Caracterização genética de isolados axénicos de Giardia lamblia

Mestrado em Microbiologia MolecularAs parasitoses intestinais continuam a constituir um grave problema de saúde pública, a nível mundial. Giardia lamblia, também denominada G. duodenalis ou G. intestinalis é um protozoário frequentemente responsável por patologias entéricas, representando, nos seres humanos, o principal agente causal de gastroenterites parasitárias. A giardiose é, assim, tida como a mais frequente das parasitoses de índole protozoária. Tendo em conta a escassez de trabalhos, em Portugal, sobre esta patologia, com este trabalho pretende-se contribuir para o enriquecimento do conhecimento nesta área. Assim, efectuou-se um estudo epidemiológico, nas cidades do Porto e Viseu, no qual foram pesquisados diversos parasitas, entre os quais, G. lamblia. A inexistência de isolados levou à caracterização molecular, por PCR – RFLP, de outros, criopreservados, o que conduziu à optimização de um protocolo que poderá ser usado rotineiramente no Laboratório de Investigação.Parasitic diseases continue, knowadays, to be a major concern and health problem, all over the world. The protozoa Giardia lamblia (also kwoned as G. duodenalis or G. intestinalis) is responsible, in humans, for the most of parasitic gastroenteritis. Giardiasis is, therefore, the parasitic gastric infection with the higher prevalence. The lack of published articles and studies, in Portugal, about this organism and its pathology, dictates the pertinence of this work. With it we wish to enrich the knowledge in this area. Therefore, a field study was performed to access the prevalence of several parasites (within those was G. lamblia), on the cities of Porto and Viseu. As a consequence of the results of this study (concerning G. lamblia) the work changed its course. The next step consisted in the molecular characterization by PCR – RFLP, of isolates previously axenized and criopreserved, that lead to a protocol optimization, that can be, therefore, used in our laboratory practice

Ethnopharmacological study of medicinal plants from the province of Cuanza Norte (Angola)

Studies on African medicinal plants have been limited to some geographically areas, and even though more than  5400 medicinal plants are recognized and documented, other valuable medicinal plant species have not been  studied. Ethnopharmacological studies are important for documenting traditional knowledge associated with the  medical use of biodiversity. This study aims to document the use of medicinal plants from the Province of  Cuanza Norte (Angola). The field work was conducted from December 2018 to January 2019 and the  ethnobotanical data were collected using semi-structured interviews. Informants were selected in accordance  with their residence and community recognition as healers. Recorded plants are listed along with their popular  name, traditional use, part used, and method of preparation. A total of 131 species of medicinal plants were cited.  Mukumbi (Lannea welwitschii), Santa Maria (Chenopodium ambrosioides) and Ditumbata (Boerhavia difusa)  were the most cited species. Out of the total plant parts, leaves were the most frequently material used. Regarding the mode of preparation for the medicinal materials, the major form of preparation is maceration,  followed by infusion and decoction. The main categories of use were infectious and parasitic diseases (e.g., Malaria); undefined pains and illness; diseases of the digestive system; and endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic  diseases (e.g., Diabetes). This study revealed the importance of preserving the ethnobotanical knowledge in order  to protect the biodiversity and to discover new therapeutic molecules. A comparison of the results with other  studies showed that some of the traditional indications are supported by data from scientific literature

ALIMENTOS, NUTRACÊUTICOS E PLANTAS MEDICINAIS UTILIZADOS COMO PRÁTICA COMPLEMENTAR NO ENFRENTAMENTO DOS SINTOMAS DO CORONAVÍRUS (COVID-19): UMA REVISÃO

