Epigenetics of brain development in workers of the European honeybee, Apis mellifera.

Relatório de estágio no âmbito de mestrado (Análises Clínicas), apresentado á Faculdade de Farmácia da Universidade de CoimbraO presente relatório pretende descrever as atividades realizadas durante o decurso do estágio curricular do Mestrado em Análises Clínicas da FFUC, realizado principalmente no Serviço de Patologia Clínica do Centro Hospitalar do Baixo Vouga (CHBV). Inicialmente é apresentada uma abordagem geral do local de estágio, relativamente à sua organização, áreas analíticas e tecnologia disponível, seguida pelo aprofundamento das seções da Hematologia e da Imunologia, enfatizando a sua estruturação, os procedimentos de garantia de qualidade, os princípios de funcionamento dos equipamentos e o fundamento dos parâmetros analíticos avaliados. As restantes áreas analíticas são descritas brevemente no contexto da sua importância no laboratório e da sua incorporação no plano de estágio. Este relatório fornece também um breve comentário das atividades realizadas nos Serviços de Imunohemoterapia do CHBVThe following report describes the activities performed during the course of the internship of the curricular program of the Master’s Degree in Clinical Analysis of FFUP, held mainly in the Clinical Pathology Services of Centro Hospitalar do Baixo Vouga (CHBV). Initially it presents an overall approach of the facilities, regarding its organization, analytical areas and available equipment, followed by the detailed description of the Hematology and Immunology sectors, emphasizing its structure, quality assurance procedures, operating principles of the analyzers and the fundamentals of the evaluated analytical parameters. The remaining analytical sectors are briefly described in terms of their importance in the clinical laboratory and its integration in the internship. This report also presents a brief commentary on the activities performed on the Immunohematology Services of CHB

Differences in urinary trichloroethylene metabolites of animals.

Differences in urinary excretion of trichloroethylene were studied in rabbits, rats and mice. Trichloretylene (1 m mole/kg) was injected intra-peritoneally, then urinary trichloroacetic acid and trichloroethanol glucuronide were measured. The results were: 1. The ratio of total excretion of trichloroethylene metabolites to the administered trichloroethylene decreased in the order of mice, rats and rabbits. 2. The ratio of total trichloroethanol to trichloroacetic acid in urine decreased in the order of rabbits (69.2), mice (12.8) and rats (2.3). The high ratio in rabbits was due to the extremely small amount of trichloroacetic acid in the urine. 3. Differences in these two urinary metabolites in the three kinds of animals and in human subjects were discussed.</p

Transcriptome Responses of Insect Fat Body Cells to Tissue Culture Environment

Tissue culture is performed to maintain isolated portions of multicellular organisms in an artificial milieu that is outside the individual organism and for considerable periods of time; cells derived from cultured explants are, in general, different from cells of the corresponding tissue in a living organism. The changes in cultured tissues that precede and often explain the subsequent cell proliferation of explant-derived cells have been partially studied, but little is known about the molecular and genomic basis of these changes. Comparative transcriptomics of intact and cultured (90 hours in MGM-450 insect medium) Bombyx mori tissues revealed that fewer genes represented a larger portion of the transcriptome of intact fat body tissues than of cultured fat body tissues. This analysis also indicated that expression of genes encoding sugar transporters and immune response proteins increased during culture and that expression of genes encoding lipoproteins and cuticle proteins decreased during culture. These results provide support for hypotheses that cultured tissues respond immunologically to surgery, adapt to the medium by accelerating sugar uptake, and terminate their identity as part of an intact organism by becoming independent of that organism

Physiological effects of a novel artificially synthesized antimalarial cyclic peptide: Mahafacyclin B.

Mahafacyclin B is a cyclic peptide isolated from the latex of Jatropha mahafalensis and is an antimalarial agent. However, the physiological effects of mahafacyclin B in mammalian cells are not known. Here, we assessed the growth, morphology, and alterations in the transcriptome of CHO-K1 cells exposed to mahafacyclin B (0-22 μM). Mahafacyclin B at 2.2 μM did not affect the proliferation or death of CHO-K1 cells. Mahafacyclin B was not toxic to mammalian cells at 2.2 μM, which represents a normal physiological concentration at which mahafacyclin B retains its antimalarial properties. Interestingly, mahafacyclin B altered the size and morphology of CHO-K1 cells. Comparative transcriptomics revealed that mahafacyclin B modulated the expression of a specific subset of genes