The first 8-13 micron spectra of globular cluster red giants: circumstellar silicate dust grains in 47 Tucanae (NGC 104)

We present 8-13 micron spectra of eight red giants in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae (NGC 104), obtained at the European Southern Observatory 3.6m telescope. These are the first mid-infrared spectra of metal-poor, low-mass stars. The spectrum of at least one of these, namely the extremely red, large-amplitude variable V1, shows direct evidence of circumstellar grains made of amorphous silicate.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics, 5 page

Toxicology of Lapachol in rats: embryolethality

Lapachol is a naphtoquinone with therapeutic potential against enterovirus, Chagas disease and is also used as an antimalarial and antiinflamatory agent. In order to study teratogenic potential of Lapachol, pregnant Wistar rats were treated with 0.5 ml of distilled water (control group); 0.5 ml of hydroalcoholic solution (vehicle group) and 10 mg of Lapachol in 0.5 ml of hydroalcoholic solution (treated group) by oral gavage from the 8th to the 12th day of pregnancy. The following variables were observed: maternal body weight on days 1, 6, l5 and 21 and food intake on days 2, 6, 15 and 21 of pregnancy. The number of live and dead fetuses and the sites of resorptions were counted. The ovaries were weighed and the corpora lutea were counted. Data were analyzed by ANOVA-one way, Dunnett test and the chi square test. Significance level test a = 0.05. Results have shown that mothers were unaffected but there were a 99.2% of fetus mortality, indicative of a strong abortifacient effect of Lapachol in rats.O Lapachol é uma naftoquinona com potencial terapêutico contra enterovírus, doença de Chagas e como antimalárico. Para estudar o potencial embriotóxico do Lapachol, ratas originalmente Wistar, grávidas, foram tratadas com 0,5 ml de água destilada (grupo controle); 0,5 ml de solução hidroalcoólica (grupo veículo) e 10 mg de Lapachol em 0,5 ml de solução hidroalcoólica (grupo tratado) por gavage, do 8o ao 12o dia de gestação. As seguintes variáveis foram observadas: peso corporal materno nos dias 1, 6, 15 e 21, consumo de ração nos dias 2, 6, 15 e 21 de gestação. O número de fetos vivos e mortos e os locais de reabsorção foram contados. Os ovários foram pesados e os corpos lúteos, contados. Os dados foram analisados por ANOVA "one way", teste de Dunnet e Qui-quadrado. O nível de significância dos testes foi a = 0,05. Os resultados mostram que as mães não foram afetadas, mas ocorreram 99,2% de mortes fetais, o que indica um potente efeito embriotóxico do Lapachol para o rato

Dust Production and Mass Loss in the Galactic Globular Cluster NGC 362

We investigate dust production and stellar mass loss in the Galactic globular cluster NGC 362. Due to its close proximity to the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), NGC 362 was imaged with the IRAC and MIPS cameras onboard the Spitzer Space Telescope as part of the Surveying the Agents of Galaxy Evolution (SAGE-SMC) Spitzer Legacy program. We detect several cluster members near the tip of the Red Giant Branch that exhibit infrared excesses indicative of circumstellar dust and find that dust is not present in measurable quantities in stars below the tip of the Red Giant Branch. We modeled the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the stars with the strongest IR excess and find a total cluster dust mass-loss rate of 3.0(+2.0/-1.2) x 10^-9 solar masses per year, corresponding to a gas mass-loss rate of 8.6(+5.6/-3.4) x 10^-6 solar masses per year, assuming [Fe/H] = -1.16. This mass loss is in addition to any dust-less mass loss that is certainly occurring within the cluster. The two most extreme stars, variables V2 and V16, contribute up to 45% of the total cluster dust-traced mass loss. The SEDs of the more moderate stars indicate the presence of silicate dust, as expected for low-mass, low-metallicity stars. Surprisingly, the SED shapes of the stars with the strongest mass-loss rates appear to require the presence of amorphous carbon dust, possibly in combination with silicate dust, despite their oxygen-rich nature. These results corroborate our previous findings in omega Centauri.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures. Accepted to Ap

Detection of tuberculosis drug resistance a comparison by Mycobacterium tuberculosis MLPA assay versus Genotype®MTBDRplus

