Comparison between intermediate and severe coronary stenoses and clinical outcomes of an OCT-guided PCI strategy

We compared optical coherence tomography (OCT) features of intermediate and severe coronary stenoses in patients with stable angina and acute coronary syndrome (ACS), and tested the clinical impact of an OCT-based strategy for treating intermediate stenoses

Materials and Tools across Volcanoes: Exploitation of Georesources in Piano dei Cardoni (Ustica, Italy) during Prehistory.

The paper aims at merging the first results from the analyses of the georesources exploited in the site of Piano dei Cardoni (Ustica island, Italy) during the Neolithic phases of its occupation (Middle-Late Neolithic, 4.7-4.2 ka cal BC). Grinding tools consist of a very varied typology of local volcanic rocks, easy to collect and available very close to the investigated site. A selection of shapes and lithology is applied to reach the best performance of the tools. The elevated number of grinders, pestles, mortars testify to an intense activity of food/plant processing in the site. The absence of chert or obsidian resources on the island pushed the human communities to import such raw materials from the Aeolian islands and probably from the north-western area of Palermo. Pumice is collected on the same island, probably due to the local availability and its good quality. Similarly, local clay resources are used for the manufacture of ceramics, mostly burnished and incised wares. Ustica was therefore almost autonomous for the exploitation of resources, with volcanic rocks readily available in abundance and with the most significant exception being chert and obsidian. This last one probably imported and worked on the island and then moved towards North-Western Sicily.&nbsp

The blockade of the transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1 and fatty acid amide hydrolase decreases symptoms and central sequelae in the medial prefrontal cortex of neuropathic rats

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Neuropathic pain is a chronic disease resulting from dysfunction within the "pain matrix". The basolateral amygdala (BLA) can modulate cortical functions and interactions between this structure and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) are important for integrating emotionally salient information. In this study, we have investigated the involvement of the transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1 (TRPV1) and the catabolic enzyme fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) in the morphofunctional changes occurring in the pre-limbic/infra-limbic (PL/IL) cortex in neuropathic rats.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The effect of <it>N</it>-arachidonoyl-serotonin (AA-5-HT), a hybrid FAAH inhibitor and TPRV1 channel antagonist, was tested on nociceptive behaviour associated with neuropathic pain as well as on some phenotypic changes occurring on PL/IL cortex pyramidal neurons. Those neurons were identified as belonging to the BLA-mPFC pathway by electrical stimulation of the BLA followed by hind-paw pressoceptive stimulus application. Changes in their spontaneous and evoked activity were studied in sham or spared nerve injury (SNI) rats before or after repeated treatment with AA-5-HT. Consistently with the SNI-induced changes in PL/IL cortex neurons which underwent profound phenotypic reorganization, suggesting a profound imbalance between excitatory and inhibitory responses in the mPFC neurons, we found an increase in extracellular glutamate levels, as well as the up-regulation of FAAH and TRPV1 in the PL/IL cortex of SNI rats. Daily treatment with AA-5-HT restored cortical neuronal activity, normalizing the electrophysiological changes associated with the peripheral injury of the sciatic nerve. Finally, a single acute intra-PL/IL cortex microinjection of AA-5-HT transiently decreased allodynia more effectively than URB597 or I-RTX, a selective FAAH inhibitor or a TRPV1 blocker, respectively.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These data suggest a possible involvement of endovanilloids in the cortical plastic changes associated with peripheral nerve injury and indicate that therapies able to normalize endovanilloid transmission may prove useful in ameliorating the symptoms and central sequelae associated with neuropathic pain.</p

Apoptosis is associated with triacylglycerol accumulation in Jurkat T-cells

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy is increasingly used as a non-invasive method to investigate apoptosis. Apoptosis was induced in Jurkat T-cells by Fas mAb. 1H magnetic resonance spectra of live cells showed an increase in methylene signal as well as methylene/methyl ratio of fatty acid side chains at 5 and 24 h following induction of apoptosis. To explain this observation, 1H magnetic resonance spectra of cell extracts were investigated. These demonstrated a 70.0±7.0%, 114.0±8.0% and 90.0±5.0% increase in the concentration of triacylglycerols following 3, 5 and 7 h of Fas mAb treatment (P<0.05). Confocal microscopy images of cells stained with the lipophilic dye Nile Red demonstrated the presence of lipid droplets in the cell cytoplasm. Quantification of the stained lipids by flow cytometry showed a good correlation with the magnetic resonance results (P⩾0.05 at 3, 5 and 7 h). 31P magnetic resonance spectra showed a drop in phosphatidylcholine content of apoptosing cells, indicating that alteration in phosphatidylcholine metabolism could be the source of triacylglycerol accumulation during apoptosis. In summary, apoptosis is associated with an early accumulation of mobile triacylglycerols mostly in the form of cytoplasmic lipid droplets. This is reflected in an increase in the methylene/methyl ratio which could be detected by magnetic resonance spectroscopy

