Sensory perception in preschool children affected by autism spectrum disorder: A pilot study

Introduction: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a behavioral syndrome caused by a developmental disorder, biologically determined, with onset in the first three years of life. The areas concerned are mainly those related to social communication, social interaction and mutual functional and symbolic play. In the last decades, different conceptions of autism have taken, also emphasizing different sensory-perceptual abnormalities as the basis of the central features of disorder. This pilot study intends to address the issue of sensory perception in preschool children affected by ASD. Material and methods: 11 ASD children were enrolled (7 males, 4 female) aged between 2.3 years and 4.6 years, (mean age 3.29 \ub1 0.72). The control group consisted of 24 typical developing children (15 males, 9 females) (mean age 3.08 \ub1 0.87). All subjects underwent assessment of sensory perceptual abilities according to the Bogdashina's Sensory Profile Checklist Revised (SPCR) evaluation (43). Results: The two groups are comparable for age (p = 0.491) and sex distribution (p = 0.755). Table 1 shows the comparison between the two groups results in the SPCR, specifically, individuals with ASD, showed significantly higher scores on near all perception areas evaluated than healthy controls, suggesting a clear perceptual impairment in ASD subjects. Only for olfactory perception two groups were comparable. Conclusions: no significant differences in behavioral reaction to smell stimulation between ASD and typical developing children, and this result could be explained according to the early age of our sample that could cause high reactivity to smell stimulation also in typical developing examined children

Metabolic characterization of Palatinate German white wines according to sensory attributes, varieties, and vintages using NMR spectroscopy and multivariate data analyses

1H NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy) has been used for metabolomic analysis of ‘Riesling’ and ‘Mueller-Thurgau’ white wines from the German Palatinate region. Diverse two-dimensional NMR techniques have been applied for the identification of metabolites, including phenolics. It is shown that sensory analysis correlates with NMR-based metabolic profiles of wine. 1H NMR data in combination with multivariate data analysis methods, like principal component analysis (PCA), partial least squares projections to latent structures (PLS), and bidirectional orthogonal projections to latent structures (O2PLS) analysis, were employed in an attempt to identify the metabolites responsible for the taste of wine, using a non-targeted approach. The high quality wines were characterized by elevated levels of compounds like proline, 2,3-butanediol, malate, quercetin, and catechin. Characterization of wine based on type and vintage was also done using orthogonal projections to latent structures (OPLS) analysis. ‘Riesling’ wines were characterized by higher levels of catechin, caftarate, valine, proline, malate, and citrate whereas compounds like quercetin, resveratrol, gallate, leucine, threonine, succinate, and lactate, were found discriminating for ‘Mueller-Thurgau’. The wines from 2006 vintage were dominated by leucine, phenylalanine, citrate, malate, and phenolics, while valine, proline, alanine, and succinate were predominantly present in the 2007 vintage. Based on these results, it can be postulated the NMR-based metabolomics offers an easy and comprehensive analysis of wine and in combination with multivariate data analyses can be used to investigate the source of the wines and to predict certain sensory aspects of wine

New Role for Cdc14 Phosphatase: Localization to Basal Bodies in the Oomycete Phytophthora and Its Evolutionary Coinheritance with Eukaryotic Flagella

Cdc14 protein phosphatases are well known for regulating the eukaryotic cell cycle, particularly during mitosis. Here we reveal a distinctly new role for Cdc14 based on studies of the microbial eukaryote Phytophthora infestans, the Irish potato famine agent. While Cdc14 is transcribed constitutively in yeast and animal cells, the P. infestans ortholog is expressed exclusively in spore stages of the life cycle and not in vegetative hyphae where the bulk of mitosis takes place. PiCdc14 expression is first detected in nuclei at sporulation, and during zoospore formation the protein accumulates at the basal body, which is the site from which flagella develop. The association of PiCdc14 with basal bodies was supported by co-localization studies with the DIP13 basal body protein and flagellar β-tubulin, and by demonstrating the enrichment of PiCdc14 in purified flagella-basal body complexes. Overexpressing PiCdc14 did not cause defects in growth or mitosis in hyphae, but interfered with cytoplasmic partitioning during zoosporogenesis. This cytokinetic defect might relate to its ability to bind microtubules, which was shown using an in vitro cosedimentation assay. The use of gene silencing to reveal the precise function of PiCdc14 in flagella is not possible since we showed previously that silencing prevents the formation of the precursor stage, sporangia. Nevertheless, the association of Cdc14 with flagella and basal bodies is consistent with their phylogenetic distribution in eukaryotes, as species that lack the ability to produce flagella generally also lack Cdc14. An ancestral role of Cdc14 in the flagellar stage of eukaryotes is thereby proposed

Metabolic constituents of grapevine and grape-derived products

The numerous uses of the grapevine fruit, especially for wine and beverages, have made it one of the most important plants worldwide. The phytochemistry of grapevine is rich in a wide range of compounds. Many of them are renowned for their numerous medicinal uses. The production of grapevine metabolites is highly conditioned by many factors like environment or pathogen attack. Some grapevine phytoalexins have gained a great deal of attention due to their antimicrobial activities, being also involved in the induction of resistance in grapevine against those pathogens. Meanwhile grapevine biotechnology is still evolving, thanks to the technological advance of modern science, and biotechnologists are making huge efforts to produce grapevine cultivars of desired characteristics. In this paper, important metabolites from grapevine and grape derived products like wine will be reviewed with their health promoting effects and their role against certain stress factors in grapevine physiology

Species-specific regulation of angiogenesis by glucocorticoids reveals contrasting effects on inflammatory and angiogenic pathways

<div><p>Glucocorticoids are potent inhibitors of angiogenesis in the rodent <i>in vivo</i> and <i>in vitro</i> but the mechanism by which this occurs has not been determined. Administration of glucocorticoids is used to treat a number of conditions in horses but the angiogenic response of equine vessels to glucocorticoids and, therefore, the potential role of glucocorticoids in pathogenesis and treatment of equine disease, is unknown. This study addressed the hypothesis that glucocorticoids would be angiostatic both in equine and murine blood vessels.The mouse aortic ring model of angiogenesis was adapted to assess the effects of cortisol in equine vessels. Vessel rings were cultured under basal conditions or exposed to: foetal bovine serum (FBS; 3%); cortisol (600 nM), cortisol (600nM) plus FBS (3%), cortisol (600nM) plus either the glucocorticoid receptor antagonist RU486 or the mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist spironolactone. In murine aortae cortisol inhibited and FBS stimulated new vessel growth. In contrast, in equine blood vessels FBS alone had no effect but cortisol alone, or in combination with FBS, dramatically increased new vessel growth compared with controls. This effect was blocked by glucocorticoid receptor antagonism but not by mineralocorticoid antagonism. The transcriptomes of murine and equine angiogenesis demonstrated cortisol-induced down-regulation of inflammatory pathways in both species but up-regulation of pro-angiogenic pathways selectively in the horse. Genes up-regulated in the horse and down-regulated in mice were associated with the extracellular matrix. These data call into question our understanding of glucocorticoids as angiostatic in every species and may be of clinical relevance in the horse.</p></div