Extracellular vesicles:Emerging modulators of cancer drug resistance

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have recently emerged as crucial modulators of cancer drug resistance. Indeed, it has been shown that they can directly sequester anti-tumor drugs, decreasing their effective concentration at target sites. Moreover, they facilitate the horizontal transfer of specific bioactive cargoes able to regulate proliferative, apoptotic, and stemness programs in recipient cells, potentially conferring a resistant phenotype to drug-sensitive cancer cells. Finally, EVs can mediate the communication between the tumor and both stromal and immune cells within the microenvironment, promoting treatment escape. In this context, clarifying the EV-driven resistance mechanisms might improve not only tumor diagnosis and prognosis but also therapeutic outcomes. Detailed cellular and molecular events occurring during the development of EV-mediated cancer drug resistance are described in this review article

TRAIT (TRAnscript Integrated Table): a knowledgebase of human skeletal muscle transcripts.

Abstract Summary: TRAIT is a knowledgebase integrating information on transcripts with related data from genome, proteins, ortholog genes and diseases. It was initially built as a system to manage an EST-based gene discovery project on human skeletal muscle, which yielded over 4500 independent sequence clusters. Transcripts are annotated using automatic as well as manual procedures, linking known transcripts to public databases and unknown transcripts to tables of predicted features. Data are stored in a MySQL database. Complex queries are automatically built by means of a user-friendly web interface that allows the concurrent selection of many fields such as ontology, expression level, map position and protein domains. The results are parsed by the system and returned in a ranked order, in respect to the number of satisfied criteria. Availability: http://muscle.cribi.unipd.it and http://muscle.cribi.unipd.it/features/querystrait.html Contact: [email protected]; [email protected] * To whom correspondence should be addressed

PROVE DI COLTIVAZIONE BIOLOGICA DELLA PATATA IN AREALI MONTANI

Il mantenimento delle attività agricole nelle aree montane è indispensabile per tutelare la stabilità del paesaggio e dell’assetto idrogeologico, ed è possibile realizzarlo attraverso il rilancio della coltivazione della patata. Il sito di coltivazione montano e le varietà autoctone sono in grado di indurre un significativo miglioramento delle caratteristiche qualitative ed organolettiche del prodotto. Questo può essere ulteriormente valorizzato da elementi quali la tipicità e la coltivazione biologica

Characterization of Pupillary Light Response Features for the Classification of Patients with Optic Neuritis

Pupillometry is a promising technique for the potential diagnosis of several neurological pathologies. However, its potential is not fully explored yet, especially for prediction purposes and results interpretation. In this work, we analyzed 100 pupillometric curves obtained by 12 subjects, applying both advanced signal processing techniques and physics methods to extract typically collected features and newly proposed ones. We used machine learning techniques for the classification of Optic Neuritis (ON) vs. Healthy subjects, controlling for overfitting and ranking the features by random permutation, following their importance in prediction. All the extracted features, except one, turned out to have significant importance for prediction, with an average accuracy of 76%, showing the complexity of the processes involved in the pupillary light response. Furthermore, we provided a possible neurological interpretation of this new set of pupillometry features in relation to ON vs. Healthy classification

The ‘Hidden Foods’ project: new research into the role of plant foods in Palaeolithic and Mesolithic societies of South-east Europe and Italy

The ‘Hidden Foods’ project is a new research programme aimed at reconstructing the importance of plant foods in prehistoric forager subsistence in Southern Europe, with a particular focus on Italy and the Balkans. The role of plant foods in pre-agrarian societies remains one of the major issues of world prehistory. Popular narratives still envisage ancient foragers as primarily ‘meat-eaters’, mainly as a consequence of the poor preservation of plant remains in early prehistoric contexts, and due to the employment of methods particularly focused on the contribution of animal protein to human diet (e.g. isotope analysis) (e.g. Bocherens 2009; Jones 2009; Richards 2009). Recently, new methods applied to archaeological evidence have provided a different understanding of hunter-gatherer dietary preference and interaction with the environment. Harvesting and processing might not have been the sole prerogative of agricultural societies, and plant foods seem to have played an important role amongst hunter-gatherers (e.g. Revedin et al. 2010

Plasma-mediated radiofrequency ablation followed by percutaneous cementoplasty under fluoro-CT guidance: a case report

We report a case of a 81-year-old Caucasian man with colorectal carcinoma, treated by surgery in 1998, referred for palliative treatment of a refractory painful caused by osteolytic metastases of 2.5 cm in back-upper ilium spine. Plasma-mediated radiofrequency ablation was performed under conscious sedation, using Fluoroscopic Computer Tomography guidance. After completing the ablation phase of the procedure, a mixture of bone cement and Biotrace sterile barium sulfate was injected into the ablated cavity

NEW EARLY HOLOCENE SETTLEMENT IN CENTRAL ITALY: THE MESOLITHIC SITE OF CONTRADA PACE (MARCHE REGION)

