The tetrapeptide acetyl-N-Ser-Asp-Lys-Pro (Goralatide) protects from doxorubicin-induced toxicity: improvement in mice survival and protection of bone marrow stem cells and progenitors.

International audienceThe tetrapeptide Acetyl-N-Ser-Asp-Lys-Pro (AcSDKP or Goralatide), a physiological regulator of hematopoiesis, inhibits the entry into the S-phase of murine and human hematopoietic stem cells. It has been shown to reduce the damage to specific compartments in the bone marrow resulting from treatment with chemotherapeutic agents, ionizing radiations, hyperthermy, or phototherapy. The present study was performed to assess the therapeutic potential of AcSDKP in vivo in reducing both the toxicity and the hematopoietic damage induced by fractionated administration of doxorubicin (DOX), a widely used anticancer drug. Here we showed that AcSDKP could reduce DOX-induced mortality in mice and could protect particularly the long-term reconstituting cells (LTRCs) in addition to colony forming units-spleen, high proliferative potential colony-forming cells, and colony-forming units-granulocyte-macrophage (CFU-GM) from DOX toxicity. The protection against DOX-induced mortality in mice was improved when AcSDKP was administered for 3 days, at a dose of 2.4 micrograms/d, by continuous subcutaneous (SC) infusion or fractionated s.c. injections starting 48 hours before DOX treatment. Moreover, the recovery of the CFU-GM population in the AcSDKP-DOX-treated mice was optimized by the subsequent administration of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF). The coadministration of AcSDKP with DOX may improve its therapeutic index by reducing both acute hematotoxicity on late stem cells and progenitors and long-term toxicity on LTRCs. Optimization of these treatments combined with G-CSF may provide an additional approach to facilitate hematopoietic recovery after cancer chemotherapy

Os usos da educação no militantismo ambientalista The use of education in environmental activism

Este artigo examina as condições e as lógicas sociais que fundamentam os usos e a reconversão da formação universitária para o exercício profissional na defesa de causas ambientais. A metodologia utilizada consistiu na realização de entrevistas biográficas com três gerações distintas de ativistas do Rio Grande do Sul, focalizando suas condições sociais de origem, os significados associados ao uso da formação escolar na militância, as principais modalidades de carreiras militantes e os tipos de recursos e de vínculos sociais que fundamentam o exercício da militância. A pesquisa demonstrou que o ambientalismo constitui um espaço social de reconversão da formação escolar e universitária para a atuação profissional em diferentes esferas de atividade, com base em recursos e vínculos estabelecidos pelos ativistas com partidos políticos, com organizações e com movimentos sociais no decorrer de seus itinerários familiar, escolar e profissional.<br>This article examines the social conditions and the logic that bases the uses and reconversion of higher education for professional practice in the defense of environmental causes. The methodology consisted of biographical interviews with three different generations of activists from Rio Grande do Sul, focusing on their social origin, the meanings associated with the use of academic education in militancy, the main kinds of militant careers, and the types of resources and social ties that ground activists' practices. The research showed that environmentalism is a social space for reconverting school and university education into professional action in different spheres of activity, based on resources and ties established by activists with political parties, organizations and social movements in the course of their familial, schooling and professional routes