Endometriose

Endometriosis is characterized by the dissemination of glands and endometrial stroma to ectopic sites in the uterine cavity and musculature. It is a contrasting disease that presents no association between clinical status and quantity of lesions. Some of the patients present asymptomatic, whereas others present diverse manifestation of clinical status characterized by pelvic pain, infertility, dysmenorrhea, and dyspareunia. The etiopathogeny of endometriosis is uncertain, and the most widely known hypotheses are related to celomic metaplasia, to transplantation, and to induction. The diagnosis of endometriosis is usually carried out through laparoscopy, in which case the identification of typical lesions confirms the diagnosis. Treatment for endometriosis includes induction of a pseudopregnancy state. There are many drugs that can be used to induce pregnancy, such as progestational hormones, derived forms of androgen, birth-control medication, and analogous forms of the gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). Endometriosis can also be surgically treated with a conservative procedure of cauterization and/or resection of the lesions. Cases of endometriosis that are more resistant or that occur in patients who are not worried about their fertility can be managed with more aggressive surgical procedures such as hysterectomy, for example. Infertility is treated with techniques of assisted reproduction in cases associated with anatomical factors. In all forms of treatment there is a relatively high incidence of recurrence and failure, in which case different therapeutic options should be employed.Endometriose é caracterizada pela presença de glândulas e estroma endometrial fora da cavidade e musculatura uterinas. É uma doença de contrastes, onde não há associação entre a intensidade do quadro clínico e a quantidade das lesões. Uma parcela das pacientes são assintomáticas, com a outra porção variando na apresentação do quadro clínico que é caracterizado por dor pélvica, infertilidade, dismenorréia e dispareunia. Não existe até o momento uma etiopatogenia definida para a endometriose e as teorias mais conhecidas envolvem a metaplasia celômica, os implantes ectópicos e a indução de células multipotenciais. O diagnóstico da endometriose normalmente é realizado através da laparoscopia, onde a identificação de lesões características firma o diagnóstico. O tratamento pressupõe um estado de pseudogestação. Há diversas medicações que produzem esse efeito como os progestágenos, os derivados androgênicos, os anticoncepcionais e os análogos do hormônio liberador de gonadotrofinas (GnRH). Outra forma de tratamento é o cirúrgico conservador onde há cauterização e/ou ressecção das lesões. Os casos mais resistentes ou onde não existe mais preocupação com fertilidade podem ser manejados com tratamentos cirúrgicos mais agressivos como a histerectomia. A infertilidade é tratada com técnicas de reprodução assistida quando há fator anatômico associado. Em todas as formas de tratamento há um índice relativamente alto de recorrências e falhas a determinados tipos de tratamento, que devem ser manejados com outras opções terapêuticas.

Infertilidade masculina

Between 10 to 15% of couples can be unsuccessful at trying to have children after one year of unprotected sexual intercourse. About 50% of cases of infertility are related to male infertility. The cause of male infertility, in turn, is frequently associated with sperm alterations. Traditionally, male infertility has been considered as a condition that is difficult to be treated. New studies in the field of Genetics have presented findings of deletion or mutation in groups of genes that could have a causal relation to infertility in male patients. Most advancements in the treatment of male infertility are in the area of assisted reproduction, which, in turn, has developed following the progress in technologies of gamete micromanipulation. Our study is aimed at assessing causes of, and treatment for male infertility. Entre 10 a 15% dos casais falham em ter filhos após um ano de intercursos sexuais não protegidos. Cerca de 50% das causas de infertilidade são de origem masculina. Como causa simples de infertilidade, alterações espermáticas são a condição mais freqüente. A infertilidade de causa masculina foi tradicionalmente considerada como uma condição de difícil tratamento. Novos estudos na área da genética têm encontrado deleções ou mutações em grupos de genes que poderiam explicar a infertilidade nesses pacientes. A maior parte dos avanços no tratamento destes casos reside nas técnicas de reprodução assistida, que tiveram seu maior avanço após o desenvolvimento da tecnologia da micromanipulação de gametas. O presente trabalho faz uma análise de causas e de tratamentos para dar solução à infertilidade masculina.

