altered the remodelling genes expression. The LLL was the most effective in the collagen reorganization, followed by its combination with ASCs. Further investigations are needed to elucidate the molecular mechanisms involved in the LLL and ASCs combination during initial phases of tendon repair523COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DE PESSOAL DE NÍVEL SUPERIOR - CAPESFUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO - FAPESPnão temnão temThe authors thank CAPES and Hermínio Ometto University Center‐ UNIARARAS, for the financial support, Guilherme F. Caetano for his assistance with the ASCs differentiation protocol, and Maria Esméria C. do Amaral and Daniella N. R. Neodini for their technical assistance during Western blotting analys