Effects of Interleukin-1β in Glycinergic Transmission at the Central Amygdala

Indexación ScopusInterleukin-1β (IL-1β) is an important cytokine that modulates peripheral and central pain sensitization at the spinal level. Among its effects, it increases spinal cord excitability by reducing inhibitory Glycinergic and GABAergic neurotransmission. In the brain, IL-1β is released by glial cells in regions associated with pain processing during neuropathic pain. It also has important roles in neuroinflammation and in regulating NMDA receptor activity required for learning and memory. The modulation of glycine-mediated inhibitory activity via IL-1β may play a critical role in the perception of different levels of pain. The central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) participates in receiving and processing pain information. Interestingly, this nucleus is enriched in the regulatory auxiliary glycine receptor (GlyR) β subunit (βGlyR); however, no studies have evaluated the effect of IL-1β on glycinergic neurotransmission in the brain. Hence, we hypothesized that IL-1β may modulate GlyR-mediated inhibitory activity via interactions with the βGlyR subunit. Our results show that the application of IL-1β (10 ng/ml) to CeA brain slices has a biphasic effect; transiently increases and then reduces sIPSC amplitude of CeA glycinergic currents. Additionally, we performed molecular docking, site-directed mutagenesis, and whole-cell voltage-clamp electrophysiological experiments in HEK cells transfected with GlyRs containing different GlyR subunits. These data indicate that IL-1β modulates GlyR activity by establishing hydrogen bonds with at least one key amino acid residue located in the back of the loop C at the ECD domain of the βGlyR subunit. The present results suggest that IL-1β in the CeA controls glycinergic neurotransmission, possibly via interactions with the βGlyR subunit. This effect could be relevant for understanding how IL-1β released by glia modulates central processing of pain, learning and memory, and is involved in neuroinflammation. © Copyright © 2021 Solorza, Oliva, Castillo, Amestica, Maldifassi, López-Cortés, Barra, Stehberg, Piesche, Sáez-Briones, González, Arenas-Salinas and Mariqueo.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2021.613105/ful

Highly-parallelized simulation of a pixelated LArTPC on a GPU

The rapid development of general-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) is allowing the implementation of highly-parallelized Monte Carlo simulation chains for particle physics experiments. This technique is particularly suitable for the simulation of a pixelated charge readout for time projection chambers, given the large number of channels that this technology employs. Here we present the first implementation of a full microphysical simulator of a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) equipped with light readout and pixelated charge readout, developed for the DUNE Near Detector. The software is implemented with an end-to-end set of GPU-optimized algorithms. The algorithms have been written in Python and translated into CUDA kernels using Numba, a just-in-time compiler for a subset of Python and NumPy instructions. The GPU implementation achieves a speed up of four orders of magnitude compared with the equivalent CPU version. The simulation of the current induced on 10^3 pixels takes around 1 ms on the GPU, compared with approximately 10 s on the CPU. The results of the simulation are compared against data from a pixel-readout LArTPC prototype

A functional SiO2-TiO2 mesoporous assembly designed for the controlled release of carvacrol

Mesoporous composites can be useful for the gentle release of biocides and fertilizers. Here, we study the structural, morphological, and drug-delivery advantages of SiO2-TiO2 (PST) particles synthesized by a hydrothermal method. The PST particles had a spherical-like assembly architecture, which was obtained by cobalt ions incorporation. Each assembly contains nanobars with acute or obtuse tip shape, notably in the sample with 0.5 wt% of Co. Drug loading/delivery evaluations were carried out using carvacrol (CVC) as biocidal molecule. PST composites functionalized with the triethanolamine presented higher load efficiencies of 30–37% and load capacities of 20–26%. A similar trend occurred for the release percentage of CVC. The PST samples without functionalization had a release of only 19–29% (at pH=7.4). After the TEOA functionalization, the release percentage was enhanced to 64–78%. Moreover, the PST had a maximum release percentage of 64.8% reached after only 3 min (at pH=7.4). In contrast, the PST doped with 1 wt% of Co reached the maximum release percentage of 64.8% after 24 h at pH=7.4. Hence, the results of this investigation demonstrate that the PST synthetized with Co and functionalized with TEOA could be used for the control of undesired weed and phytopathogens in cultivated plants by prolonging their delivery time of biocidal molecules