Seroprevalencia de la toxoplasmosis humana en Córdoba

Se realiza un estudio sobre seroprevalencia de la toxoplasmosis humana en Córdoba, mediante inmunofluorescencia indirecta y hemaglutinación indirecta. La muestra encuestada se compone de 443 sueros, 356 personas supuestamente sanas (estudiantes fundamentalmente) y 87, consideradas de “alto riesgo” (enfermos del Hospital “Reina Sofía”). La positividad obtenida para el total de la muestra ha sido del 43,79 % con IFI y 53,50 % para HAI. Con respecto al sexo, la prevalencia es superior en mujeres con un 54,36 % y 70,47 % con IFI y HAI, respectivamente, en varones el 38,43 % y 44,90 % para las mismas pruebas. En relación con la procedencia de la muestra, 31,lB % con IFI y 43,25 % para HAI sobre la población normal, en la de “alto riesgo” para ambas pruebas el 95,40 %. Entre ambas pruebas hay diferencias significativas a títulos bajos, no así en diluciones altas, Concluimos que la toxoplasmosis humana está presente y difundida en las poblaciones estudiadasA seroprevalency study of human toxoplasmosis was carried out in Córdoba, using indirect immunofluorescence and indirect haemoglutination. The sample of people interviewed was made up of 443 serums, 356 supposedly healthy people (mainly students) and 87, considered “high risk” (pafients from the “Reina Sofia” Hospital). The positiveness obtained for the total of the sample was 43,79 % with IFI and 53,59 % for HAI. As regards sex of the person tested, prevalence is higher in women, with 54,36 % and 70,47 % with IFI and HAI respectively, in men the scores were 38,43 % and 44,90 % for the same tests. As far as the origin of the sample was concerned, there were 31,lB % with IFI and 43,25 % for HAI of the nornal population, in the “high risk” sample, for both tests it was 9540 %. With both tests there are significative differences in low amounts, but not in high dilutions. We conclude that human toxoplasmosis is present and widespread in the studied population

Selection of best conditions of inoculum preparation for optimum performance of the pigment production process by Talaromyces spp. using the Taguchi method

Process optimisation techniques increasingly need to be used early on in research and development of processes for new ingredients. There are different approaches and this article illustrates the main issues at stake with a method that is an industry best practice, the Taguchi method, suggesting a procedure to assess the potential impact of its drawbacks. The Taguchi method has been widely used in various industrial sectors because it minimises the experimental requirements to define an optimum region of operation, which is particularly relevant when minimising variability is a target. However, it also has drawbacks, especially the intricate confoundings generated by the experimental designs used. This work reports a process optimisation of the synthesis of red pigments by a fungal strain, Talaromyces spp. using the Taguchi methodology and proposes an approach to assess from validation trials whether the conclusions can be accepted with confidence. The work focused on optimising the inoculum characteristics, and the studied factors were spore age and concentration, agitation speed and incubation time. It was concluded that spore age was the most important factor for both responses, with optimum results at 5 days old, with the best other conditions being spores concentration, 100,000 (spores/mL); agitation, 200 rpm; and incubation time, 84 h. The interactive effects can be considered negligible and therefore this is an example where a simple experimental design approach was successful in speedily indicating conditions able to increase pigment production by 63% compared to an average choice of settings

Perstraction of intracellular pigments through submerged fermentation of Talaromyces spp. in a surfactant rich media: a novel approach for enhanced pigment recovery

A high percentage of the pigments produced by Talaromyces spp. remains inside the cell, which could lead to a high product concentration inhibition. To overcome this issue an extractive fermentation process, perstraction, was suggested, which involves the extraction of the intracellular products out of the cell by using a two-phase system during the fermentation. The present work studied the effect of various surfactants on secretion of intracellular pigments produced by Talaromyces spp. in submerged fermentation. Surfactants used were: non-ionic surfactants (Tween 80, Span 20 and Triton X-100) and a polyethylene glycerol polymer 8000, at different concentrations (5, 20, 35 g/L). The highest extracellular pigment yield (16 OD500nm) was reached using Triton X-100 (35 g/L), which was 44% higher than the control (no surfactant added). The effect of addition time of the selected surfactant was further studied. The highest extracellular pigment concentration (22 OD500nm) was achieved when the surfactant was added at 120 h of fermentation. Kinetics of extracellular and intracellular pigments were examined. Total pigment at the end of the fermentation using Triton X-100 was 27.7% higher than the control, confirming that the use of surfactants partially alleviated the product inhibition during the pigment production cultur