HEPATITE C EM CASAIS INFÉRTEIS DO SETOR DE REPRODUÇÃO HUMANA DO HOSPITAL DE CLÍNICAS DE PORTO ALEGRE

Objective: Hepatitis C virus transmission in assisted reproduction may pose a risk for the baby, technicians, and gametes or embryos from non-contaminated parents. This study aimed at determining the prevalence and risk factors for hepatitis C virus infection in a group of infertile couples.Methods: Four hundred and nine patients attending the infertility clinic at Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Brazil, between 1997 and 1998, were screened for anti-HCV (ELISA) and HBsAg (ELFA). Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and semen viremia was also investigated using HCV RNA detection Results: All subjects were negative for HBV and HIV. The overall prevalence of anti-HCV was 3.2% (8/ 248) among women and 3.7% (6/161) among men. From the 14 HCV-positive patients, two were lost, and serum was collected from the remaining 12 patients for assessment of HCV RNA, resulting in five HCVpositive cases (one woman and four men). Only one of these positive cases had viremia levels > 500,000 RNA copies/ml. There was a significant risk association for being HCV-positive in women with HCV-positive male partners (P < 0.001). In male patients, the correlation between use of intravenous drugs and HCVpositivity was also significant (P < 0.001).Conclusions: Infertile patients should be screened before assisted reproductive technology (ART) procedures, since the risk for vertical and laboratory HCV infection is not well determined, and HCV prevalence is not negligible in this group.Objetivo: A possibilidade transmissão do vírus da hepatite C através dos gametas pode acarretar riscos para o pessoal técnico, bem como para os envolvidos no processo e para o próprio feto. Este estudo teve como objetivo determinar a prevalência e os fatores de risco da infecção pelo vírus da hepatite C em um grupo de casais inférteis.Métodos: Em 409 pacientes atendidas no ambulatório de infertilidade do Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre (HCPA), entre 1997 e 1998, realizou-se triagem sorológica para antiHCV (ELISA) e HBsAg (ELFA). A infecção pelo vírus da hepatite C (HCV) e a viremia seminal também foram investigadas com detecção de HCV-RNA.Resultados: A prevalência geral de anti-HCV foi de 3,2% (8/248) entre as mulheres e 3,7% (6/161) entre os homens. Todos os indivíduos eram negativos para o vírus da hepatite B (HBV) e HIV. Das 14 pacientes HCV-positivas, duas foram perdidas, e foi coletado soro das 12 pacientes remanescentes para detecção de HCV-RNA, resultando em cinco casos HCVpositivos (uma mulher e quatro homens). Apenas um dos casos positivos tinha nível de viremia > 500.000 cópias de RNA/ml. Houve uma associação de risco significativa da positividade para HCV nas mulheres com parceiros HCV-positivos (P < 0,001). Em pacientes masculinos, a correlação entre uso de drogas endovenosas e positividade para HCV também foi significativa (P < 0,001).Conclusões: Pacientes inférteis deveriam ser triados para HCV antes dos procedimentos de tecnologia de reprodução assistida (TRA), uma vez que o risco de infecção vertical e laboratorial pelo HCV não está bem determinado e a prevalência do HCV não é desprezível neste grupo

Inactivation Kinetics and Lethal Dose Analysis of Antimicrobial Blue Light and Photodynamic Therapy.

BACKGROUND: Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been long used to treat localized tumors and infections. Currently, microbial inactivation data is reported presenting survival fraction averages and standard errors as discrete points instead of a continuous curve of inactivation kinetics. Standardization of this approach would allow clinical protocols to be introduced globally, instead of the piecemeal situation which currently applies. METHODS: To this end, we used a power-law function to fit inactivation kinetics and directly report values of lethal doses (LD) and a tolerance factor (T) that informs if inactivation rate varies along the irradiation procedure. A deduced formula was also tested to predict LD for any given survival fraction value. We analyzed the photoantimicrobial effect caused by red light activation of methylene blue (MB-APDT) and by blue light (BL) activation of endogenous microbial pigments against 5 clinically relevant pathogens. RESULTS: Following MB- APDT, Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus cells become increasingly more tolerant to inactivation along the irradiation process (T  1). P. aeruginosa and Candida albicans present constant inactivation rate (T˜1). In contrast, all bacterial species presented similar behavior during inactivation caused by BL, i.e., continuously becoming more sensitive to blue light exposure (T > 1). CONCLUSION: The power-law function successfully fit all experimental data. Our proposed method precisely predicted LD and T values. We expect that these analytical models may contribute to more standardized methods for comparisons of photodynamic inactivation efficiencies

