Paralytic shellfish toxins and ocean warming: bioaccumulation and ecotoxicological responses in jujvenile Gilthead Seabream (Sparus aurata)

Warmer seawater temperatures are expected to increase harmful algal blooms (HABs) occurrence, intensity, and distribution. Yet, the potential interactions between abiotic stressors and HABs are still poorly understood from ecological and seafood safety perspectives. The present study aimed to investigate, for the first time, the bioaccumulation/depuration mechanisms and ecotoxicological responses of juvenile gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) exposed to paralytic shellfish toxins (PST) under different temperatures (18, 21, 24 °C). PST were detected in fish at the peak of the exposure period (day five, 0.22 µg g-1 N-sulfocarbamoylGonyautoxin-1-2 (C1 and C2), 0.08 µg g-1 Decarbamoylsaxitoxin (dcSTX) and 0.18 µg g-1 Gonyautoxin-5 (B1)), being rapidly eliminated (within the first 24 h of depuration), regardless of exposure temperature. Increased temperatures led to significantly higher PST contamination (275 µg STX eq. kg-1). During the trial, fish antioxidant enzyme activities (superoxide dismutase, SOD; catalase, CAT; glutathione S-transferase, GST) in both muscle and viscera were affected by temperature, whereas a significant induction of heat shock proteins (HSP70), Ubiquitin (Ub) activity (viscera), and lipid peroxidation (LPO; muscle) was observed under the combination of warming and PST exposure. The differential bioaccumulation and biomarker responses observed highlight the need to further understand the interactive effects between PST and abiotic stressors, to better estimate climate change impacts on HABs events, and to develop mitigation strategies to overcome the potential risks associated with seafood consumption.Agência financiadora European Union (EU) 678193 Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) IF/00253/2014 CEECIND/01739/2017 UID/Multi/04326/2019info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Diferenciación morfológica y genética del pejesapo (Halobatrachus didactylus) entre estudarios y áreas costeras del Portugal

The Lusitanian toadfish, Halobatrachus didactylus (Bloch and Schneider, 1801), is distributed from the Ghana coast to the Iberian Peninsula, being particularly abundant on the south coast of Portugal. The differentiation of this species along the Portuguese coast was assessed through the analysis of 10 samples, considering morphological characters (20 morphometric and 16 meristic) and genetic markers (10 allozymes, 11 loci). Southern samples included estuaries and their adjacent coastal areas, given that this species inhabits both environments, whereas western samples only comprised estuaries. Morphometric and meristic data discriminant analysis evidenced some differentiation between estuarine and coastal populations. This was not entirely corroborated by the genetic analysis, which showed an overall pattern of low FST (0.042) and Nei’s genetic distance, even between geographically distant areas. However, higher values of these parameters were found between estuaries of the south coast and their adjacent coastal areas, suggesting that estuarine systems play a major role in such differentiation. Results are discussed regarding toadfish life-history pattern and Portuguese coast geomorphology, giving an insight into the biological and environmental factors influencing population sub-structuring.El pejesapo, Halobatrachus didactylus (Bloch y Schneider, 1801), está distribuido desde la costa de Ghana hasta la Península Ibérica, siendo particularmente abundante en la costa sur portuguesa. La diferenciación de esta especie a lo largo de la costa Portuguesa se ha evaluado a través del análisis de diez muestras, considerando caracteres morfológicos (20 características morfométricas y 16 merísticas) y genéticos (10 aloenzimas, 11 loci). Hacia el sur, las muestras incluyen estuarios y sus áreas costeras adyacentes, ya que esta especie habita ambos ambientes, mientras que las muestras del oeste están relacionadas sólo a estuarios. El análisis discriminante de los datos morfométricos y merísticos evidenciaron diferenciación entre poblaciones de estuarios y costeras, lo cual no fue enteramente corroborado por el análisis genético, el cual mostró un patrón general de bajo FST (0.042) y distancia genética de Nei, incluyendo áreas geográficamente distantes. Sin embargo, valores más altos de estos parámetros fueron encontrados entre estuarios de la costa sur y sus áreas costeras adyacentes, sugiriendo que los sistemas de estuarios juegan un papel importante en tal diferenciación. Los resultados son discutidos considerando los patrones de historia de vida del pejesapo y la geomorfología de la costa portuguesa, dando una perspectiva de cómo los procesos biológicos y factores ambientales influyen la sub- estructuración poblacional.