Early Holocene hunter-gatherer settlements are spread throughout Italy and testify to the exploitation of very different landscapes. Nonetheless, their preservation state is not always exceptional. This is not the case for Contrada Pace, an archaeological site recently discovered on a terrace of the Chienti river in central-eastern Italy. This paper reports on the geomorphological, pedo-stratigraphic, and archaeological record of one of the most complete and well-preserved Early Mesolithic open-air sites in Italy and southern Europe. Micro-stratigraphic excavations extended over more than 500 square meters have exposed a buried paleosol with anthropogenic features, which contained thousand lithic artefacts and organic remains framed in the context of a primary forest. These findings appear clustered in different functional areas that yielded multiple structured features. The field evidence integrated by radiocarbon dating and archaeobotanical, archaeomalacological and zooarchaeological data allowed to propose a first interpretation of the general structure of the site and the most significant featuresThe archaeological excavation of the site was carried out by ArcheoLAB (Macerata, Italy) in the framework of construction activities promoted by the Province of Macerata and the Municipality of Tolentino. DV has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement number: 886476 - LiMPH - H2020-MSCA-IF-2019). The archaeobotanical study and 14C dates were funded by the European Research Council (ERC) as part of the Research and Innovation program of the European Community Horizon 2020 (HIDDEN FOODS no.639286 to EC)

Automatic cough detection for bovine respiratory disease in a calf house

peer-reviewedIn calf rearing, bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is a major animal health challenge. Farmers incur severe economic losses due to BRD. Additional to economic costs, outbreaks of BRD impair the welfare of the animal and extra expertise and labour are needed to treat and care for the infected animals. Coughing is recognised as a clinical manifestation of BRD. Therefore, the monitoring of coughing in a calf house has the potential to detect cases of respiratory infection before they become too severe, and thus to limit the impact of BRD on both the farmer and the animal. The objective of this study was to develop an algorithm for detection of coughing sounds in a calf house. Sounds were recorded in four adjacent compartments of one calf house over two time periods (82 and 96 days). There were approximately 21 and 14 calves in each compartment over the two time-periods, respectively. The algorithm was developed using 445 min of sound data. These data contained 664 different cough references, which were labelled by a human expert. It was found that, during the first time period in all 3 of the compartments and during the second period in 2 out of 4 compartments, the algorithm worked very well (precision higher than 80%), while in the 2 other cases the algorithm worked well but the precision was less (66.6% and 53.8%). A relation between the number of calves diagnosed with BRD and the detected coughs is shown

Microwave Ablation in Intermediate Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Cirrhosis: An Italian Multicenter Prospective Study

Background and Aims: To report long-term results in treatment of intermediate hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in cirrhotics using new high-powered microwaves (MWS) ablation alone. Methods: This multicenter study included 215 cirrhotics (age range: 67-84 years; 137 males; 149 Child A, 66 Child B) who underwent percutaneous ultrasound-guided high-powered MWS ablation instead of transarterial chemoembolization. Among the patient population, 109 had a single nodule (Ø 5.3-8 cm) [group A], 70 had 2 nodules (Ø 3-6 cm) [group B] and 36 had 3-5 nodules (Ø 1.5-6.8 cm) [group C]. MWS ablation efficacy was evaluated using enhanced-computed tomography and/or magnetic resonance imaging. Primary end-point was 5-year cumulative overall survival (OS). Results: On enhanced-computed tomography and/or magnetic resonance imaging, complete ablation rates were 100% for 1.5-3.5 cm nodules. In nodules >3.5-5 cm, it was 89% for the first ablation and 100% for the second. For lesions >5-8 cm, ablation was up to 92%. Overall, 1-, 3- and 5-year survival rates were 89, 60, and 21%, respectively. The cumulative OS rate of group A was 89%, 66% and 34% at 1, 3 and 5 years. The cumulative OS rate of group B was 88%, 60% and 11% at 1, 3 and 5 years. The cumulative OS rate of group C was 86%, 55% and 0%. The 5-year survival rate was significantly different among the groups (p <0.001). One patient died from rupture of HCC. Upon multivariate analysis, preablation total bilirubin >1.5 mg/dL was an independent factor for predicting lower survival. Conclusions: Percutaneous MWS ablation of intermediate HCC is safe and effective in inducing large volume of necrosis in intermediate HCC nodules, providing long-term survival rates similar to transarterial chemoembolization. Preablation total bilirubin >1.5 mg/dL as expression of liver function reserve is the main factor predicting a worse outcome

Pleiotropic effects of sphingosine-1-phosphate signaling to control human chorionic mesenchymal stem cell physiology

Chorionic stem cells represent a promising opportunity for regenerative medicine. A deeper understanding of the stimuli that regulate their physiology, could lead to innovative clinical approaches. We revealed the presence of multiple sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) receptor isoforms in chorion-derived mesenchymal stem cells (CMSCs). Their activation simultaneously propagated from the plasma membrane through Gi and other heterotrimeric G proteins and further diverged toward extracellular-signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2), p38 and protein kinase D 1. At a functional level, S1P signaling inhibited CMSC migration, while promoting proliferation. Instead, a reduction of cell density was obtained when S1P was combined to treatments that increased cAMP intracellular concentration. Such surprising reduction of cell viability was relatively specific as it was not observed with stromal stem cells from bone marrow. Neither it was observed by activating analogous G proteins with bradykinin nor by inducing cell death via a cAMP-independent pathway. S1P could thus reveal novel keys to improve CMSC differentiation programs acting on cAMP concentration. Furthermore, S1P receptor agonists/antagonists could become instrumental in favoring CMSC engraftment by controlling cell motility