Ecotoxicological assessment of irrigation water for vegetables in a watershed region of Greater São Paulo

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the quality of irrigation water for vegetables in a Greater São Paulo watershed region. Acute and chronic ecotoxicity bioassays with Dugesia tigrina and Selenastrum capricornutum and geno/mutagenicity assays with Allium cepa were performed, as well as microbiological assays for total and thermotolerant coliforms, according to the legislation. The ecotoxicological data did not show significant toxicity in any of the samples. However, surface water genotoxic effect was detected in 2 out of the 3 points and mutagenic effect in all three sampled points, as well as in the sediment, in the Allium cepa test. Such high prevalence of total and thermotolerant coliforms in all samples at the three points indicates a compromised environmental integrity of the basin due to high loads of organic pollution, probably of clandestine origin. No emissions of industrial origin were detected in the region. Thus, taken together, the results suggest that agricultural activity itself may account for the impacts in these water bodies. The present study represents a contribution to the scarce data available in the literature about this important Greater São Paulo region

Reduced antioxidant defense in early onset first-episode psychosis: a case-control study

Background:Our objective is to determine the activity of the antioxidant defense system at admission in patients with early onset first psychotic episodes compared with a control group. Methods: Total antioxidant status (TAS) and lipid peroxidation (LOOH) were determined in plasma. Enzyme activities and total glutathione levels were determined in erythrocytes in 102 children and adolescents with a first psychotic episode and 98 healthy controls. Results: A decrease in antioxidant defense was found in patients, measured as decreased TAS and glutathione levels. Lipid damage (LOOH) and glutathione peroxidase activity was higher in patients than controls. Our study shows a decrease in the antioxidant defense system in early onset first episode psychotic patients. Conclusions: Glutathione deficit seems to be implicated in psychosis, and may be an important indirect biomarker of oxidative stress in early-onset schizophrenia. Oxidative damage is present in these patients, and may contribute to its pathophysiology

Iron Behaving Badly: Inappropriate Iron Chelation as a Major Contributor to the Aetiology of Vascular and Other Progressive Inflammatory and Degenerative Diseases

The production of peroxide and superoxide is an inevitable consequence of aerobic metabolism, and while these particular "reactive oxygen species" (ROSs) can exhibit a number of biological effects, they are not of themselves excessively reactive and thus they are not especially damaging at physiological concentrations. However, their reactions with poorly liganded iron species can lead to the catalytic production of the very reactive and dangerous hydroxyl radical, which is exceptionally damaging, and a major cause of chronic inflammation. We review the considerable and wide-ranging evidence for the involvement of this combination of (su)peroxide and poorly liganded iron in a large number of physiological and indeed pathological processes and inflammatory disorders, especially those involving the progressive degradation of cellular and organismal performance. These diseases share a great many similarities and thus might be considered to have a common cause (i.e. iron-catalysed free radical and especially hydroxyl radical generation). The studies reviewed include those focused on a series of cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological diseases, where iron can be found at the sites of plaques and lesions, as well as studies showing the significance of iron to aging and longevity. The effective chelation of iron by natural or synthetic ligands is thus of major physiological (and potentially therapeutic) importance. As systems properties, we need to recognise that physiological observables have multiple molecular causes, and studying them in isolation leads to inconsistent patterns of apparent causality when it is the simultaneous combination of multiple factors that is responsible. This explains, for instance, the decidedly mixed effects of antioxidants that have been observed, etc...Comment: 159 pages, including 9 Figs and 2184 reference

The value of PCNA and AgNOR staining in endoscopic biopsies of gastric mucosa

The aim of the present study was to examine the usefulness of the quantification of PC10-positive-cells and of Argyrophilic Nucleolar Organizer Regions (AgNORs) in gastric biopsies for the identification of gastric mucosal proliferative lesions. Fifty seven paraffin-embedded endoscopic biopsies were classified into four histologic groups: normal, inflammatory, dysplastic and neoplastic mucosa. The percentage of PC10-positive cells was determined by immunohistochemistry. The AgNOR parameters determined included the total number of all identifiable silver precipitations in the nucleus, the mean number of silver precipitations per cluster, and the presence of morphologically heterogenous silver precipitations. Group comparisons were performed using the Kruskall Wallis and Dunn non-parametric tests with a significance level of 5%. A dicriminant analysis (followed by the jack-knife procedure) was performed using the three AgNOR parameters plus the percentage of PCNA-positive cells as the independent variables and histological groups as the dependent variable. All three AgNOR parameters, as well as the percentage of PCNA-stained nuclei, showed their highest values in the carcinoma group. However, no good differentiation among the four histologic groups was obtained using only one of these parameters, since there was always considerable overlap among them. By combining all the parameters in a linear discriminant analysis, we obtained a correct classification in 48 out of 57 cases. Within the classification errors there was only one false positive carcinoma, which was in fact a dysplasia and only one false negative carcinoma erroneously classified as dysplasia. The number of cells with heterogenous AgNORs was the most important parameter for the discriminant analysis. No correlation between PCNA values and the AgNOR parameters could be found, thus indicating that they do not represent the same phenomenon in the cell cycle. We concluded that the use of a combination of various proliferation parameters in a linear discriminant analysis may be helpful for differentiating gastric mucosal lesions. The peculiar AgNOR morphology is an important variable which should be taken in consideration in quantitative studies. PCNA and AgNORs seem to represent different physiological phenomena in the cell cycle.1941333