Characteristics of Streptococcus agalactiae colonizing nonpregnant adults support the opportunistic nature of invasive infections

Copyright © 2022 Martins et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.The prevalence and lineages of Streptococcus agalactiae (group B streptococci [GBS]) colonizing pregnant women are well studied, but less is known about colonization of nonpregnant adults. We characterized GBS colonization in adults as a potential reservoir for infections and tested for the presence of clones with a potentially higher invasive disease potential. We evaluated GBS gastrointestinal, genitourinary, and oral colonization among 336 nonpregnant adults in the community. We characterized the isolates by serotyping, multilocus sequence typing, profiling of surface protein genes and pili, and antimicrobial susceptibility and compared them with contemporary invasive isolates. The colonization rate (n = 107, 32%) among nonpregnant adults was like that of pregnant women. Colonization increased with age (~25% in the 18 to 29 and 30 to 44 years old groups and >42% in the ≥60 years old group), potentially explaining the higher incidence of disease with older age. Participants who were colonized at multiple sites (73%) were frequently carrying indistinguishable strains (93%), consistent with the existence of a single reservoir of colonization and transfer of GBS between sites within the same individual. The most frequent lineages found were serotype Ib/CC1 (n = 27), serotype V/CC1 (n = 19), serotype Ia/CC23 (n = 13), serotype III/ST17 (n = 13), and serotype Ib/CC10 (n = 11). Comparison with contemporary isolates causing invasive infections in Portugal did not reveal any lineage associated with either asymptomatic carriage or invasive disease. Asymptomatic colonization of nonpregnant adults is significant and could act as a reservoir for invasive disease, but in contrast to infant disease, we found no GBS lineages with an enhanced potential for causing invasive disease in adults. IMPORTANCE The increasing incidence of Streptococcus agalactiae (group B streptococci [GBS]) infections in adults and the inability of antimicrobial prophylaxis peripartum to control late-onset infections in infants motivate the study of the asymptomatic carrier state in nonpregnant adults. We found an overall carriage rate like that of pregnant women, increasing with age, potentially contributing to the higher incidence of GBS infections with age. Colonization of diabetic participants was not higher despite the higher number of infections in this group. Comparison between contemporary genetic lineages causing infections and found in asymptomatic carriers did not identify particularly virulent lineages. This means that any prophylactic approaches targeting colonization by particular lineages are expected to have a limited impact on GBS disease in adults.ERM was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (SFRH/BPD/80038/2011 and DL57/2016/CP1451/CT0009).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Systematic reviews and meta-analysis published in indexed Portuguese medical journals: time trends and critical appraisal

© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativeco mmons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.Introduction: Over the last years, the number of systematic reviews published is steadily increasing due to the global interest in this type of evidence synthesis. However, little is known about the characteristics of this research published in Portuguese medical journals. This study aims to evaluate the publication trends and overall quality of these systematic reviews. Material and methods: This was a methodological study. We aimed the most visible Portuguese medical journals indexed in MEDLINE. Systematic reviews were identified through an electronic search (through PUBMED). We included systematic reviews published up to August 2020. Systematic reviews selection and data extraction were done independently by three authors. The overall quality critical appraisal using the A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews (AMSTAR-2) was independently assessed by three authors. Disagreements were solved by consensus. Results: Sixty-six systematic reviews published in 5 Portuguese medical journals were included. Most (n = 53; 80.3%) were systematic reviews without meta-analysis. Up to 2010 there was a steady increase in the number of systematic reviews published, followed by a period of great variability of publication, ranging from 1 to 10 in a given year. According to the systematic reviews' typology, most have been predominantly conducted to assess the effectiveness/efficacy of health interventions (n = 27; 40.9%). General and Internal Medicine (n = 20; 30.3%) was the most addressed field. Most systematic reviews (n = 46; 69.7%) were rated as being of "critically low-quality". Conclusions: There were consistent flaws in the methodological quality report of the systematic reviews included, particularly in establishing a prior protocol and not assessing the potential impact of the risk of bias on the results. Through the years, the number of systematic reviews published increased, yet their quality is suboptimal. There is a need to improve the reporting of systematic reviews in Portuguese medical journals, which can be achieved by better adherence to quality checklists/tools.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

