Torta de pinhão-manso (Jatropha curcas): implicações hepatotóxicas

Jatropha has been highlighted as an oleaginous potential for the production of biofuel. The cake, produced by oil extraction, could be used in animal feed. However, some varieties of jatropha are toxic by limiting their incorporation into animal diets. The objective of this study was to evaluate the hepatotoxicity of diets added with jatropha cake – JC (Jatropha curcas) in rats. Thirty-five (35) male Wistar adults rats (Rattus norvegicus) with initial weight of 352.1 ± 26.8 g were used. The animals were fed for 21 days with the diets: control, 10, 25, 40 and 50% JC. In the feeding with 50% JC the animals presented themselves prostrate and with piloerection. Development and survival decreased, since the inclusion of JC in diets increased. In rats submitted to 10 and 25% JC there was an increase of 17.52% in the hepatosomatic index in relation to the control group. Increase of JC in the rat diet promoted an increase in the activity of ALT and AST enzymes. Anatomic-histopathological evaluation demonstrated that, regardless of the levels tested, JC in rat diet causes hypertrophy of the hepatocytes, with a reduction in energy reserves. This study demonstrated that the use of JC resulted in decreased food intake, associated with weight loss due to the clinical pattern of toxicity, demonstrated by biochemical and histopathological changes in the liver. It was concluded that the inclusion of jatropha cake in rat feeding presents high hepatotoxic potential leading to lesions in the liver parenchyma.O pinhão-manso tem se destacado como oleaginosa potencial para a produção de biocombustível. A torta, coproduto da extração do óleo, poderia ser utilizada na alimentação animal. No entanto, algumas variedades de pinhão-manso são tóxicas, limitando sua incorporação em dietas animais. Objetivou-se neste estudo avaliar a hepatotoxicidade de dietas acrescidas de torta de pinhão-manso (Jatropha curcas) em ratos. Foram utilizados trinta e cinco (35) ratos Wistar (Rattus norvergicus) machos adultos com peso inicial de 352,1 ± 26,8 g. Os animais foram alimentados por 21 dias com as dietas: controle, 10, 25, 40 e 50% TPM. Na alimentação com 50% TPM os animais apresentaram-se prostrados e com piloereção. O desenvolvimento e a sobrevivência apresentaram diminuição conforme o aumento da inclusão de TPM nas dietas. Em ratos submetidos a 10 e 25% TPM houve aumento de 17,52% no índice hepatossomático em relação ao grupo controle. O aumento de TPM na dieta de ratos promoveu aumento da atividade das enzimas ALT e AST. A avaliação anatomo-histopatológica revelou que, independentemente dos níveis testados, a TPM na alimentação de ratos provoca hipertrofia dos hepatócitos, com redução das reservas energéticas. Este estudo demonstrou que a utilização de TPM resultou em diminuição do consumo de alimento associado à perda de peso devido ao quadro clínico de toxicidade demonstrado pelas alterações bioquímica e histopatológica no fígado. Conclui-se que a inclusão de torta de pinhão-manso na alimentação de ratos apresenta alto potencial hepatotóxico levando a lesões no parênquima hepático

Caracterização dos carcinomas mamários de fenótipo triplo negativo em um laboratório privado da cidade de Goiânia, Goiás

A neoplasia de mama é o tipo de câncer mais frequente entre as mulheres, com uma estimativa de cerca de 66 mil novos casos para cada ano entre 2020-2022. A incidência deste carcinoma, por si só, justifica a necessidade de estudos aprofundados acerca desta temática. Trata-se de um estudo descritivo transversal, que é um estudo utilizado para traçar perfil epidemiológico da doença em questão, podendo-se levantar dados em um ponto no tempo pré-definido. Foram avaliados 6.379 casos de carcinoma mamário invasor, dos quais 817 foram classificados com fenótipo triplo negativo (TN). O ano de 2020 apresentou o maior número de casos TN. A idade das pacientes variou de 23 a 95 anos, com uma média de 51,8 anos. Nesta pesquisa, apenas 12,8% dos casos de carcinoma mamário invasor foram classificados como Triplo-negativo. Este padrão se repete em estudos internacionais, confirmando que este subtipo é ligeiramente mais raro do que os outros. Pesquisas apontaram que apenas 16% das mulheres que tiveram diagnóstico de neoplasia mamária dentre os anos de 2006-2011 no país receberam a classificação Triplo-negativa. Entre os anos de 2015 e 2021, observamos um aumento de cerca de 73% de diagnósticos de carcinoma triplo negativos no laboratório INGOH. Os casos de câncer de mama são caracterizados pelo tipo Ductal não especial, com predomínio do grau 3, mais prevalentes na mama esquerda e provenientes de Core Biopsy e de pacientes com idade acima de 50 anos

