Immunogenicity of PvCyRPA, PvCelTOS and Pvs25 chimeric recombinant protein of Plasmodium vivax in murine model

In the Americas, P. vivax is the predominant causative species of malaria, a debilitating and economically significant disease. Due to the complexity of the malaria parasite life cycle, a vaccine formulation with multiple antigens expressed in various parasite stages may represent an effective approach. Based on this, we previously designed and constructed a chimeric recombinant protein, PvRMC-1, composed by PvCyRPA, PvCelTOS, and Pvs25 epitopes. This chimeric protein was strongly recognized by naturally acquired antibodies from exposed population in the Brazilian Amazon. However, there was no investigation about the induced immune response of PvRMC-1. Therefore, in this work, we evaluated the immunogenicity of this chimeric antigen formulated in three distinct adjuvants: Stimune, AddaVax or Aluminum hydroxide (Al(OH)3) in BALB/c mice. Our results suggested that the chimeric protein PvRMC-1 were capable to generate humoral and cellular responses across all three formulations. Antibodies recognized full-length PvRMC-1 and linear B-cell epitopes from PvCyRPA, PvCelTOS, and Pvs25 individually. Moreover, mice’s splenocytes were activated, producing IFN-γ in response to PvCelTOS and PvCyRPA peptide epitopes, affirming T-cell epitopes in the antigen. While aluminum hydroxide showed notable cellular response, Stimune and Addavax induced a more comprehensive immune response, encompassing both cellular and humoral components. Thus, our findings indicate that PvRMC-1 would be a promising multistage vaccine candidate that could advance to further preclinical studies

Zika Brazilian Cohorts (ZBC) Consortium: Protocol for an Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis of Congenital Zika Syndrome after Maternal Exposure during Pregnancy.

Despite great advances in our knowledge of the consequences of Zika virus to human health, many questions remain unanswered, and results are often inconsistent. The small sample size of individual studies has limited inference about the spectrum of congenital Zika manifestations and the prognosis of affected children. The Brazilian Zika Cohorts Consortium addresses these limitations by bringing together and harmonizing epidemiological data from a series of prospective cohort studies of pregnant women with rash and of children with microcephaly and/or other manifestations of congenital Zika. The objective is to estimate the absolute risk of congenital Zika manifestations and to characterize the full spectrum and natural history of the manifestations of congenital Zika in children with and without microcephaly. This protocol describes the assembly of the Consortium and protocol for the Individual Participant Data Meta-analyses (IPD Meta-analyses). The findings will address knowledge gaps and inform public policies related to Zika virus. The large harmonized dataset and joint analyses will facilitate more precise estimates of the absolute risk of congenital Zika manifestations among Zika virus-infected pregnancies and more complete descriptions of its full spectrum, including rare manifestations. It will enable sensitivity analyses using different definitions of exposure and outcomes, and the investigation of the sources of heterogeneity between studies and regions

SARS-CoV-2 introductions and early dynamics of the epidemic in Portugal

Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal was rapidly implemented by the National Institute of Health in the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, in collaboration with more than 50 laboratories distributed nationwide. Methods By applying recent phylodynamic models that allow integration of individual-based travel history, we reconstructed and characterized the spatio-temporal dynamics of SARSCoV-2 introductions and early dissemination in Portugal. Results We detected at least 277 independent SARS-CoV-2 introductions, mostly from European countries (namely the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, and Switzerland), which were consistent with the countries with the highest connectivity with Portugal. Although most introductions were estimated to have occurred during early March 2020, it is likely that SARS-CoV-2 was silently circulating in Portugal throughout February, before the first cases were confirmed. Conclusions Here we conclude that the earlier implementation of measures could have minimized the number of introductions and subsequent virus expansion in Portugal. This study lays the foundation for genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal, and highlights the need for systematic and geographically-representative genomic surveillance.We gratefully acknowledge to Sara Hill and Nuno Faria (University of Oxford) and Joshua Quick and Nick Loman (University of Birmingham) for kindly providing us with the initial sets of Artic Network primers for NGS; Rafael Mamede (MRamirez team, IMM, Lisbon) for developing and sharing a bioinformatics script for sequence curation (https://github.com/rfm-targa/BioinfUtils); Philippe Lemey (KU Leuven) for providing guidance on the implementation of the phylodynamic models; Joshua L. Cherry (National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health) for providing guidance with the subsampling strategies; and all authors, originating and submitting laboratories who have contributed genome data on GISAID (https://www.gisaid.org/) on which part of this research is based. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the view of the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government. This study is co-funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Agência de Investigação Clínica e Inovação Biomédica (234_596874175) on behalf of the Research 4 COVID-19 call. Some infrastructural resources used in this study come from the GenomePT project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022184), supported by COMPETE 2020 - Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI), Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), Algarve Portugal Regional Operational Programme (CRESC Algarve2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Desenvolvimento e perspectivas da propriedade intelectual no Brasil

O desafio das universidades é fazer com que a pesquisa científica estenda-se ao mercado, gerando bem estar social e contribuindo para o desenvolvimento econômico de maneira sustentável e inovadora. A Universidade Federal do Recôncavo da Bahia é a principal Instituição Científica e Tecnológica (ICT) de geração e difusão do conhecimento no recôncavo baiano, mas precisa criar mecanismos para a proteção desse conhecimento, estimulando os pesquisadores – docentes e discentes – a agregar tecnologia e inovação à teoria do conhecimento clássico para exaltar o fruto do intelecto. Este livro reúne informações capazes de direcionar a política de inovação e gestão tecnológica nacional no contexto acadêmico, beneficiando tanto as universidades quanto as empresas e a sociedade, uma vez que permite estreitar parcerias que buscam a formação de profissionais qualificados, capazes de gerar produtos injetores de tecnologia avançada e respeito ao meio ambiente, versando por princípios de responsabilidade e compromisso social