Estimating genomic instability mediated by Alu retroelements in breast cancer

Alu-PCR is a relatively simple technique that can be used to investigate genomic instability in cancer. This technique allows identification of the loss, gain or amplification of gene sequences based on the analysis of segments between two Alu elements coupled with quantitative and qualitative analyses of the profiles obtained from tumor samples, surgical margins and blood. In this work, we used Alu-PCR to identify gene alterations in ten patients with invasive ductal breast cancer. Several deletions and insertions were identified, indicating genomic instability in the tumor and adjacent normal tissue. Although not associated with specific genes, the alterations, which involved chromosomal bands 1p36.23, 1q41, 11q14.3, 13q14.2, occurred in areas of well-known genomic instability in breast and other types of cancer. These results indicate the potential usefulness of Alu-PCR in identifying altered gene sequences in breast cancer. However, caution is required in its application since the Alu primer can produce non-specific amplification

Photodynamic and Antibiotic Therapy Impair the Pathogenesis of Enterococcus faecium in a Whole Animal Insect Model

Enterococcus faecium has emerged as one of the most important pathogens in healthcare-associated infections worldwide due to its intrinsic and acquired resistance to many antibiotics, including vancomycin. Antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (aPDT) is an alternative therapeutic platform that is currently under investigation for the control and treatment of infections. PDT is based on the use of photoactive dye molecules, widely known as photosensitizer (PS). PS, upon irradiation with visible light, produces reactive oxygen species that can destroy lipids and proteins causing cell death. We employed Galleria mellonella (the greater wax moth) caterpillar fatally infected with E. faecium to develop an invertebrate host model system that can be used to study the antimicrobial PDT (alone or combined with antibiotics). In the establishment of infection by E. faecium in G. mellonella, we found that the G. mellonella death rate was dependent on the number of bacterial cells injected into the insect hemocoel and all E. faecium strains tested were capable of infecting and killing G. mellonella. Antibiotic treatment with ampicillin, gentamicin or the combination of ampicillin and gentamicin prolonged caterpillar survival infected by E. faecium (P = 0.0003, P = 0.0001 and P = 0.0001, respectively). In the study of antimicrobial PDT, we verified that methylene blue (MB) injected into the insect followed by whole body illumination prolonged the caterpillar survival (P = 0.0192). Interestingly, combination therapy of larvae infected with vancomycin-resistant E. faecium, with antimicrobial PDT followed by vancomycin, significantly prolonged the survival of the caterpillars when compared to either antimicrobial PDT (P = 0.0095) or vancomycin treatment alone (P = 0.0025), suggesting that the aPDT made the vancomycin resistant E. faecium strain more susceptible to vancomycin action. In summary, G. mellonella provides an invertebrate model host to study the antimicrobial PDT and to explore combinatorial aPDT-based treatments

SARS-CoV-2 introductions and early dynamics of the epidemic in Portugal

Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal was rapidly implemented by the National Institute of Health in the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, in collaboration with more than 50 laboratories distributed nationwide. Methods By applying recent phylodynamic models that allow integration of individual-based travel history, we reconstructed and characterized the spatio-temporal dynamics of SARSCoV-2 introductions and early dissemination in Portugal. Results We detected at least 277 independent SARS-CoV-2 introductions, mostly from European countries (namely the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, and Switzerland), which were consistent with the countries with the highest connectivity with Portugal. Although most introductions were estimated to have occurred during early March 2020, it is likely that SARS-CoV-2 was silently circulating in Portugal throughout February, before the first cases were confirmed. Conclusions Here we conclude that the earlier implementation of measures could have minimized the number of introductions and subsequent virus expansion in Portugal. This study lays the foundation for genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal, and highlights the need for systematic and geographically-representative genomic surveillance.We gratefully acknowledge to Sara Hill and Nuno Faria (University of Oxford) and Joshua Quick and Nick Loman (University of Birmingham) for kindly providing us with the initial sets of Artic Network primers for NGS; Rafael Mamede (MRamirez team, IMM, Lisbon) for developing and sharing a bioinformatics script for sequence curation (https://github.com/rfm-targa/BioinfUtils); Philippe Lemey (KU Leuven) for providing guidance on the implementation of the phylodynamic models; Joshua L. Cherry (National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health) for providing guidance with the subsampling strategies; and all authors, originating and submitting laboratories who have contributed genome data on GISAID (https://www.gisaid.org/) on which part of this research is based. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the view of the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government. This study is co-funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Agência de Investigação Clínica e Inovação Biomédica (234_596874175) on behalf of the Research 4 COVID-19 call. Some infrastructural resources used in this study come from the GenomePT project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022184), supported by COMPETE 2020 - Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI), Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), Algarve Portugal Regional Operational Programme (CRESC Algarve2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

MAMMALS IN PORTUGAL : A data set of terrestrial, volant, and marine mammal occurrences in P ortugal

