ER stress activation in the intestinal mucosa but not in mesenteric adipose tissue is associated with inflammation in Crohn’s disease patients

Chronic/abnormal activation of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is linked to the exacerbation of the inflammatory process and has been recently linked to Crohn’s disease (CD) pathophysiology. We investigated the intestinal mucosa and the mesenteric adipose tissue (MAT) collected from CD patients with active disease (CD group) and from non-IBD patients (CTR group) to study ER stress activation and to address tissue-specific modulation in CD. The intestinal mucosa of CD patients showed an upregulation in the expression of ER stress related genes, including ATF3, DNAJC3, STC2, DDIT3, CALR, HSPA5 and HSP90B1. Results showed that EIF2AK3 gene was upregulated, along with increased protein expression of p-eIF2α and p-eIF2α/eIF2α ratio. Additionally, ERN1 gene expression was upregulated, along with an increased spliced/activated form sXBP1 protein. Despite the upregulation of ATF6 gene expression in the intestinal mucosa of CD patients, no differences were found in ATF6 protein expression. Lastly, the analysis of MAT revealed unchanged levels of ER stress markers along with no differences in the activation of UPR. However, chaperone gene expression was modulated in the MAT of CD patients. To conclude, our results address tissue-specific differences in UPR activation in CD and point the ER stress as an important pro-inflammatory mechanism in CD, specifically in the intestinal mucosa149CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO - CNPQCOORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DE PESSOAL DE NÍVEL SUPERIOR - CAPESFUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO - FAPESP401270/2016-502-P-28707/20122016/01638-

Reliability and validity of body weight and body image perception in children and adolescents from the South American Youth/Child Cardiovascular and Environmental (SAYCARE) Study

Objective: To assess the reliability and validity of body weight (BW) and body image (BI) perception reported by parents (in children) and by adolescents in a South American population. Design: Cross-sectional study. BW perception was evaluated by the question, "Do you think you/your child are/is: severely wasted, wasted, normal weight, overweight, obese?" BI perception was evaluated using the Gardner scale. To evaluate reliability, BW and BI perceptions were reported twice, two weeks apart. To evaluate validity, the BW and BI perceptions were compared with WHO BMI Z-scores. Kappa and Kendall's tau-c coefficients were obtained. Setting: Public and private schools and high schools from six countries of South America (Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil). Participants: Children aged 3-10 years (n 635) and adolescents aged 11-17 years (n 400). Results: Reliability of BW perception was fair in children's parents (k=0·337) and substantial in adolescents (k=0·709). Validity of BW perception was slight in children's parents (k=0·176) and fair in adolescents (k=0·268). When evaluating BI, most children were perceived by parents as having lower weight. Reliability of BI perception was slight in children's parents (k=0·124) and moderate in adolescents (k=0·599). Validity of BI perception was poor in children's parents (k=-0·018) and slight in adolescents (k=0·023). Conclusions: Reliability of BW and BI perceptions was higher in adolescents than in children's parents. Validity of BW perception was good among the parents of the children and adolescents with underweight and normal weight

The ωDD\omega DD vertex in a Sum Rule approach

The study of charmonium dissociation in heavy ion collisions is generally performed in the framework of effective Lagrangians with meson exchange. Some studies are also developed with the intention of calculate form factors and coupling constants related with charmed and light mesons. These quantities are important in the evaluation of charmonium cross sections. In this paper we present a calculation of the $\omega DD$ vertex that is a possible interaction vertex in some meson-exchange models spread in the literature. We used the standard method of QCD Sum Rules in order to obtain the vertex form factor as a function of the transferred momentum. Our results are compatible with the value of this vertex form factor (at zero momentum transfer) obtained in the vector-meson dominance model.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physics Letters