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

Síndrome de Torsades de Pointes: análise de casos: Torsades de Pointes Syndrome: case analysis

A Síndrome de Torsades de Pointes (TdP) é uma taquiarritmia ventricular polimórfica de pacientes com um intervalo QT longo congênito ou induzido por fármacos, cujo eletrocardiograma possui aspecto de “torção das pontas” e os sinais e sintomas característicos são síncope, palpitação ou mesmo evolução para fibrilação ventricular e morte súbita. O sexo mais frequentemente acometido é o feminino, o diagnóstico se baseia no eletrocardiograma e o tratamento preconizado é o sulfato de magnésio (MgSO4) intravenoso, a correção dos distúrbios eletrolíticos, principalmente a hipocalemia e o tratamento da causa base, na TdP farmacoinduzida. O objetivo do estudo é analisar os casos de Síndrome de Torsades de Pointes em pacientes com alterações do intervalo QT no eletrocardiograma. Trata-se de uma revisão bibliográfica integrativa, do tipo quantitativa, que utilizou as plataformas do PubMed, SciELO e Cochrane Library como bases de dados para seleção dos artigos, todos na língua inglesa. Foram utilizadas literaturas publicadas com recorte temporal de 2017 a 2022. De acordo com as literaturas analisadas, conclui-se que a TdP é uma taquiarritmia ventricular polimórfica com um mau prognóstico se não tratada precocemente com o MgSO4 intravenoso e, por ter diversas etiologias, é primordial que o diagnóstico preciso seja estabelecido de forma rápida, devido ao alto índice de mortalidade. Pacientes portadores da síndrome do QT longo congênita, bradicardia sinusal e bloqueio atrioventricular de 1º grau possuem predisposição para o desenvolvimento de TdP. Observa-se escassez na literatura a respeito das formas adequadas de prevenção da TdP, já que muitos pacientes que participam das triagens, muitas das vezes inefetivas, adquirem a síndrome após o uso de drogas que a predispõem, com prolongamento do intervalo QT, ou não sabem que possuem uma SQTL pré-existente, obrigatória para o desenvolvimento da TdP

Assessment of risk scores to predict mortality of COVID-19 patients admitted to the intensive care unit

ObjectivesTo assess the ABC2-SPH score in predicting COVID-19 in-hospital mortality, during intensive care unit (ICU) admission, and to compare its performance with other scores (SOFA, SAPS-3, NEWS2, 4C Mortality Score, SOARS, CURB-65, modified CHA2DS2-VASc, and a novel severity score).Materials and methodsConsecutive patients (≥ 18 years) with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 admitted to ICUs of 25 hospitals, located in 17 Brazilian cities, from October 2020 to March 2022, were included. Overall performance of the scores was evaluated using the Brier score. ABC2-SPH was used as the reference score, and comparisons between ABC2-SPH and the other scores were performed by using the Bonferroni method of correction. The primary outcome was in-hospital mortality.ResultsABC2-SPH had an area under the curve of 0.716 (95% CI 0.693–0.738), significantly higher than CURB-65, SOFA, NEWS2, SOARS, and modified CHA2DS2-VASc scores. There was no statistically significant difference between ABC2-SPH and SAPS-3, 4C Mortality Score, and the novel severity score.ConclusionABC2-SPH was superior to other risk scores, but it still did not demonstrate an excellent predictive ability for mortality in critically ill COVID-19 patients. Our results indicate the need to develop a new score, for this subset of patients

ATLANTIC EPIPHYTES: a data set of vascular and non-vascular epiphyte plants and lichens from the Atlantic Forest

Epiphytes are hyper-diverse and one of the frequently undervalued life forms in plant surveys and biodiversity inventories. Epiphytes of the Atlantic Forest, one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world, have high endemism and radiated recently in the Pliocene. We aimed to (1) compile an extensive Atlantic Forest data set on vascular, non-vascular plants (including hemiepiphytes), and lichen epiphyte species occurrence and abundance; (2) describe the epiphyte distribution in the Atlantic Forest, in order to indicate future sampling efforts. Our work presents the first epiphyte data set with information on abundance and occurrence of epiphyte phorophyte species. All data compiled here come from three main sources provided by the authors: published sources (comprising peer-reviewed articles, books, and theses), unpublished data, and herbarium data. We compiled a data set composed of 2,095 species, from 89,270 holo/hemiepiphyte records, in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, recorded from 1824 to early 2018. Most of the records were from qualitative data (occurrence only, 88%), well distributed throughout the Atlantic Forest. For quantitative records, the most common sampling method was individual trees (71%), followed by plot sampling (19%), and transect sampling (10%). Angiosperms (81%) were the most frequently registered group, and Bromeliaceae and Orchidaceae were the families with the greatest number of records (27,272 and 21,945, respectively). Ferns and Lycophytes presented fewer records than Angiosperms, and Polypodiaceae were the most recorded family, and more concentrated in the Southern and Southeastern regions. Data on non-vascular plants and lichens were scarce, with a few disjunct records concentrated in the Northeastern region of the Atlantic Forest. For all non-vascular plant records, Lejeuneaceae, a family of liverworts, was the most recorded family. We hope that our effort to organize scattered epiphyte data help advance the knowledge of epiphyte ecology, as well as our understanding of macroecological and biogeographical patterns in the Atlantic Forest. No copyright restrictions are associated with the data set. Please cite this Ecology Data Paper if the data are used in publication and teaching events. © 2019 The Authors. Ecology © 2019 The Ecological Society of Americ

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 understanding 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,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 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 underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities 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 organism 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 neglected 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 lost