HOXA9 promotes glioblastoma initiation, aggressiveness and resistance to therapy

Glioblastoma is the most common and malignant subtype of glioma, exhibiting remarkable resistance to treatment. Here we investigated the oncogenic potential of HOXA9 in gliomagenesis, the molecular and cellular mechanisms by which HOXA9 may render glioblastoma more aggressive, and how HOXA9 affects response to chemotherapy and prognosis. Expression microarrays were used to identify HOXA9 target genes. Stable glioblastoma cell lines with ectopic HOXA9 overexpression or shRNA-­mediated knockdown of HOXA9 were established to evaluate the roles of HOXA9 in cell viability, death, invasion, and response to temozolomide. Subcutaneous and orthotopic intracranial xenograft models of glioblastoma were established to evaluate the oncogenic potential of HOXA9 in vivo, and its role in response to temozolomide and overall survival. Transcriptomic analyses identified novel HOXA9-­target genes that have key roles in critical cancer processes, including cell proliferation, adhesion, DNA metabolism and repair, and stem cell maintenance. Functional assays with a variety of glioblastoma cells revealed that HOXA9 promotes cell viability, stemness, and invasion; conversely, HOXA9 displayed anti-­apoptotic functions. Additionally, ectopic expression of HOXA9 promoted the malignant transformation of human immortalized astrocytes in an intracranial orthotopic mouse model of glioblastoma, and caused tumor-­associated death. HOXA9 also mediated resistance to temozolomide treatment both in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, BCL2 was identified as a novel HOXA9 target that may be therapeutically targeted. Indeed, the pharmacological inhibition of BCL2 with ABT-­737 specifically reverted temozolomide resistance in HOXA9-­positive cells. These data establish HOXA9 as a critical driver of glioma initiation, aggressiveness and resistance to therapy

cEpiderm, a Canine Skin Analog Suitable for In Vivo Testing Replacement

Skin is one of the organs most tested for toxicity and safety evaluation during the process of drug research and development and in the past has usually been performed in vivo using animals. Over the last few years, non-animal alternatives have been developed and validated epidermis models for human and rat skin are already available. Our goal was to develop a histotypical canine skin analog, suitable for non-animal biocompatibility and biosafety assessment. Canine keratinocytes were seeded in an air-lift culture using an adapted version of the CELLnTEC protocol. Corrosion and irritation protocols were adapted from human EpiSkinTM. For histological analysis, sample biopsies were fixed in neutral-buffered formalin, and paraffin slices were routinely processed and stained with hematoxylin and eosin. A canine multilayer and stratified epidermal-like tissue (cEpiderm), confirmed by histological analysis, was obtained. The cEpiderm tissue exhibited normal morphological and functional characteristics of epidermis, namely impermeability and an adequate response to stressors. The cEpiderm is a promising canine skin model for non-animal safety testing of veterinary pharmaceuticals and/or cosmetics, significantly contributing to reducing undesirable in vivo approaches. cEpiderm is therefore a valid canine skin model and may be made commercially available either as a service or as a product

Envelhecimento ativo e saúde dos idosos de Loures: uma perspetiva multidisciplinar

A OMS define o envelhecimento ativo como o processo de otimizar as oportunidades de saúde, de participação na sociedade e de segurança a fim de melhorar a qualidade de vida à medida que as pessoas vão envelhecendo. O envelhecimento ativo permite que as pessoas realizem o seu potencial, nas várias vertentes da sua vida. A doença crónica é um dos fatores que fragilizam este processo nesse sentido, a promoção do envelhecimento ativo exige uma abordagem multidimensional e multidisciplinar que permita aos individuo idoso, um envelhecimento com uma maior qualidade de vida. Objetivo do estudo: caracterizar e avaliar aspetos da saúde, no envelhecimento da população idosa do concelho de Loures

