Vigilância epidemiológica do vírus do Nilo Ocidental no mundo e no Brasil: relevância da vigilância equina no contexto de saúde única

O vírus do Nilo Ocidental (WNV) é um flavivírus neuropatogênico transmitido por mosquito, mantido na natureza emum ciclo de transmissão zoonótica entre as aves e os mosquitos ornitofílicos, principalmente do gênero Culex. Até a décadade 1990, o WNV era considerado um arbovírus do mundo antigo, mas em 1999 surgiu nos Estados Unidos da Américae se espalhou rapidamente, tornando-se uma grande ameaça à saúde pública. O WNV se adaptou ao ciclo envolvendomosquitos e pássaros americanos e chegou à América Central e do Sul nos anos subsequentes. Em 2003, o Sistema Nacionalde Vigilância da Febre do Nilo Ocidental no Brasil foi criado com base na triagem sorológica de animais sentinelas evetores, conforme recomendado pela Organização Pan-Americana da Saúde (OPAS) e pela Organização Mundial daSaúde (OMS). Desde 2008, evidências sorológicas de infecção por WNV em equinos brasileiros têm sido relatadas e acirculação do WNV monitorada por meio de triagem sorológica de cavalos sentinelas, além da notificação de casos deencefalomielite. Os equinos são altamente suscetíveis ao WNV e surtos de doenças neurológicas geralmente precedemcasos humanos. Nesse sentido, a vigilância equina tem sido essencial para fornecer um alerta precoce às autoridades desaúde pública e animal em vários países, incluindo o Brasil. Isso demonstra a necessidade de programas de intervençãoem saúde pública e animal para alocar recursos e conscientizar os médicos veterinários sobre seu papel em processos devigilância humana que envolvam equinos. Nesta revisão, é discutida a importância da vigilância equina e dos médicosveterinários como linha de frente na vigilância humana no Brasil e no mundo, no contexto de saúde única.West Nile virus (WNV) is a neurovirulent mosquito-borne Flavivirus that is maintained in nature by a zoonotic transmissioncycle between avian hosts and ornithophilic mosquito vectors, mostly from the Culex genus. Until the 1990s, WNV wasconsidered to be an old-world arbovirus, but in 1999, WNV emerged in the United States (US) and spread rapidly, becoming amajor threat to public health. WNV adapted to the transmission cycle involving American mosquitoes and birds and reachedCentral and South America in subsequent years. In 2003, the National West Nile Fever Surveillance System was created in Brazilbased on serological screening of animals and sentinel vectors, as recommended by the Pan American Health Organization(PAHO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Since 2008, serological evidence of WNV infection in Brazilian horseshas been reported, and the circulation of WNV has been monitored through the regular serological screening of sentinel horsesand reporting of encephalomyelitis cases. Horses are highly susceptible to WNV infection, and outbreaks of neurologicaldisease among horses often precede human cases. In this regard, equine surveillance has been essential in providing earlywarning to public and animal health authorities in several countries, including Brazil. This demonstrates the need for animaland public health intervention programs to allocate resources to make veterinarians aware of the role they can play in thehuman surveillance processes by monitoring horses. This review discusses the importance of equine surveillance and the gapthat veterinarians can fill on the front line in human surveillance, in Brazil and worldwide, in the context of “One Health

Uncoupling of Satellite DNA and Centromeric Function in the Genus Equus

In a previous study, we showed that centromere repositioning, that is the shift along the chromosome of the centromeric function without DNA sequence rearrangement, has occurred frequently during the evolution of the genus Equus. In this work, the analysis of the chromosomal distribution of satellite tandem repeats in Equus caballus, E. asinus, E. grevyi, and E. burchelli highlighted two atypical features: 1) several centromeres, including the previously described evolutionary new centromeres (ENCs), seem to be devoid of satellite DNA, and 2) satellite repeats are often present at non-centromeric termini, probably corresponding to relics of ancestral now inactive centromeres. Immuno-FISH experiments using satellite DNA and antibodies against the kinetochore protein CENP-A demonstrated that satellite-less primary constrictions are actually endowed with centromeric function. The phylogenetic reconstruction of centromere repositioning events demonstrates that the acquisition of satellite DNA occurs after the formation of the centromere during evolution and that centromeres can function over millions of years and many generations without detectable satellite DNA. The rapidly evolving Equus species gave us the opportunity to identify different intermediate steps along the full maturation of ENCs

