Upper limb treatment technigues for stroke survivors

Nowadays, the stroke is considered to be the main cause of acquired disability among adults in the world. Deficits occuring in the upper limb are its widespread consequence.The therapy of a paretic upper limb is the most difficult part of the rehabilitation process, and the recovery of the upper limb functions often takes place only at the final stage of the physiotherapy.The aim of this study is to present a variety of techniques to improve a post-stroke upper limb on the basis of the most recent literature.It was considered that the most important elements of the treatment used in the rehabilitation of the paretic upper limb are: exercise matching the anti-spasm pattern, maintaining appropriate position for exercise that provide an approximation of the shoulder joint and the use of cross-facilitation. The study indicates that the treatment of a post stroke upper limb should be based on the: physiotherapy, kinesiotherapy and specific positioning - all of them corresponding to a given stage of the disease. The work also presents the most frequently used methods, especially highlighting: the Prorioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF), Bobath, Brunnstrom, CIMT and OIT. It was also shown that in order to enhance the effects of a post-stroke upper limb rehabilitation, it should be extended by modern methods such as Mirror Therapy, Virtual Reality or Robot-assisted Therapy

A cap 0-dependent mRNA capture method to analyze the yeast transcriptome

Analysis of the protein coding transcriptome by the RNA sequencing requires either enrichment of the desired fraction of coding transcripts or depletion of the abundant non-coding fraction consisting mainly of rRNA. We propose an alternative mRNA enrichment strategy based on the RNA-binding properties of the human IFIT1, an antiviral protein recognizing cap 0 RNA. Here, we compare for Saccharomyces cerevisiae an IFIT1-based mRNA pull-down with yeast targeted rRNA depletion by the RiboMinus method. IFIT1-based RNA capture depletes rRNA more effectively, producing high quality RNA-seq data with an excellent coverage of the protein coding transcriptome, while depleting cap-less transcripts such as mitochondrial or some non-coding RNAs. We propose IFIT1 as a cost effective and versatile tool to prepare mRNA libraries for a variety of organisms with cap 0 mRNA ends, including diverse plants, fungi and eukaryotic microbes

2D-PAGE as an effective method of RNA degradome analysis

The continuously growing interest in small regulatory RNA exploration is one of the important factors that have inspired the recent development of new high throughput techniques such as DNA microarrays or next generation sequencing. Each of these methods offers some significant advantages but at the same time each of them is expensive, laborious and challenging especially in terms of data analysis. Therefore, there is still a need to develop new analytical methods enabling the fast, simple and cost-effective examination of the complex RNA mixtures. Recently, increasing attention has been focused on the RNA degradome as a potential source of riboregulators. Accordingly, we attempted to employ a two-dimensional gel electrophoresis as a quick and uncomplicated method of profiling RNA degradome in plant or human cells. This technique has been successfully used in proteome analysis. However, its application in nucleic acids studies has been very limited. Here we demonstrate that two dimensional electrophoresis is a technique which allows one to quickly and cost-effectively identify and compare the profiles of 10–90 nucleotide long RNA accumulation in various cells and organs

Polysaccharide-Rich Fractions from <i>Rosa rugosa</i> Thunb.—Composition and Chemopreventive Potential

The huge health-beneficial potential of polysaccharides encourages the search for novel sources and applications of these compounds. One poorly explored source of polysaccharides is the rose. The content and biological activity of polysaccharides in rose organs is an almost completely unaddressed topic, therefore, polysaccharide-rich extracts (crude polysaccharides, CPLs) from petals, leaves, hips, and achenes of Rosa rugosa Thunb. were studied for their composition and the influence on various cellular processes involved in the development of cancer and other civilization diseases. The study revealed the presence of water-soluble and -insoluble polysaccharides (including &#946;-glucans) and protein-polysaccharide conjugates in rose organs. Rose hips were found to be the most abundant source of polysaccharides. Different polysaccharide-rich extracts showed the ability to inhibit pro-inflammatory enzymes (COX-1, COX-2, hyaluronidase), a radical scavenging effect (against DPPH&#8226; and ABTS&#8226;+), and antiproliferative activity (in the A549 lung and SW480 colon cancer cell lines) in in vitro assays. Therefore, rose crude polysaccharides are very promising and can potentially be used as natural chemopreventive agents

Crude Polysaccharide Fraction from <i>Rosa rugosa</i> Thunb. Root—Chemical Characterisation, Enzyme Inhibitory, Antioxidant and Antiproliferative Activity

Rosa rugosa Thunb. (Rosaceae) plantations can provide industrial amounts of roots, which contain many biologically active metabolites. Here, we report the first studies of the chemical composition and pharmacological potential of a crude polysaccharide fraction obtained from R. rugosa roots (CPL-Rx). It was found that the roots contained water-soluble and -insoluble sugars, including a large amount of β-glucans (12.95 ± 0.30 g/100 g). The water-soluble fraction was found to be mostly composed of sugars (28.94 ± 0.01%), uronic acids (2.61 ± 0.41%), and polyphenols (4.55 ± 0.12%). High-performance capillary electrophoresis analysis showed that glucose was the prevalent monosaccharide (64.31%), followed by a smaller amount of galactose (11.77%), fructose (11.36%), and arabinose (4.27%). SDS-PAGE followed by liquid chromatography mass spectrometry revealed the presence of unbound protein identified as protein plastid transcriptionally active 14-Like. CPL-Rx was found to inhibit the activity of pro-inflammatory enzymes (cyclooxygenase and hyaluronidase) and to have antioxidant potential in the Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity assay (0.302 ± 0.01 mmol Trolox/g), DPPH radical scavenging effect (EC50 3.92 ± 0.12 mg/mg DPPH•) and oxygen radical absorbance capacity assay (0.134 ± 0.10 mmol Trolox/g). It also exerted a slight antiproliferative effect on SW480 (colon) and A549 (lung) cancer cell lines. Our research provides the first insights into the composition and pharmacological application of crude polysaccharides from rugosa rose roots. It suggests that CPL-Rx may potentially be used for cosmetic and bio-medical purposes, especially as an antihyaluronidase or chemopreventive agent