Design and Synthesis of Hsp90 Inhibitors with B-Raf and PDHK1 Multi-Target Activity

5noopenThe design of multi-target ligands has become an innovative approach for the identification of effective therapeutic treatments against complex diseases, such as cancer. Recent studies have demonstrated that the combined inhibition of Hsp90 and B-Raf provides synergistic effects against several types of cancers. Moreover, it has been reported that PDHK1, which presents an ATP-binding pocket similar to that of Hsp90, plays an important role in tumor initiation, maintenance and progression, participating also to the senescence process induced by B-Raf oncogenic proteins. Based on these premises, the simultaneous inhibition of these targets may provide several benefits for the treatment of cancer. In this work, we set up a design strategy including the assembly and integration of molecular fragments known to be important for binding to the Hsp90, PDHK1 and B-Raf targets, aided by molecular docking for the selection of a set of compounds potentially able to exert Hsp90-B-Raf-PDHK1 multi-target activities. The designed compounds were synthesized and experimentally validated in vitro. According to the in vitro assays, compounds 4 a, 4 d and 4 e potently inhibited Hsp90 and moderately inhibited the PDHK1 kinase. Finally, molecular dynamics simulations were performed to provide further insights into the structural basis of their multi-target activity.openPinzi L.; Foschi F.; Christodoulou M.S.; Passarella D.; Rastelli G.Pinzi, L.; Foschi, F.; Christodoulou, M. S.; Passarella, D.; Rastelli, G

Investigation of Lactation Period and Technological Treatments on Mineral Composition and IR-Profiles of Donkey Milk by Chemometrics

Featured Application: Multi-platform analysis of donkey milk. Donkey milk represents an efficient substitute for human milk in infants’ diets being unlikely to cause allergic reactions. In this study, different donkey milks were collected at two lactation times (T0 and T1), subjected to freezing–thawing and freeze-drying, and analyzed by Inductively Coupled Plasma–Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) and ATR-FT-IR. The data collected on freeze–thaw (FT-) and reconstituted (R-)milks were investigated by ANOVA–Simultaneous Component Analysis (ASCA) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The following concentrations (μg/mL) for FT and R-milks, respectively, at T0, were found: Ca: 712 ± 71, 600 ± 72; Fe: 0.7 ± 0.3, 0.1 ± 0.1; K: 595 ± 49, 551 ± 59; Mg: 75 ± 5, 67 ± 4; Na: 117 ± 16, 114 ± 16; P: 403 ± 30, 404 ± 38; Zn: 1.6 ± 0.2, 1.6 ± 0.3. At T1, the concentrations (μg/mL for FT and R-milks, respectively) were: Ca: 692 ± 60, 583 ± 43; Fe: 0.13 ± 0.02, 0.13 ± 0.03; K: 641 ± 71, 574 ± 61; Mg: 72 ± 4, 63 ± 1; Na: 116 ± 9, 109 ± 8; P: 412 ± 30, 405 ± 24; Zn: 1.6 ± 0.3, 1.6 ± 0.3. ASCA demonstrated the treatment has a substantial effect, and PCA revealed that the largest quantities of metals, specifically Fe, Mg, and Ca for T0 and K, P, and Na for T1, are present in the FT-milk samples. The IR spectra of FT- and R-milks revealed no macroscopic changes among them or between lactation periods, indicating this technique may not suitably capture variability in lactation or conservation processes in donkey milk. Despite the relatively small sample size, this study offers insight on the mineral composition changes in donkey milk and emphasizes the significance of milk preprocessing and the lactation period on it