Mammals are threatened worldwide, with 26% of all species being includedin the IUCN threatened categories. This overall pattern is primarily associatedwith habitat loss or degradation, and human persecution for terrestrial mam-mals, and pollution, open net fishing, climate change, and prey depletion formarine mammals. Mammals play a key role in maintaining ecosystems func-tionality and resilience, and therefore information on their distribution is cru-cial to delineate and support conservation actions. MAMMALS INPORTUGAL is a publicly available data set compiling unpublishedgeoreferenced occurrence records of 92 terrestrial, volant, and marine mam-mals in mainland Portugal and archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira thatincludes 105,026 data entries between 1873 and 2021 (72% of the data occur-ring in 2000 and 2021). The methods used to collect the data were: live obser-vations/captures (43%), sign surveys (35%), camera trapping (16%),bioacoustics surveys (4%) and radiotracking, and inquiries that represent lessthan 1% of the records. The data set includes 13 types of records: (1) burrowsjsoil moundsjtunnel, (2) capture, (3) colony, (4) dead animaljhairjskullsjjaws, (5) genetic confirmation, (6) inquiries, (7) observation of live animal (8),observation in shelters, (9) photo trappingjvideo, (10) predators dietjpelletsjpine cones/nuts, (11) scatjtrackjditch, (12) telemetry and (13) vocalizationjecholocation. The spatial uncertainty of most records ranges between 0 and100 m (76%). Rodentia (n=31,573) has the highest number of records followedby Chiroptera (n=18,857), Carnivora (n=18,594), Lagomorpha (n=17,496),Cetartiodactyla (n=11,568) and Eulipotyphla (n=7008). The data setincludes records of species classified by the IUCN as threatened(e.g.,Oryctolagus cuniculus[n=12,159],Monachus monachus[n=1,512],andLynx pardinus[n=197]). We believe that this data set may stimulate thepublication of other European countries data sets that would certainly contrib-ute to ecology and conservation-related research, and therefore assisting onthe development of more accurate and tailored conservation managementstrategies for each species. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite thisdata paper when the data are used in publications.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Light-based technologies for management of COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

The global dissemination of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has accelerated the need for the implementation of effective antimicrobial strategies to target the causative agent SARS-CoV-2. Light-based technologies have a demonstrable broad range of activity over standard chemotherapeutic antimicrobials and conventional disinfectants, negligible emergence of resistance, and the capability to modulate the host immune response. This perspective article identifies the benefits, challenges, and pitfalls of repurposing light-based strategies to combat the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic

Mammals in Portugal: a data set of terrestrial, volant, and marine mammal occurrences in Portugal

Mammals are threatened worldwide, with ~26% of all species being included in the IUCN threatened categories. This overall pattern is primarily associated with habitat loss or degradation, and human persecution for terrestrial mammals, and pollution, open net fishing, climate change, and prey depletion for marine mammals. Mammals play a key role in maintaining ecosystems functionality and resilience, and therefore information on their distribution is crucial to delineate and support conservation actions. MAMMALS IN PORTUGAL is a publicly available data set compiling unpublished georeferenced occurrence records of 92 terrestrial, volant, and marine mammals in mainland Portugal and archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira that includes 105,026 data entries between 1873 and 2021 (72% of the data occurring in 2000 and 2021). The methods used to collect the data were: live observations/captures (43%), sign surveys (35%), camera trapping (16%), bioacoustics surveys (4%) and radiotracking, and inquiries that represent less than 1% of the records. The data set includes 13 types of records: (1) burrows | soil mounds | tunnel, (2) capture, (3) colony, (4) dead animal | hair | skulls | jaws, (5) genetic confirmation, (6) inquiries, (7) observation of live animal (8), observation in shelters, (9) photo trapping | video, (10) predators diet | pellets | pine cones/nuts, (11) scat | track | ditch, (12) telemetry and (13) vocalization | echolocation. The spatial uncertainty of most records ranges between 0 and 100 m (76%). Rodentia (n =31,573) has the highest number of records followed by Chiroptera (n = 18,857), Carnivora (n = 18,594), Lagomorpha (n = 17,496), Cetartiodactyla (n = 11,568) and Eulipotyphla (n = 7008). The data set includes records of species classified by the IUCN as threatened (e.g., Oryctolagus cuniculus [n = 12,159], Monachus monachus [n = 1,512], and Lynx pardinus [n = 197]). We believe that this data set may stimulate the publication of other European countries data sets that would certainly contribute to ecology and conservation-related research, and therefore assisting on the development of more accurate and tailored conservation management strategies for each species. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite this data paper when the data are used in publications