The Italian arm of the PREPARE study: an international project to evaluate and license a maternal vaccine against group B streptococcus.

BACKGROUND: Group B streptococcus (GBS) is a leading cause of sepsis, pneumonia and meningitis in infants, with long term neurodevelopmental sequelae. GBS may be associated with poor pregnancy outcomes, including spontaneous abortion, stillbirth and preterm birth. Intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis (IAP) is currently the only way to prevent early-onset disease (presenting at 0 to 6 days of life), although it has no impact on the disease presenting over 6 days of life and its implementation is challenging in resource poor countries. A maternal vaccine against GBS could reduce all GBS manifestations as well as improve pregnancy outcomes, even in low-income countries. MAIN BODY: The term "PREPARE" designates an international project aimed at developing a maternal vaccination platform to test vaccines against neonatal GBS infections by maternal immunization. It is a non-profit, multi-center, interventional and experimental study (promoted by the St George University of London. [UK]) with the aim of developing a maternal vaccination platform, determining pregnancy outcomes, and defining the extent of GBS infections in children and mothers in Africa. PREPARE also aims to estimate the protective serocorrelates against the main GBS serotypes that cause diseases in Europe and Africa and to conduct two trials on candidate GBS vaccines. PREPARE consists of 6 work packages. In four European countries (Italy, UK, Netherlands, France) the recruitment of cases and controls will start in 2020 and will end in 2022. The Italian PREPARE network includes 41 centers. The Italian network aims to collect: GBS isolates from infants with invasive disease, maternal and neonatal sera (cases); cord sera and GBS strains from colonized mothers whose infants do not develop GBS infection (controls). SHORT CONCLUSION: PREPARE will contribute information on protective serocorrelates against the main GBS serotypes that cause diseases in Europe and Africa. The vaccine that will be tested by the PREPARE study could be an effective strategy to prevent GBS disease

Gas cromatografia: un metodo d?analisi adatto alle missioni spaziali

La gas cromatografia è un metodo di analisi comunemente utilizzato nelle ricerche spaziali, per lo studio sulla composizione dell’atmosfera dei pianeti. In questo caso la strumentazione e le condizioni operative devono soddisfare severe limitazioni (possibilità di automazione, basso consumo energetico…) dovute alle condizioni di volo. Inoltre le analisi GC sono utilizzate in esperimenti di laboratorio per caratterizzare i prodotti risultanti da esperienze di simulazione della chimica atmosferica dei pianeti. In questo lavoro vengono sviluppate nuove procedure per adeguare il software di elaborazione del cromatogramma alle applicazioni di rilevanza spaziale, in particolare alle condizioni isoterme richieste per le analisi in situ durante le missioni spaziali. In particolare sono descritte applicazioni allo studio di miscele prodotte in esperimenti di laboratorio per studi prebiotici: viene sintetizzata una miscela simile all’atmosfera di Titano, che rappresenta le condizioni prebiotiche della Terra. Tali studi sono collegati alla missione Huygens-Cassini per l’esplorazione di Titano. Inoltre si sono studiate separazioni GC per l’analisi della composizione del nucleo delle comete (esperimento COSAC nella missione Rosetta)

Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis of amino acid enantiomers asmethyl chloroformate derivatives: Application to space analysis

This work describes a GC–MS method for enantioselective separation of amino acids. The method is based on a derivatization reaction which employs a mixture of alkyl chloroformate–alcohol–pyridine, as reagents to obtain the N(O,S)-alkyl alkoxy carbonyl esters of amino acids. Various reaction parameters are investigated and optimized to achieve a reproducible derivatization procedure suitable for separation of amino acid enantiomers on Chirasil-l-Val chiral stationary phase. In particular, the following topics are investigated for 20 proteinogenic amino acids: (i) the proper reagent and reaction conditions to obtain the highest derivative yield; (ii) the amino acid reactivity and the MS properties of the obtained derivatives; (iii) the linearity and sensitivity of the analytical method; (iv) the retention behavior of the derivatives and their enantiomeric separation on the Chirasil-l-Val chiral stationary phase. By combining the resolution power of the Chirasil-l-Val column and the high selectivity of the SIM MS detection mode, the described procedure enables the enantiomeric separation and quantification of 16 enantiomeric pairs of amino acids. The procedure is simple and fast and reproducible. It displays a wide linearity range at ppb detection limits for quantitative determinations: these properties make this derivatization method a suitable candidate for amino acid GC–MS analysis on board of the spacecrafts in space exploration missions of solar system body environments

In situ analysis of the martian soil by gas chromatography: decoding of complex chromatograms of organic molecules of exobiological interest

Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) will be used in future space exploration missions, in order to seek organic molecules at the surface of Mars, and especially potential chemical indicators of life. Carboxylic acids are among the most expected organic species at the surface of Mars, and they could be numerous in the analysed samples. For this reason, a chemometric method was applied to support the interpretation of chromatograms of carboxylic acid mixtures. The method is based on AutoCovariance Function (ACVF) in order to extract information on the sample—number and chemical structure of the components—and on separation performance. The procedure was applied to standard samples containing targeted compounds which are among the most expected to be present in the Martian soil: n-alkanoic and benzene dicarboxylic acids. ACVF was computed on the obtained chromatograms and plotted versus retention time: peaks of the ACVF plot can be related to specific molecular structures and are diagnostic for chemical identification of compounds