Upregulation of the vascular endothelial growth factor, Flt-1, in rat hippocampal neurons after envenoming by Phoneutria nigriventer; age-related modulation

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)This study characterizes the distribution and quantifies the expression of the tyrosine kinase receptor for the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), Flt-1, in the rat hippocampus following intra-peritoneal injection of Phoneutria nigriventer venom (PNV). Postnatal day 14 (P14) and 8-10 weeks (adult) old rats were used and analyses were done at 1, 2, 5 and 24 h after venom exposure and compared with saline-injected counterparts. PNV-injected animals showed hippocampal venules with perivascular edema indicating blood-brain barrier (BBB) dysfunction. This was accompanied by significant overexpression of Flt-1 which though was not the same for CA1, CA2, CA3 and dentate gyrus (DG) hippocampal regions, neither for P14 and adult rats. Regional analysis using GIMP methodology showed that Flt-1 was constitutively distributed more densely in neurons of DG, followed by CA1/CA2 and CA3 of both control P14 and adult animals, without variation over time, but significantly more expressed in P14 than in adults. A time-course analysis showed that Flt-1 upregulation was progressive and that neurons VEGFR1/Flt-1+ of PNV-exposed animals are timely and regionally modulated depending on the hippocampal region, being CA2 the least responsive region regardless animal's age, whilst DG was the most susceptible with adult animals having higher upregulation than neonates. Since VEGF has been reported to confer protection in several pathological processes we suggest that VEGF may be involved in hippocampal neurons response via Flt-1 mediation following PNV envenoming; its higher upregulation in adult envenomed rats may be an indication that Flt-1 neuroprotective mediation is more efficient with age. The Flt-1 upregulation and the incidence of perivascular edema in young animals may indicate a pro-inflammatory role of the receptor. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.604SI656664Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)FAPESP [2008/55748-1]CNPq [302206/2008-6, 481316/2008-6

Absence of mutagenic and recombinagenic activity of multi-walled carbon nanotubes in the Drosophila wing-spot test and Allium cepa test

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)In order to assess the safety of the carbon nanotubes to human health and the environment, we investigated the potential toxicity and ability of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (NT), to induce DNA damage by employing the Allium cepa genotoxicity/mutagenicity test and the Somatic Mutation and Recombination Test (SMART) in the fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster. The results demonstrated that NT did not significantly induce genotoxic or mutagenic effects in the Allium cepa test. All concentrations evaluated in the SMART assay showed survival rates higher than 90 percent, indicating the absence of chronic toxicity for NT. Furthermore, the various treatments showed no significant increase in the NT mutation and recombination frequencies in mwh/flr(3) genotype compared to respective negative controls, demonstrating the absence of DNA damage caused by NT. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.999297Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq

Nucleolar Organizing Regions and α-Smooth Muscle Actin Expression in a Case of Ameloblastic Carcinoma

Ameloblastic carcinoma is a rare lesion of odontogenic origin. It is defined as a malignant epithelial odontogenic tumor that histologically has retained the features of ameloblastic differentiation and also exhibits cytologic features of malignancy, like atypia and mitotic activity. Although this lesion represents a separate entity, differentiating it from ameloblastoma has been often challenging to pathologists. In this case study reporting a case of ameloblastic carcinoma, we have attempted to verify the previous findings on the use of Argyrophilic nucleolar organizing regions (AgNORs) and immunohistochemical staining for the alpha-smooth muscle actin (alpha-SMA) in differentiating ameloblastic carcinoma from ameloblastoma. It was observed that AgNORs was found to be almost twice in ameloblastic carcinoma as it was in ameloblastoma. A difference between the two lesions in the pattern of expression of alpha-SMA was also observed, with alpha-SMA being expressed in the odontogenic epithelium and the stroma of ameloblastic carcinoma whereas, in the case of ameloblastoma, it was found only in the stromal part. These findings suggest that AgNORs and alpha-SMA expression may be used as adjuncts to the routine histopathologic examination to differentiate ameloblastic carcinoma and ameloblastoma