BACKGROUND: To cope with the emergence of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), new molecular methods that can routinely be used to screen for a wide range of drug resistance related genetic markers in the Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome are urgently needed. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the performance of multiplex ligaton-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) against Genotype® MTBDRplus to detect resistance to isoniazid (INHr) and rifampicin (RIFr). METHOD: 96 culture isolates characterised for identification, drug susceptibility testing (DST) and sequencing of rpoB, katG, and inhA genes were evaluated by the MLPA and Genotype®MTBDRplus assays. RESULTS: With sequencing as a reference standard, sensitivity (SE) to detect INHr was 92.8% and 85.7%, and specificity (SP) was 100% and 97.5%, for MLPA and Genotype®MTBDRplus, respectively. In relation to RIFr, SE was 87.5% and 100%, and SP was 100% and 98.8%, respectively. Kappa value was identical between Genotype®MTBDRplus and MLPA compared with the standard DST and sequencing for detection of INHr [0.83 (0.75-0.91)] and RIFr [0.93 (0.88-0.98)]. CONCLUSION: Compared to Genotype®MTBDRplus, MLPA showed similar sensitivity to detect INH and RIF resistance. The results obtained by the MLPA and Genotype®MTBDRplus assays indicate that both molecular tests can be used for the rapid detection of drug-resistant TB with high accuracy. MLPA has the added value of providing information on the circulating M. tuberculosis lineages.publishersversionpublishe

Reliability of Rapid Diagnostic Tests in Diagnosing Pregnancy-Associated Malaria in North-Eastern Tanzania.

Accurate diagnosis and prompt treatment of pregnancy-associated malaria (PAM) are key aspects in averting adverse pregnancy outcomes. Microscopy is the gold standard in malaria diagnosis, but it has limited detection and availability. When used appropriately, rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) could be an ideal diagnostic complement to microscopy, due to their ease of use and adequate sensitivity in detecting even sub-microscopic infections. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is even more sensitive, but it is mainly used for research purposes. The accuracy and reliability of RDTs in diagnosing PAM was evaluated using microscopy and PCR. A cohort of pregnant women in north-eastern Tanzania was followed throughout pregnancy for detection of plasmodial infection using venous and placental blood samples evaluated by histidine rich protein 2 (HRP-2) and parasite lactate dehydrogenase (pLDH) based RDTs (Parascreen™) or HRP-2 only (Paracheck Pf® and ParaHIT®f), microscopy and nested Plasmodium species diagnostic PCR. From a cohort of 924 pregnant women who completed the follow up, complete RDT and microscopy data was available for 5,555 blood samples and of these 442 samples were analysed by PCR. Of the 5,555 blood samples, 49 ((proportion and 95% confidence interval) 0.9% [0.7 -1.1]) samples were positive by microscopy and 91 (1.6% [1.3-2.0]) by RDT. Forty-six (50.5% [40.5 - 60.6]) and 45 (49.5% [39.4 - 59.5]) of the RDT positive samples were positive and negative by microscopy, respectively, whereas nineteen (42.2% [29.0 - 56.7]) of the microscopy negative, but RDT positive, samples were positive by PCR. Three (0.05% [0.02 - 0.2]) samples were positive by microscopy but negative by RDT. 351 of the 5,461 samples negative by both RDT and microscopy were tested by PCR and found negative. There was no statistically significant difference between the performances of the different RDTs. Microscopy underestimated the real burden of malaria during pregnancy and RDTs performed better than microscopy in diagnosing PAM. In areas where intermittent preventive treatment during pregnancy may be abandoned due to low and decreasing malaria risk and instead replaced with active case management, screening with RDT is likely to identify most infections in pregnant women and out-performs microscopy as a diagnostic tool

SMC-Last Extracted Photometry

We present point-source photometry from the Spitzer Space Telescope's final survey of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). We mapped nearly 30 deg2 in two epochs in 2017, with the second extending to early 2018 at 3.6 and 4.5 μm using the Infrared Array Camera. This survey duplicates the footprint from the SAGE-SMC program in 2008. Together, these surveys cover a nearly 10 yr temporal baseline in the SMC. We performed aperture photometry on the mosaicked maps produced from the new data. We did not use any prior catalogs as inputs for the extractor in order to be sensitive to any moving objects (e.g., foreground brown dwarfs) and other transient phenomena (e.g., cataclysmic variables or FU Ori–type eruptions). We produced a point-source catalog with high-confidence sources for each epoch as well as a combined-epoch catalog. For each epoch and the combined-epoch data, we also produced a more complete archive with lower-confidence sources. All of these data products will be made available to the community at the Infrared Science Archive

Imbalance of NET and Alpha-1-Antitrypsin in Tuberculosis Patients Is Related With Hyper Inflammation and Severe Lung Tissue Damage