IGF-II promotes neuroprotection and neuroplasticity recovery in a long-lasting model of oxidative damage induced by glucocorticoids

Insulin-like growth factor-II (IGF-II) is a naturally occurring hormone that exerts neurotrophic and neuroprotective properties in a wide range of neurodegenerative diseases and ageing. Accumulating evidence suggests that the effects of IGF-II in the brain may be explained by its binding to the specific transmembrane receptor, IGFII/M6P receptor (IGF-IIR). However, relatively little is known regarding the role of IGF-II through IGF-IIR in neuroprotection. Here, using adult cortical neuronal cultures, we investigated whether IGF-II exhibits long-term antioxidant effects and neuroprotection at the synaptic level after oxidative damage induced by high and transient levels of corticosterone (CORT). Furthermore, the involvement of the IGF-IIR was also studied to elucidate its role in the neuroprotective actions of IGF-II. We found that neurons treated with IGF-II after CORT incubation showed reduced oxidative stress damage and recovered antioxidant status (normalized total antioxidant status, lipid hydroperoxides and NAD(P) H:quinone oxidoreductase activity). Similar results were obtained when mitochondria function was analysed (cytochrome c oxidase activity, mitochondrial membrane potential and subcellular mitochondrial distribution). Furthermore, neuronal impairment and degeneration were also assessed (synaptophysin and PSD-95 expression, presynaptic function and FluoroJade B® stain). IGF-II was also able to recover the long-lasting neuronal cell damage. Finally, the effects of IGF-II were not blocked by an IGF-IR antagonist, suggesting the involvement of IGF-IIR. Altogether these results suggest that, in or model, IGF-II through IGF-IIR is able to revert the oxidative damage induced by CORT. In accordance with the neuroprotective role of the IGF-II/IGF-IIR reported in our study, pharmacotherapy approaches targeting this pathway may be useful for the treatment of diseases associated with cognitive deficits (i.e., neurodegenerative disorders, depression, etc.)

Association Mapping Approach into Type 2 Diabetes using Biomarkers and Clinical Data

The global growth in incidence of Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) has become a major international health concern. As such, understanding the aetiology of Type 2 Diabetes is vital. This paper investigates a variety of statistical method-ologies at various level of complexity to analyse genotype data and identify bi-omarkers that show evidence of increase susceptibility to T2D and related traits. A critical overview of several selected statistical methods for population-based association mapping particularly case-control genetic association analysis is pre-sented. A discussion on a dataset accessed in this paper that includes 3435 female subjects for cases and controls with genotype information across 879071 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNPs) is presented. Quality control steps into the dataset through pre-processing phase are performed to remove samples and markers that failed the quality control test. Association analysis is discussed to address which statistical method can be appropriate to the dataset. Our genetic association analysis produces promising results and indicated that Allelic asso-ciation test showed one SNP above the genome-wide significance threshold of 5×10−8 which is rs10519107 (Odds Ratio (OR)=0.7409,P−Value (P)=1.813×10−9), While, there are several SNPs above the suggestive association threshold of 5×10−6 these SNPs could worth further investigation. Furthermore, Logistic Regression analysis adjusted for multiple confounder factors indicated that none of the genotyped SNPs has passed genome-wide significance threshold of 5×10−8 . Nevertheless, four SNPs (rs10519107, rs4368343, rs6848779, rs11729955) have passed suggestive association threshold

Geometric Transition as a Change of Polarization

Taking the results of hep-th/0702110 we study the Dijkgraaf-Vafa open/closed topological string duality by considering the wavefunction behavior of the partition function. We find that the geometric transition associated with the duality can be seen as a change of polarization.Comment: 20 page

