20 research outputs found

    Synergistic Antimicrobial Effects of Silver/Transition-metal Combinatorial Treatments

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    Due to the emergence of multi-drug resistant strains, development of novel antibiotics has become a critical issue. One promising approach is the use of transition metals, since they exhibit rapid and significant toxicity, at low concentrations, in prokaryotic cells. Nevertheless, one main drawback of transition metals is their toxicity in eukaryotic cells. Here, we show that the barriers to use them as therapeutic agents could be mitigated by combining them with silver. We demonstrate that synergism of combinatorial treatments (Silver/transition metals, including Zn, Co, Cd, Ni, and Cu) increases up to 8-fold their antimicrobial effect, when compared to their individual effects, against E. coli and B. subtilis. We find that most combinatorial treatments exhibit synergistic antimicrobial effects at low/ non-toxic concentrations to human keratinocyte cells, blast and melanoma rat cell lines. Moreover, we show that silver/(Cu, Ni, and Zn) increase prokaryotic cell permeability at sub-inhibitory concentrations, demonstrating this to be a possible mechanism of the synergistic behavior. Together, these results suggest that these combinatorial treatments will play an important role in the future development of antimicrobial agents and treatments against infections. In specific, the cytotoxicity experiments show that the combinations have great potential in the treatment of topical infections

    Relationship among geochemical elements in soil and grapes as terroir fingerprintings in Vitis vinifera L. cv. "Glera"

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    Prosecco, one of the most popular sparkling wines in the world, is produced in Italy. For this reason, it is important to develop a scientific method for determining geographic origin in order to prevent fraudulent labelling. To establish the relationship between geochemistry of vineyard soil and chemical composition of grape, a geochemical characterization of “Glera”, a Vitis vinifera cultivar from Italian Region, Veneto was undertaken. We evaluated the relationship between major and trace elements in soil and their concentrations in “Glera” grape berries in vineyards belonging to five localities in the Veneto alluvial plain, all included in the Controlled Designation of Origin (DOC) area of Prosecco. A statistically significant correspondence between the soil and grape was observed for Sr. Multivariate analysis (LDA) allowed discrimination of samples of soil and grape berries from each single winery according to the geographic origin. The elements that could establish a reliable correspondence between the geolithological features of the vineyard soil and the chemical composition of grape berries are: Sr, Ba, Ca, Mg, Al, K, Zn, B, Ni, Co.Prosecco, one of the most popular sparkling wines in the world, is produced in Italy. For this reason, it is important to develop a scientific method for determining geographic origin in order to prevent fraudulent labelling. To establish the relationship between geochemistry of vineyard soil and chemical composition of grape, a geochemical characterization of “Glera”, a Vitis vinifera cultivar from Italian Region, Veneto was undertaken. We evaluated the relationship between major and trace elements in soil and their concentrations in “Glera” grape berries in vineyards belonging to five localities in the Veneto alluvial plain, all included in the Controlled Designation of Origin (DOC) area of Prosecco. A statistically significant correspondence between the soil and grape was observed for Sr. Multivariate analysis (LDA) allowed discrimination of samples of soil and grape berries from each single winery according to the geographic origin. The elements that could establish a reliable correspondence between the geolithological features of the vineyard soil and the chemical composition of grape berries are: Sr, Ba, Ca, Mg, Al, K, Zn, B, Ni, Co
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