Background: Pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) can lead to lung tissue damage (LTD) and compromise the pulmonary capacity of TB patients that evolve to severe PTB. The molecular mechanisms involved in LTD during anti-tuberculous treatment (ATT) remain poorly understood.Methods and findings: We evaluated the role of neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) and the occurrence of LTD through chest radiographic images, the microbial load in sputum, and inflammatory serum profile (IL-12p40/p70, IL-8, IL-17A, IL-23, VEGF-A, MMP-1, and -8, galectin-3, citrunillated histone H3—cit-H3, alpha-1-antitrypsin—α1AT, C-reactive protein—CRP and albumin) in a cohort of 82 PTB patients before and after 60 days of ATT. Using univariate analysis, LTD was associated with neutrophilia and increase of several inflammatory proteins involved in the neutrophil-mediated response, being cit-H3 the more related to the event. In the multivariate analysis, neutrophilia and cit-H3 appear as directly related to LTD. The analysis of the ROC curve at day 60 presented AUC of 0.97 (95.0% CI 0.95–1). Interestingly, at day 0 of ATT, these biomarkers demonstrated fine relation with LTD showing an AUC 0.92 (95.0% CI 0.86–0.99). Despite of that, the same molecules have no impact in culture conversion during ATT.Conclusions: Our data revealed that NETs may play a key role in the pathway responsible for non-specific inflammation and tissue destruction in PTB. High level of cit-H3 and low level of α1AT was observed in the serum of severe TB patients, suggesting a breakdown in the intrinsic control of NET-driven tissue damage. These data show a new insight to knowledge TB immunopathogenesis, the role of neutrophil and NET pathway. Likewise, we identified possible biomarkers to screening of PTB patients eligible to adjuvants therapies, as anti-inflammatories and alpha-1-antitrypsin

Comorbidade de sintomas ansiosos e depressivos em pacientes com dor crônica e o impacto sobre a qualidade de vida

BACKGROUND: Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience. Both chronic pain and depression result in substantial disability reduced HRQoL and increased health care costs and utilization. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the strength of the association between depressive and anxiety symptoms and chronic pain, and to investigate the impact of these symptoms on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in chronic pain individuals. METHODS: Pain was assessed by means of a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). Depressive and anxiety symptoms were assessed by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression (HAD) scale. Quality of life was assessed by means of the SF-36. RESULTS: Four hundred patients were studied, mean age 45.6 ± 11.4 years and 82.8% female gender. According to HAD, 70% had anxiety and 60% depression symptoms. SF-36 showed mean scores < 50% for all the domains. Patients with severe pain/extreme (70.4%) had a higher frequency of anxiety than those with pain selvagem/moderada (59,5%). This was a statistically significant (p = 0.027). However, the frequency of depression did not reach statistical significance when both groups were compared p = 0.109). DISCUSSION: Depressive/anxiety symptoms and pain together have worse clinical outcomes than each condition alone.CONTEXTO: Dor é uma experiência emocional e sensorial desagradável. Tanto a dor crônica como a depressão reduzem de forma significativa a qualidade de vida, além de aumentar muito os custos dos cuidados com a saúde. OBJETIVOS: Analisar a associação entre sintomas depressivos e de ansiedade em relação à dor crônica e investigar o impacto desses sintomas na saúde e na qualidade de vida em indivíduos com dor crônica. MÉTODOS: A dor foi avaliada por meio de uma Escala Analógica Visual (VAS). Os sintomas depressivos e a ansiedade foram avaliados pela Escala Hospitalar de Ansiedade e Depressão (HAD). A qualidade de vida foi avaliada por meio do SF-36. RESULTADOS: Quatrocentos pacientes foram estudados, com idade média de 45,6 ± 11,4 anos e 82,8% são do sexo feminino. De acordo com a HAD, 70% tinham ansiedade e 60%, os sintomas de depressão. A SF-36 apresentou escores < 50% para todos os domínios. Os pacientes com dor intensa/ extrema apresentaram maior frequência (70,4%) de ansiedade do que aqueles com dor selvagem/moderada (59,5%). Essa foi uma associação estatisticamente significante (p = 0,027). No entanto, a frequência de depressão não atingiu significância estatística quando ambos os grupos foram comparados (p = 0,109). CONCLUSÃO: Os sintomas depressivos/ansiedade e dor, em conjunto, apresentaram piores desfechos clínicos de cada estado sozinho. É necessária mais investigação para determinar se o tratamento da dor ajuda os sintomas dos pacientes depressivos e se o alívio dos sintomas depressivos melhora a dor e sua morbidade