The present prospective work of scientific articles related to foods and natural products with anti-Covid activity in databases in order to present a scientific community, to governments and society as main foods, nutraceuticals and medicinal plants as strategies used by countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. A review of articles on food, medicinal plants and biotechnology was carried out in databases of scientific articles such as: CAPES journals, PubMed, Elsevier's Science Direct, Willey on library library, Taylor & Francis Springer-Nature database, BMC, Hindawi, Scielo, ACS - American Chemical Society, Google Scholar, in addition to the Patent Database “The LENS” and “Questel-Orbit”. Foods used in daily life such as garlic, ginger, turmeric, sour orange, vegetables, lactobacilli demonstrate proven anti-virus action. Medicinal plants used by Traditional Chinese, Korean and Indian Medicine also demonstrate anti-Covid activity and used during the coronavirus outbreak. Some medicinal plants, green propolis extract, red propolis extract, royal gelly, polen, honey have also been cited as anti-covid, natural anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory products.O presente trabalho prospectou artigos científicos relacionadas à alimentos e produtos naturais com atividade anti-Covid com o intuito de apresentar, à comunidade científica, aos governos e à sociedade, dados sobre as principais estratégias nutracêuticas, biotecnológicas e plantas medicinais utilizadas em alguns países durante o enfrentamento da pandemia COVID-19. A revisão de artigos sobre alimentos, plantas medicinais e produtos biotecnológicos foi realizada nas bases de dados periódicos da CAPES, PubMed, Science Direct, Willey on line library, Springer-Nature, Taylor & Francis, BMC, Hindawi, Scielo, ACS – American Chemical Society, Google acadêmico, “The LENS” e Questel-Orbit. Alimentos de uso frequente como alho, gengibre, cúrcuma, laranja azeda, vegetais e lactobacilos demonstraram ação anti-coronavirus comprovada. Foram descritos usos de plantas medicinais da Medicina tradicional Chinesa, Coreana, Indiana bastante utilizadas durante a pandemia. Algumas plantas medicinais e nutracêuticos como: extrato de própolis verde e extrato de própolis vermelha brasileiras, geleia real, pólen e mel também foram citados como produtos anti-covid, antiinflamatórios naturais e imunomodulatórios

Erratum to: The study of cardiovascular risk in adolescents – ERICA: rationale, design and sample characteristics of a national survey examining cardiovascular risk factor profile in Brazilian adolescents

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A list of land plants of Parque Nacional do Caparaó, Brazil, highlights the presence of sampling gaps within this protected area

Brazilian protected areas are essential for plant conservation in the Atlantic Forest domain, one of the 36 global biodiversity hotspots. A major challenge for improving conservation actions is to know the plant richness, protected by these areas. Online databases offer an accessible way to build plant species lists and to provide relevant information about biodiversity. A list of land plants of “Parque Nacional do Caparaó” (PNC) was previously built using online databases and published on the website "Catálogo de Plantas das Unidades de Conservação do Brasil." Here, we provide and discuss additional information about plant species richness, endemism and conservation in the PNC that could not be included in the List. We documented 1,791 species of land plants as occurring in PNC, of which 63 are cited as threatened (CR, EN or VU) by the Brazilian National Red List, seven as data deficient (DD) and five as priorities for conservation. Fifity-one species were possible new ocurrences for ES and MG states

Convalescent plasma for COVID-19 in hospitalised patients : an open-label, randomised clinical trial

Background: The effects of convalescent plasma (CP) therapy in hospitalised patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) remain uncertain. This study investigates the effect of CP on clinical improvement in these patients. Methods: This is an investigator-initiated, randomised, parallel arm, open-label, superiority clinical trial. Patients were randomly (1:1) assigned to two infusions of CP plus standard of care (SOC) or SOC alone. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients with clinical improvement 28 days after enrolment. Results: A total of 160 (80 in each arm) patients (66.3% critically ill, 33.7% severely ill) completed the trial. The median (interquartile range (IQR)) age was 60.5 (48–68) years; 58.1% were male and the median (IQR) time from symptom onset to randomisation was 10 (8–12) days. Neutralising antibody titres >1:80 were present in 133 (83.1%) patients at baseline. The proportion of patients with clinical improvement on day 28 was 61.3% in the CP+SOC group and 65.0% in the SOC group (difference −3.7%, 95% CI −18.8–11.3%). The results were similar in the severe and critically ill subgroups. There was no significant difference between CP+SOC and SOC groups in pre-specified secondary outcomes, including 28-day mortality, days alive and free of respiratory support and duration of invasive ventilatory support. Inflammatory and other laboratory marker values on days 3, 7 and 14 were similar between groups. Conclusions: CP+SOC did not result in a higher proportion of clinical improvement on day 28 in hospitalised patients with COVID-19 compared to SOC alone

Educafarma 10.0

Memoria ID-030. Ayudas de la Universidad de Salamanca para la innovación docente, curso 2021-2022