A Comment on Quantum Distribution Functions and the OSV Conjecture

Using the attractor mechanism and the relation between the quantization of $H^{3}(M)$ and topological strings on a Calabi Yau threefold $M$ we define a map from BPS black holes into coherent states. This map allows us to represent the Bekenstein-Hawking-Wald entropy as a quantum distribution function on the phase space $H^{3}(M)$. This distribution function is a mixed Husimi/anti-Husimi distribution corresponding to the different normal ordering prescriptions for the string coupling and deviations of the complex structure moduli. From the integral representation of this distribution function in terms of the Wigner distribution we recover the Ooguri-Strominger-Vafa (OSV) conjecture in the region "at infinity" of the complex structure moduli space. The physical meaning of the OSV corrections are briefly discussed in this limit.Comment: 27 pages. v2:reference and footnote adde

Novel Intact Bitter Cassava: Sustainable Development and Desirability Optimisation of Packaging Films

This is a research article on novel biomaterials and optimal processing conditions are fundamental in low-cost packaging material production.Novel biomaterials and optimal processing conditions are fundamental in low-cost packaging material production. Recently, a novel biobased intact bitter cassava derivative was developed using an intrinsic, high-throughput downstream processing methodology (simultaneous release recovery cyanogenesis). Processing of intact bitter cassava can minimise waste and produce low-cost added value biopolymer packaging films. The objective of this study was to (i) develop and characterise intact bitter cassava biobased films and (ii) determine the optimal processing conditions, which define the most desirable film properties. Films were developed following a Box-Behnken design considering cassava (2, 3, 4 % w/v), glycerol (20, 30, 40 % w/w) and drying temperature (30, 40, 50 °C) and optimized using multi-response desirability. Processing conditions produced films with highly significant (p < 0.05) differences. Developed models predicted impact of processing conditions on film properties. Desirable film properties for food packaging were produced using the optimised processing conditions, 2 % w/v cassava, 40.0%w/w glycerol and 50 °C drying temperature. These processing conditions produced films with 0.3 %; transparency, 3.4 %; solubility, 21.8 %; water-vapour-permeability, 4.2 gmm/m2/day/kPa; glass transition, 56 °C; melting temperature, 212.6 °C; tensile strength, 16.3 MPa; elongation, 133.3 %; elastic modulus, 5.1MPa and puncture resistance, 57.9 J, which are adequate for packaging applications. Therefore, intact bitter cassava is a viable material to produce packaging films that can be tailored for specific sustainable, low-cost applications

Inferring Gene-Phenotype Associations via Global Protein Complex Network Propagation

BACKGROUND: Phenotypically similar diseases have been found to be caused by functionally related genes, suggesting a modular organization of the genetic landscape of human diseases that mirrors the modularity observed in biological interaction networks. Protein complexes, as molecular machines that integrate multiple gene products to perform biological functions, express the underlying modular organization of protein-protein interaction networks. As such, protein complexes can be useful for interrogating the networks of phenome and interactome to elucidate gene-phenotype associations of diseases. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We proposed a technique called RWPCN (Random Walker on Protein Complex Network) for predicting and prioritizing disease genes. The basis of RWPCN is a protein complex network constructed using existing human protein complexes and protein interaction network. To prioritize candidate disease genes for the query disease phenotypes, we compute the associations between the protein complexes and the query phenotypes in their respective protein complex and phenotype networks. We tested RWPCN on predicting gene-phenotype associations using leave-one-out cross-validation; our method was observed to outperform existing approaches. We also applied RWPCN to predict novel disease genes for two representative diseases, namely, Breast Cancer and Diabetes. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Guilt-by-association prediction and prioritization of disease genes can be enhanced by fully exploiting the underlying modular organizations of both the disease phenome and the protein interactome. Our RWPCN uses a novel protein complex network as a basis for interrogating the human phenome-interactome network. As the protein complex network can capture the underlying modularity in the biological interaction networks better than simple protein interaction networks, RWPCN was found to be able to detect and prioritize disease genes better than traditional approaches that used only protein-phenotype associations

7th Drug hypersensitivity meeting: part two

No abstract availabl