Characterizing partial AZFc deletions of the Y chromosome with amplicon-specific sequence markers

BACKGROUND: The AZFc region of the human Y chromosome is a highly recombinogenic locus containing multi-copy male fertility genes located in repeated DNA blocks (amplicons). These AZFc gene families exhibit slight sequence variations between copies which are considered to have functional relevance. Yet, partial AZFc deletions yield phenotypes ranging from normospermia to azoospermia, thwarting definite conclusions on their real impact on fertility. RESULTS: The amplicon content of partial AZFc deletion products was characterized with novel amplicon-specific sequence markers. Data indicate that partial AZFc deletions are a male infertility risk [odds ratio: 5.6 (95% CI: 1.6–30.1)] and although high diversity of partial deletion products and sequence conversion profiles were recorded, the AZFc marker profiles detected in fertile men were also observed in infertile men. Additionally, the assessment of rearrangement recurrence by Y-lineage analysis indicated that while partial AZFc deletions occurred in highly diverse samples, haplotype diversity was minimal in fertile men sharing identical marker profiles. CONCLUSION: Although partial AZFc deletion products are highly heterogeneous in terms of amplicon content, this plasticity is not sufficient to account for the observed phenotypical variance. The lack of causative association between the deletion of specific gene copies and infertility suggests that AZFc gene content might be part of a multifactorial network, with Y-lineage evolution emerging as a possible phenotype modulator

Impacto do uso de cigarros eletrônicos na evolução clínica de pacientes infectados pela Covid-19 / Impact of electronic cigarette use on the clinical evolution of patients infected by Covid-19

A pandemia da COVID-19 demonstrou ser um evento de alta morbimortalidade que afetou o mundo drasticamente. Verifica-se que os indivíduos de maior susceptibilidade aos maiores danos relacionados a doença são pessoas com comorbidades e hábitos de vida nocivos. Os cigarros eletrônicos na última década tiveram maciça popularização, de modo importante, entre a população mais jovem. Nesse contexto, o uso dos cigarros eletrônicos se mostrou como importante promotor de resposta inflamatória sistêmica no organismo que gera importantes danos, tanto isoladamente quanto em associação com a infecção pelo SARS-CoV-2. O presente estudo objetivou realizar uma revisão de literatura sobre os impactos do uso de cigarros eletrônicos e o quadro clínico de pacientes contaminados pela COVID-19. Trata-se de uma revisão bibliográfica realizada por meio de buscas nos bancos de dados Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde (BVS), National Library of Medicine (PubMed) e Scientific Electronic Library Online (Scielo). As palavras-chave utilizadas foram “covid-19”, “vape” e “sintomas” e seus correspondentes em inglês associados ao operador booleano AND. Na literatura pesquisada foram encontradas evidências que relacionam o uso de cigarros eletrônicos ao pior prognóstico em caso de infecção pela COVID-19. Usuários dos referidos dispositivos apresentaram maior probabilidade de contaminação pelo vírus e frequência maior de sintomas tais como dor ou aperto no peito (16% vs 10%, usuários vs não usuários, P  = 0,005), calafrios (25% vs 19%, usuários vs não usuários, P  = 0,0016), mialgia (39% vs 32%, usuários vs não usuários, P  = 0,004), dores de cabeça (49% vs 41% usuários vs não usuários, P  = 0,026), anosmia/disgeusia (37% vs 30 %, usuários vs não usuários, P  = 0,009), náusea/vômito/dor abdominal (16% vs 10%, usuários vs não usuários, P = 0,003), diarreia (16% vs 10%, usuários vs não usuários, P  = 0,004) e tontura não grave (16% vs 9%, usuários vs não usuários, P  < 0,001). Os cigarros eletrônicos se tornaram um real problema de saúde pública, que no atual momento de pandemia deve ser encarado com seriedade para a redução da morbimortalidade da doença