Para-infectious brain injury in COVID-19 persists at follow-up despite attenuated cytokine and autoantibody responses

To understand neurological complications of COVID-19 better both acutely and for recovery, we measured markers of brain injury, inflammatory mediators, and autoantibodies in 203 hospitalised participants; 111 with acute sera (1–11 days post-admission) and 92 convalescent sera (56 with COVID-19-associated neurological diagnoses). Here we show that compared to 60 uninfected controls, tTau, GFAP, NfL, and UCH-L1 are increased with COVID-19 infection at acute timepoints and NfL and GFAP are significantly higher in participants with neurological complications. Inflammatory mediators (IL-6, IL-12p40, HGF, M-CSF, CCL2, and IL-1RA) are associated with both altered consciousness and markers of brain injury. Autoantibodies are more common in COVID-19 than controls and some (including against MYL7, UCH-L1, and GRIN3B) are more frequent with altered consciousness. Additionally, convalescent participants with neurological complications show elevated GFAP and NfL, unrelated to attenuated systemic inflammatory mediators and to autoantibody responses. Overall, neurological complications of COVID-19 are associated with evidence of neuroglial injury in both acute and late disease and these correlate with dysregulated innate and adaptive immune responses acutely

Oxidação do borneol à cânfora com água sanitária - um experimento simples, de baixo custo e limpo Oxidation of borneol to camphor with bleach: a simple, green chemistry and inexpensive experiment

<abstract language="eng">Regulatory pressure is increasingly focusing on the use and disposal of substances hazardous to human health and environment. In the last years efforts have also been made to introduce green chemistry concepts in undergraduate courses. In this paper we present an experiment on the oxidation reaction of borneol to camphor with bleach in acetone. This experiment is important to show undergraduate students that a cheap and non hazardous commercial product can be a useful oxidation agent of alcohols

Rapid tests for the detection of the Mycobacterium abscessus subsp. bolletii strain responsible for an epidemic of surgical-site infections in Brazil

A single strain of Mycobacterium abscessus subsp. bolletii, characterised by a particular rpoB sequevar and two highly related pulsed field gel electrophoresis patterns has been responsible for a nationwide outbreak of surgical infections in Brazil since 2004. In this study, we developed molecular tests based on polymerase chain reaction restriction-enzyme analysis (PRA) and sequencing for the rapid identification of this strain. Sequences of 15 DNA regions conserved in mycobacteria were retrieved from GenBank or sequenced and analysed in silico. Single nucleotide polymorphisms specific to the epidemic strain and located in enzyme recognition sites were detected in rpoB, the 3' region of the 16S rDNA and gyrB. The three tests that were developed, i.e., PRA-rpoB, PRA-16S and gyrB sequence analysis, showed 100%, 100% and 92.31% sensitivity and 93.06%, 90.28% and 100% specificity, respectively, for the discrimination of the surgical strain from other M. abscessus subsp. bolletii isolates, including 116 isolates from 95 patients, one environmental isolate and two type strains. The results of the three tests were stable, as shown by results obtained for different isolates from the same patient. In conclusion, due to the clinical and epidemiological importance of this strain, these tests could be implemented in reference laboratories for the rapid preliminary diagnosis and epidemiological surveillance of this epidemic strain

Characterization of Mycobacterium tuberculosis var. africanum isolated from a patient with pulmonary tuberculosis in Brazil

Universidade Federal de Goiás. Hospital das Clínicas. Goiânia, GO, Brazil.Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Instituto Nacional de Infectologia Evandro Chagas. Programa de Pós-graduação em Pesquisa Clínica e Doenças Infecciosas. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil / Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Instituto Oswaldo Cruz. Laboratório de Biologia Molecular Aplicada em Micobacterias. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.Universidade Federal de Goiás. Hospital das Clínicas. Goiânia, GO, Brazil.Universidade Federal de Goiás. Hospital das Clínicas. Goiânia, GO, Brazil.Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Instituto Oswaldo Cruz. Laboratório de Biologia Molecular Aplicada em Micobacterias. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil / Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Instituto de Microbiologia Professor Paulo de Góes. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.Instituto de Biomedicina Dr. Jacinto Convit. Instituto de Biomedicina. San Jose, Caracas, Venezuela / Universidad de Las Américas. Facultad de Ciencias de La Salud. One Health Research Group. Quito, Ecuador.Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Centro de Referência Professor Hélio Fraga. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Centro de Referência Professor Hélio Fraga. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Centro de Referência Professor Hélio Fraga. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Centro de Referência Professor Hélio Fraga. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Centro de Referência Professor Hélio Fraga. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.Ministério da Saúde. Secretaria de Vigilância em Saúde. Instituto Evandro Chagas. Ananindeua, PA, Brasil.Ministério da Saúde. Secretaria de Vigilância em Saúde. Instituto Evandro Chagas. Ananindeua, PA, Brasil.International Institute of InformationTechnology - Bangalore. Department of Data Science. Bangalore, India.Corporación para Investigaciones Biológicas. Medellín, Colombia.Corporación para Investigaciones Biológicas. Medellín, Colombia.Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Instituto de Microbiologia Professor Paulo de Góes. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Instituto de Microbiologia Professor Paulo de Góes. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Instituto Oswaldo Cruz. Laboratório de Biologia Molecular Aplicada em Micobacterias. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Instituto Oswaldo Cruz. Laboratório de Biologia Molecular Aplicada em Micobacterias. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.Institute of Tropical Medicine. Mycobacteriology Unit. Antwerp, Belgium.Institute of Tropical Medicine. Mycobacteriology Unit. Antwerp, Belgium.Universidade Federal de Goiás. Instituto de Patologia Tropical e Saúde Pública. Goiânia, GO, Brazil.Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Instituto Oswaldo Cruz. Laboratório de Biologia Molecular Aplicada em Micobacterias. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.Human tuberculosis (TB) is caused by members of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC), including Mycobacterium tuberculosis var. tuberculosis (MTB) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis var. africanum (MAF). While MTB is isolated worldwide, MAF is almost completely restricted to the African continent, and despite the historical proximity between Brazil and Africa during the slave trade, no case of TB being caused by MAF has been reported in Brazil to date. We hereby describe the first case of TB caused by MAF in Brazil comparing its genome against the published ones. A female patient who had never visited Africa presented with clinical symptoms typical of pulmonary TB. Based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing, the cultured isolate was identified as belonging to MTBC and partial sequence of the hsp65 gene was identical to that of MAF. This was confirmed by genotyping based on detection of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP), Region of Difference (RD) and spoligotyping. The isolate presented the Shared International Typing (SIT) 181. In the whole-genome comparison against MAF genomes available on published EMBL-EBI European Nucleotide Archive (ENA), the Brazilian genome (MAFBRA00707) was identified as belonging to Lineage 6 and clustered with isolates from The Gambia. This is the first report of the isolation of MAF from a patient from Brazil, without evidence of having any contact with an African index cas