High Yield Production Process for Shigella Outer Membrane Particles

Gram-negative bacteria naturally shed particles that consist of outer membrane lipids, outer membrane proteins, and soluble periplasmic components. These particles have been proposed for use as vaccines but the yield has been problematic. We developed a high yielding production process of genetically derived outer membrane particles from the human pathogen Shigella sonnei. Yields of approximately 100 milligrams of membrane-associated proteins per liter of fermentation were obtained from cultures of S. sonnei ΔtolR ΔgalU at optical densities of 30–45 in a 5 L fermenter. Proteomic analysis of the purified particles showed the preparation to primarily contain predicted outer membrane and periplasmic proteins. These were highly immunogenic in mice. The production of these outer membrane particles from high density cultivation of bacteria supports the feasibility of scaling up this approach as an affordable manufacturing process. Furthermore, we demonstrate the feasibility of using this process with other genetic manipulations e.g. abolition of O antigen synthesis and modification of the lipopolysaccharide structure in order to modify the immunogenicity or reactogenicity of the particles. This work provides the basis for a large scale manufacturing process of Generalized Modules of Membrane Antigens (GMMA) for production of vaccines from Gram-negative bacteria

Response of littoral chironomid community and organic matter to late glacial lake level and environmental changes at Lago dell'Accesa (Tuscany, Italy).

International audienceThis study focuses on the response of lacustrine littoral chironomid communities to late glacial changes in limnological, environmental and climate conditions in the Mediterranean context. Late glacial chironomid (Diptera: Chironomidae) assemblages, organic petrography and geochemistry were analysed in a sediment core from the littoral zone of Lago dell'Accesa (Tuscany, Italy), where the lake-level fluctuations and the vegetation history have been previously reconstructed. Comparison of the chironomid stratigraphy to other proxies (pollen assemblages, organic petrography and geochemistry, lake-level) and regional climate reconstruction suggested the predominant influence of lake-level changes on the littoral chironomid fauna. The main lowering events that occurred during the Oldest and the Younger Dryas were followed by higher proportions of taxa typical of littoral habitats. A complementary study of organic matter suggested the indirect impact of lake-level on the chironomids through changes in humic status and habitat characteristics, such as the type of substrate and aquatic macrophyte development. Several chironomid taxa, such as Glyptotendipes, Microtendipes and Cricotopus type patens, were identified as possible indicators of low lake-level in the late glacial records. Nevertheless, this study suggested that parallel analyses of organic matter and chironomid assemblages may be needed to circumvent misinterpretation of littoral chironomid assemblage stratigraphy. There was a weak response of the chironomid assemblages to small lake-level lowerings that corresponded to the Older Dryas and Preboreal oscillations. A higher level of determination, e.g. to the species group level, may be necessary to increase the sensibility of the indicators to lake-level changes

Real-time Monitoring for the Next Core-Collapse Supernova in JUNO

Core-collapse supernova (CCSN) is one of the most energetic astrophysical events in the Universe. The early and prompt detection of neutrinos before (pre-SN) and during the SN burst is a unique opportunity to realize the multi-messenger observation of the CCSN events. In this work, we describe the monitoring concept and present the sensitivity of the system to the pre-SN and SN neutrinos at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), which is a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector under construction in South China. The real-time monitoring system is designed with both the prompt monitors on the electronic board and online monitors at the data acquisition stage, in order to ensure both the alert speed and alert coverage of progenitor stars. By assuming a false alert rate of 1 per year, this monitoring system can be sensitive to the pre-SN neutrinos up to the distance of about 1.6 (0.9) kpc and SN neutrinos up to about 370 (360) kpc for a progenitor mass of 30$M_{\odot}$ for the case of normal (inverted) mass ordering. The pointing ability of the CCSN is evaluated by using the accumulated event anisotropy of the inverse beta decay interactions from pre-SN or SN neutrinos, which, along with the early alert, can play important roles for the followup multi-messenger observations of the next Galactic or nearby extragalactic CCSN.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure

Potential of Core-Collapse Supernova Neutrino Detection at JUNO

JUNO is an underground neutrino observatory under construction in Jiangmen, China. It uses 20kton liquid scintillator as target, which enables it to detect supernova burst neutrinos of a large statistics for the next galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) and also pre-supernova neutrinos from the nearby CCSN progenitors. All flavors of supernova burst neutrinos can be detected by JUNO via several interaction channels, including inverse beta decay, elastic scattering on electron and proton, interactions on C12 nuclei, etc. This retains the possibility for JUNO to reconstruct the energy spectra of supernova burst neutrinos of all flavors. The real time monitoring systems based on FPGA and DAQ are under development in JUNO, which allow prompt alert and trigger-less data acquisition of CCSN events. The alert performances of both monitoring systems have been thoroughly studied using simulations. Moreover, once a CCSN is tagged, the system can give fast characterizations, such as directionality and light curve

Detection of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background with JUNO

As an underground multi-purpose neutrino detector with 20 kton liquid scintillator, Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is competitive with and complementary to the water-Cherenkov detectors on the search for the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB). Typical supernova models predict 2-4 events per year within the optimal observation window in the JUNO detector. The dominant background is from the neutral-current (NC) interaction of atmospheric neutrinos with 12C nuclei, which surpasses the DSNB by more than one order of magnitude. We evaluated the systematic uncertainty of NC background from the spread of a variety of data-driven models and further developed a method to determine NC background within 15\% with {\it{in}} {\it{situ}} measurements after ten years of running. Besides, the NC-like backgrounds can be effectively suppressed by the intrinsic pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) capabilities of liquid scintillators. In this talk, I will present in detail the improvements on NC background uncertainty evaluation, PSD discriminator development, and finally, the potential of DSNB sensitivity in JUNO