Diagnosis and Treatment of Biliary Fistulas in the Laparoscopic Era

Biliary fistulas are rare complications of gallstone. They can affect either the biliary or the gastrointestinal tract and are usually classified as primary or secondary. The primary fistulas are related to the biliary lithiasis, while the secondary ones are related to surgical complications. Laparoscopic surgery is a therapeutic option for the treatment of primary biliary fistulas. However, it could be the first responsible for the development of secondary biliary fistulas. An accurate preoperative diagnosis together with an experienced surgeon on the hepatobiliary surgery is necessary to deal with biliary fistulas. Cholecystectomy with a choledocoplasty is the most frequent treatment of primary fistulas, whereas the bile duct drainage or the endoscopic stenting is the best choice in case of minor iatrogenic bile duct injuries. Roux-en-Y hepaticojejunostomy is the extreme therapeutic option for both conditions. The sepsis, the level of the bile duct damage, and the involvement of the gastrointestinal tract increase the complexity of the operation and affect early and late results

Long-term prognostic significance of three-dimensional echocardiographic parameters of the left ventricle and left atrium

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Antimicrobial Effectiveness of Calcium Silicate Sealers against a Nutrient-Stressed Multispecies Biofilm

PURPOSE: This study compared the antimicrobial efficacy of calcium silicate sealers (BioRoot RCS and Total Fill BC) and conventional sealers (AH Plus and Tubli-seal) against planktonic bacteria and a nutrient-stressed multispecies biofilm. METHODS: Antimicrobial properties of freshly mixed sealers were investigated using the direct contact test (DCT) and a nutrient-stressed multispecies biofilm comprised of five endodontic strains. Antimicrobial activity was determined using quantitative viable counts and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) analysis with live/dead staining. The pH of the sealers was analysed over a period of 28 days in Hanks Balanced Salt Solution (HBSS). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Tukey tests and the Kruskal-Wallis test were used for data analysis with a significance of 5%. RESULTS: All endodontic sealers exhibited significant antimicrobial activity against planktonic bacteria (p 0.05). CLSM analysis showed that BioRoot RCS and TotalFill BC exhibited significant biofilm inhibition compared to Tubli-seal, AH Plus and the control (p 12). CONCLUSIONS: Calcium silicate sealers exhibited effective antimicrobial properties. This was demonstrated by superior biofilm inhibition capacity and microbial killing, with strong alkalizing activity compared to epoxy-based and zinc oxide-eugenol-based sealers

Doping, European Law and the Implications of Meca-Medina

The ruling of the European Court of Justice in the anti-doping case of Meca Medina v. The Commission has important implications for athletes, domestic governing bodies, international federations and supra-national actors such as WADA and the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Meca-Medina has been criticised as an unwelcome interference by the courts in the legitimate activities of sporting organisations, but after Bosman it was fanciful to argue that those organisations should be ‘above the law’ and the courts should have no jurisdiction over their activities. That said, there is a stark difference between the courts having jurisdiction over sports’ decisions and being willing to overturn them - the courts have been, and remain, willing to defer to the expertise of sporting organisations. However, the ECJ’s ruling in MOTOE confirms that the courts will intervene in appropriate circumstances. In order to avoid sanction on competition law grounds sports organisations must thus be able to justify their provisions on (for example) what is an unacceptable level of nandrolone, show that athletes’ fundamental rights such as the right to a fair hearing have been respected, and ensure that any sanctions imposed upon athletes who fall foul of doping regulations are proportionate to the offence committed

Distorted Copulas: Constructions and Tail Dependence

Given a copula C, we examine under which conditions on an order isomorphism ψ of [0, 1] the distortion C ψ: [0, 1]2 → [0, 1], C ψ(x, y) = ψ{C[ψ−1(x), ψ−1(y)]} is again a copula. In particular, when the copula C is totally positive of order 2, we give a sufficient condition on ψ that ensures that any distortion of C by means of ψ is again a copula. The presented results allow us to introduce in a more flexible way families of copulas exhibiting different behavior in the tails

Definition of a Core Collection and Construction of a Reference Set for Genome-Wide Association Studies from a Large Prunus persica Germplasm Collection

