Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis after SARS-CoV-2 infection

Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) is a rare autoimmune disease of the CNS that often after viral infections and mainly affecting children. ADEM is characterized by the onset of multifocal neurologic symptoms, encephalopathy, with brain MRI showing demyelinating abnormalities in the acute phase.(1) Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a novel entity caused by the pandemic severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is characterized by influenza-like symptoms, pneumonia, and in severe cases respiratory insufficiency.(2) Many neurologic complications occurring in patients with COVID-19 have been described,(3) and it has been hypothesized that, in some cases, SARS-CoV-2 might exhibit a neurotropic behavior.(4

Tailoring Water-Based Graphite Conductive Ink Formulation for Enzyme Stencil-Printing: Experimental Design to Enhance Wearable Biosensor Performance

Herein, we report for the first time an experimental design-based approach to develop water-based graphite conductive ink containing enzymes and redox mediators to obtain fully printed wearable biosensors for lactate and glucose monitoring. The experimental design encompasses both electrochemical parameters, such as electroactive area and electron transfer rate constant, and rheological parameters, including elastic (G′) and viscous (G′′) moduli where G′′/G′ is expressed as tanδ. Notably, the printed electrodes exhibited an electroactive area AEA of 3.95 ± 0.31 cm2 and a roughness factor, ρ, of 43.8, which is 50 times higher than those of commercially available screen-printed electrodes. Furthermore, lactate oxidase and glucose oxidase are integrated within water-based graphite conductive ink to obtain enzyme-based inks: enzyme-ink (E-INK), to detect lactate, and enzyme mediator-ink (EM-INK), to detect glucose. The resulting biosensors demonstrated high sensitivity and low limit of detection 3.3 μA mM-1 and 0.3 ± 0.1 μM (ferricyanide as electron mediator), and 4.3 μA mM-1 and 3 ± 1 μM, for E-INK and EM-INK, respectively. The biosensors also exhibited excellent selectivity, maintaining their storage stability, with approximately 80-90% of the initial signal retained after 90 days. Overall, this promising system holds potential to be utilized as a flexible and wearable biosensor. Its use of biocompatible water-based inks makes it suitable for applications in sports medicine and remote clinical care

Pkc\u3b1 inhibition as a strategy to sensitize neuroblastoma stem cells to etoposide by stimulating ferroptosis

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a limited cell population inside a tumor bulk characterized by high levels of glutathione (GSH), the most important antioxidant thiol of which cysteine is the limiting amino acid for GSH biosynthesis. In fact, CSCs over-express xCT, a cystine transporter stabilized on cell membrane through interaction with CD44, a stemness marker whose expression is modulated by protein kinase C\u3b1 (PKC\u3b1). Since many chemotherapeutic drugs, such as Etoposide, exert their cytotoxic action by increasing reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, the presence of high antioxidant defenses confers to CSCs a crucial role in chemoresistance. In this study, Etoposide-sensitive and-resistant neuroblastoma CSCs were chronically treated with Etoposide, given alone or in combination with Sulfasalazine (SSZ) or with an inhibitor of PKC\u3b1 (C2-4), which target xCT directly or indirectly, respectively. Both combined approaches are able to sensitize CSCs to Etoposide by decreasing intracellular GSH levels, inducing a metabolic switch from OXPHOS to aerobic glycolysis, down-regulating glutathione-peroxidase-4 activity and stimulating lipid peroxidation, thus leading to ferroptosis. Our results suggest, for the first time, that PKC\u3b1 inhibition inducing ferroptosis might be a useful strategy with which to fight CSC chemoresistance