Serum Albumin Is Inversely Associated With Portal Vein Thrombosis in Cirrhosis

We analyzed whether serum albumin is independently associated with portal vein thrombosis (PVT) in liver cirrhosis (LC) and if a biologic plausibility exists. This study was divided into three parts. In part 1 (retrospective analysis), 753 consecutive patients with LC with ultrasound-detected PVT were retrospectively analyzed. In part 2, 112 patients with LC and 56 matched controls were entered in the cross-sectional study. In part 3, 5 patients with cirrhosis were entered in the in vivo study and 4 healthy subjects (HSs) were entered in the in vitro study to explore if albumin may affect platelet activation by modulating oxidative stress. In the 753 patients with LC, the prevalence of PVT was 16.7%; logistic analysis showed that only age (odds ratio [OR], 1.024; P = 0.012) and serum albumin (OR, -0.422; P = 0.0001) significantly predicted patients with PVT. Analyzing the 112 patients with LC and controls, soluble clusters of differentiation (CD)40-ligand (P = 0.0238), soluble Nox2-derived peptide (sNox2-dp; P < 0.0001), and urinary excretion of isoprostanes (P = 0.0078) were higher in patients with LC. In LC, albumin was correlated with sCD4OL (Spearman's rank correlation coefficient [r(s)], -0.33; P < 0.001), sNox2-dp (r(s), -0.57; P < 0.0001), and urinary excretion of isoprostanes (r(s), -0.48; P < 0.0001) levels. The in vivo study showed a progressive decrease in platelet aggregation, sNox2-dp, and urinary 8-iso prostaglandin F2 alpha-III formation 2 hours and 3 days after albumin infusion. Finally, platelet aggregation, sNox2-dp, and isoprostane formation significantly decreased in platelets from HSs incubated with scalar concentrations of albumin. Conclusion: Low serum albumin in LC is associated with PVT, suggesting that albumin could be a modulator of the hemostatic system through interference with mechanisms regulating platelet activation

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics' resources: focus on curated databases

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (www.isb-sib.ch) provides world-class bioinformatics databases, software tools, services and training to the international life science community in academia and industry. These solutions allow life scientists to turn the exponentially growing amount of data into knowledge. Here, we provide an overview of SIB's resources and competence areas, with a strong focus on curated databases and SIB's most popular and widely used resources. In particular, SIB's Bioinformatics resource portal ExPASy features over 150 resources, including UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot, ENZYME, PROSITE, neXtProt, STRING, UniCarbKB, SugarBindDB, SwissRegulon, EPD, arrayMap, Bgee, SWISS-MODEL Repository, OMA, OrthoDB and other databases, which are briefly described in this article

La Integración Económica Latinoamericana: ¿oportunidad perdida o el desafío de repensarla? Un breve recorrido desde sus inicios hasta el presente.

Se pasa revista a las primeras etapas de la integración económica de América Latina, enfatizando el quiebre de los procesos de los años 80’ al regionalismo abierto de los 90’. Luego se enfoca en el cambio político en el siglo XXI, y el giro parcial hacia un regionalismo post liberal. Finalmente, se analiza en qué medida el fin del ciclo progresista y la tendencia creciente de TLC podría implicar el riesgo de ir hacia la estrategia de los países del Pacífico en materia de integración

Amplification of the pericentromeric region of chromosome 1 in a newly established colon carcinoma cell line

The LRWZ cell line was established from an ascitic effusion of a colon adenocarcinoma. We studied the karyotype of LRWZ cells using G-banding and chromosome painting. The cell line is near triploid and is characterized by several chromosome rearrangements and pronounced intermetaphase variation. Chromosome painting probes revealed numerous labeled regions on different chromosomes, indicating that several translocations occurred during the evolution of the cell population. The 10 recurrent marker chromosomes identified (M1-M10) were derived from complex rearrangements involving up to three different chromosomes. M2 is a particularly interesting marker that originated from the amplification of the pericentromeric region of chromosome 1 and has a peculiar organization comprising five copies of the region included between 1p21 and 1q21 and is surprisingly stable: it is present in all the metaphases analyzed, has telomeric DNA at both termini, and contains one active and four inactivated centromeres. To provide insights into the molecular mechanisms that generated M2, we performed fluorescence in situ hybridization experiments using a panel of probes mapping near the centromere of chromosome 1 and three probes for different satellite sequences; the formation of chromosome M2 required the intervention of several rearrangements including unequal exchange, chromatid breakage followed by fusion of the sister chromatids, and loss of centromeric heterochromatin