Genome-wide association studies take advantage of the natural variation present in germplasm repositories for identifying genes underlying agronomic traits, through plant molecular and phenotypic characterization. For tree crops, in vivo maintenance and phenotyping are particularly onerous and the reduction of redundancy and duplicates could help lowering management costs. In the frame of the European project FruitBreedomics, a collection of 1580 Prunus accessions from different institutions in Europe and China has been genotyped with the IPSC 9K SNP Array and phenotyped for different agronomic traits and a GWAS analysis with 4271 SNPs on 7 monogenic traits has been carried out (Micheletti et al. 2015). In the present work, the same set of 4271 SNP markers was used to identify a peach core collection by applying the maximization strategy implemented in the software PowerCore v 1.0 (Kim et al. 2007). Out of a total of 1540 a core of 72 (C72) accessions was identified, representing 4.7% sampling size. C72 contains the accessions with higher diversity representing the total allelic coverage with an efficiency index of 0.83 with respect to random sampling. In the view of setting up a genomic tool for GWAS analyses a reference subset of 150 accessions was also developed taking into account allelic and phenotypic traits representativeness through the maximization strategy, population stratification and controlled redundancy required to have enough statistical power. Preliminary PCA analysis shows population structure to explain less than 30% of variability due to the local varieties. Validation of the reference set will also be presented

A sharp condition for scattering of the radial 3d cubic nonlinear Schroedinger equation

We consider the problem of identifying sharp criteria under which radial $H^1$ (finite energy) solutions to the focusing 3d cubic nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation (NLS) $i\partial_t u + \Delta u + |u|^2u=0$ scatter, i.e. approach the solution to a linear Schr\"odinger equation as $t\to \pm \infty$. The criteria is expressed in terms of the scale-invariant quantities $\|u_0\|_{L^2}\|\nabla u_0\|_{L^2}$ and $M[u]E[u]$, where $u_0$ denotes the initial data, and $M[u]$ and $E[u]$ denote the (conserved in time) mass and energy of the corresponding solution $u(t)$. The focusing NLS possesses a soliton solution $e^{it}Q(x)$, where $Q$ is the ground-state solution to a nonlinear elliptic equation, and we prove that if $M[u]E[u]<M[Q]E[Q]$ and $\|u_0\|_{L^2}\|\nabla u_0\|_{L^2} < \|Q\|_{L^2}\|\nabla Q\|_{L^2}$, then the solution $u(t)$ is globally well-posed and scatters. This condition is sharp in the sense that the soliton solution $e^{it}Q(x)$, for which equality in these conditions is obtained, is global but does not scatter. We further show that if $M[u]E[u] \|Q\|_{L^2}\|\nabla Q\|_{L^2}$, then the solution blows-up in finite time. The technique employed is parallel to that employed by Kenig-Merle \cite{KM06a} in their study of the energy-critical NLS

Genetic Dissection of Complex Fruit Quantitative Traits in Peach Progen

Major research efforts in peach are dedicated to the discovery of genomic variants causing phenotypic effects in complex fruit traits such as: maturity date (MD), fruit size (FW), sugar (SSC) and acid content (TA), flesh texture (slow softening, SSf) and resistance to brown rot by Monilinia spp. (BRr). Five segregating progenies showing phenotypic variation for at least one of these traits are available in our experimental fields. For SSC and TA, an already validated approach based on Near-InfraRed spectroscopy (NIR), is being applied to phenotype some segregating progenies. For SSf and BRr instead, trait characterization has been performed, resulting in the identification of co-factor traits and definition of standardized phenotyping tools, which are currently applied in the characterization of segregating material (in the context of FruitBreedomics EU project). High-density linkage maps have been constructed with genotypic data obtained from IPSC Illumina 9K SNP chip (Italian Drupomics and FruitBreedomics frameworks) and Genotyping-by-Sequencing (GBS). Additionally, parents of these progenies have been re-sequenced (30-40x) and genetic variants present along their genomes have been identified. Multiple-QTL models (MQM) coupled with the use of co-factor traits is leading to the discovery of significant QTLs. Genomic variants are explored within QTL intervals on the genomes of progeny parents, in order to identify possible mutations causing phenotypic differences, and develop markers for marker-assisted selection approaches