Redox Status in Canine Leishmaniasis

World Health Organization defined Leishmaniasis as ‘one of the priority attention diseases’. Aiming to clarify some aspects of its pathogenetic mechanisms, our study has been focused on the assessment of redox status in dogs, the main reservoir for Leishmania infantum. Forty-five dogs from an endemic area in southern Italy were divided into four different groups (from mild disease with negative to low positive antibody levels to very severe disease with medium to high positive antibody levels) accordingly to the LeishVet group guidelines. Their plasma and/or sera were tested for Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), namely superoxide anion (O2-), Reactive Nitrogen Species (RNS), such as nitric oxide (NO) and hydroperoxides (ROOH), as well as the activity of the detoxifying enzyme superoxide dismutase (SOD), and the total non-enzymatic antioxidant capacity, as determined by ferric reducing-antioxidant power (FRAP) assay, O2- generation was significantly (p < 0.05) reduced in leishmaniasis affected dogs independently of the clinical stage, while NO production was stimulated (p < 0.05) only in II and III stage patients. No difference could be found for the levels of hydroperoxides and SOD activity between healthy and pathological subjects. FRAP values, were lower in affected dogs but only in stage II. Taken together, although we demonstrate that several redox status parameters are altered in the plasma of dog affected by Leishmaniasis, the oxidative stress changes that are observed in this disease, are possibly mainly due to the cellular blood components i.e. neutrophils, responsible of the elimination of the parasite. Further studies are required to assess the clinical values of the collected data

Deriving the mass of particles from Extended Theories of Gravity in LHC era

We derive a geometrical approach to produce the mass of particles that could be suitably tested at LHC. Starting from a 5D unification scheme, we show that all the known interactions could be suitably deduced as an induced symmetry breaking of the non-unitary GL(4)-group of diffeomorphisms. The deformations inducing such a breaking act as vector bosons that, depending on the gravitational mass states, can assume the role of interaction bosons like gluons, electroweak bosons or photon. The further gravitational degrees of freedom, emerging from the reduction mechanism in 4D, eliminate the hierarchy problem since generate a cut-off comparable with electroweak one at TeV scales. In this "economic" scheme, gravity should induce the other interactions in a non-perturbative way.Comment: 30 pages, 1 figur

BLACK HOLES AS PARTS OF ENTANGLED SYSTEMS

Abstract. A possible link between EPR-type quantum phenomena and astrophysical objects like black holes, under a new general definition of entanglement, is established. A new approach, involving backward time evolution and topology changes, is presented bringing to a definition of the system black hole-worm hole-white hole as an entangled system. Key words: black holes 1

MATTER ANTIMATTER IN DIFFERENT UNIVERSES? EXPERIMENTAL SITUATION. STANDARD AND TIME REVERSAL SOLUTIONS

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