Convalescent plasma for COVID-19 in hospitalised patients : an open-label, randomised clinical trial

Background: The effects of convalescent plasma (CP) therapy in hospitalised patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) remain uncertain. This study investigates the effect of CP on clinical improvement in these patients. Methods: This is an investigator-initiated, randomised, parallel arm, open-label, superiority clinical trial. Patients were randomly (1:1) assigned to two infusions of CP plus standard of care (SOC) or SOC alone. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients with clinical improvement 28 days after enrolment. Results: A total of 160 (80 in each arm) patients (66.3% critically ill, 33.7% severely ill) completed the trial. The median (interquartile range (IQR)) age was 60.5 (48–68) years; 58.1% were male and the median (IQR) time from symptom onset to randomisation was 10 (8–12) days. Neutralising antibody titres >1:80 were present in 133 (83.1%) patients at baseline. The proportion of patients with clinical improvement on day 28 was 61.3% in the CP+SOC group and 65.0% in the SOC group (difference −3.7%, 95% CI −18.8–11.3%). The results were similar in the severe and critically ill subgroups. There was no significant difference between CP+SOC and SOC groups in pre-specified secondary outcomes, including 28-day mortality, days alive and free of respiratory support and duration of invasive ventilatory support. Inflammatory and other laboratory marker values on days 3, 7 and 14 were similar between groups. Conclusions: CP+SOC did not result in a higher proportion of clinical improvement on day 28 in hospitalised patients with COVID-19 compared to SOC alone

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A search for ultra-high-energy photons at the Pierre Auger Observatory exploiting air-shower universality

The Pierre Auger Observatory is the most sensitive detector to primary photons with energies above ∼0.2 EeV. It measures extensive air showers using a hybrid technique that combines a fluorescence detector (FD) with a ground array of particle detectors (SD). The signatures of a photon-induced air shower are a larger atmospheric depth at the shower maximum (X$_{max}$) and a steeper lateral distribution function, along with a lower number of muons with respect to the bulk of hadron-induced background. Using observables measured by the FD and SD, three photon searches in different energy bands are performed. In particular, between threshold energies of 1-10 EeV, a new analysis technique has been developed by combining the FD-based measurement of X$_{max}$ with the SD signal through a parameter related to its muon content, derived from the universality of the air showers. This technique has led to a better photon/hadron separation and, consequently, to a higher search sensitivity, resulting in a tighter upper limit than before. The outcome of this new analysis is presented here, along with previous results in the energy ranges below 1 EeV and above 10 EeV. From the data collected by the Pierre Auger Observatory in about 15 years of operation, the most stringent constraints on the fraction of photons in the cosmic flux are set over almost three decades in energy

Study on multi-ELVES in the Pierre Auger Observatory

Since 2013, the four sites of the Fluorescence Detector (FD) of the Pierre Auger Observatory record ELVES with a dedicated trigger. These UV light emissions are correlated to distant lightning strikes. The length of recorded traces has been increased from 100 μs (2013), to 300 μs (2014-16), to 900 μs (2017-present), to progressively extend the observation of the light emission towards the vertical of the causative lightning and beyond. A large fraction of the observed events shows double ELVES within the time window, and, in some cases, even more complex structures are observed. The nature of the multi-ELVES is not completely understood but may be related to the different types of lightning in which they are originated. For example, it is known that Narrow Bipolar Events can produce double ELVES, and Energetic In-cloud Pulses, occurring between the main negative and upper positive charge layer of clouds, can induce double and even quadruple ELVES in the ionosphere. This report shows the seasonal and daily dependence of the time gap, amplitude ratio, and correlation between the pulse widths of the peaks in a sample of 1000+ multi-ELVES events recorded during the period 2014-20. The events have been compared with data from other satellite and ground-based sensing devices to study the correlation of their properties with lightning observables such as altitude and polarity