Review of the “state of the art” and possibilities of the most significant approaches to the specific delivery of chemotherapy agents to tumor cells

Los principales problemas de la quimioterapia proceden esencialmente de la relativa falta de especificidad derivada de la extensa biodistribución de los agentes antitumorales y de los efectos secundarios generados por la acción inespecífica de éstos en tejidos y órganos sanos. La necesidad de encontrar tratamientos eficaces contra el cáncer ha hecho que se incrementen las líneas de investigación en esta materia. Una de las aproximaciones más prometedoras en este sentido es el desarrollo de sistemas coloidales biodegradables para el transporte de fármacos antitumorales. Gracias a éstos, se logra acumular específicamente la cantidad de fármaco administrada en el lugar de acción, logrando así un aumento significativo de la eficacia clínica, junto con una minimización de las reacciones adversas asociadas. En este trabajo, pretendemos analizar el estado actual en el diseño de coloides como transportadores de fármacos antitumorales, junto con la aplicación de las novedosas estrategias de transporte pasivo y activo de fármacos.The main problems related to chemotherapy mainly come from a relative lack of selectivity, that is associated to the extensive biodistribution of antitumor molecules, and to the severe side effects generated by the unspecific drug action on healthy tissues and organs. The need of finding out efficient treatments against cancer has led to an enhancement in the number of research lines in the field. In this way, one of the most promising approaches is the development of biodegradable colloids for the delivery of antitumor drugs. Thanks to them, it is possible to specifically concentrate the drug into the site of action. Therefore, a significant improvement of the chemotherapy effect is obtained along with a minimization of the related adverse side effects. In this review, we analyze the current “state of the art” in the development of colloidal systems for the efficient delivery of anticancer drugs. The possibilities of novel drug delivery strategies based on passive and active targeting mechanisms are also discussed

Sistemas transportadores de fármacos basados en el polímero poly(e- caprolactona) para el tratamiento del cáncer

Chemotherapy agents have little or no specificity over cancer cells, resulting in low therapeutic concentrations at the tumor site (a consequence of a broad systemic distribution), and severe side effects. With the aim of avoiding cancer therapy failure, several approaches such as design of new anticancer drugs, chemical engineering of conventional drugs and development of drug delivery systems have been proposed. The objective is to enhance drug localization at the tumor region (by controlling its biodistribution profile) and, therefore, to increase the anti-tumor efficacy (even in multi-drug resistant tumors), while reducing systemic side effects. One of the most promising approaches to the problem is the development of drug nanocarriers based on the polymer poly(e-caprolactone). In this review we will focus our attention on these polymeric colloids, particularly on the most significant characteristics and formulation procedures, and on their use as nanoplatforms for the delivery of chemotherapy agents to the tumor site. Furthermore, the most recent in vitro and in vivo investigations on the subject are extensively reviewed

Multimodal Interactive Parsing

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38628-2_57Probabilistic parsing is a fundamental problem in Computational Linguistics, whose goal is obtaining a syntactic structure associated to a sentence according to a probabilistic grammatical model. Recently, an interactive framework for probabilistic parsing has been introduced, in which the user and the system cooperate to generate error-free parse trees. In an early prototype developed according to this interactive parsing technology, user feedback was provided by means of mouse actions and keyboard strokes. Here we augment the interaction style with support for (non-deterministic) natural handwritten recognition, and provide confidence measures as a visual aid to ease the correction process. Handwriting input seems to be a modality specially suitable for parsing, since the vocabulary size involved in the recognition of syntactic labels is fairly limited and thus intuitively errors should be small. However, errors may increase as handwriting quality (i.e., calligraphy) degrades. To solve this problem, we introduce a late fusion approach that leverages both on-line and off-line information, corresponding to pen strokes and contextual information from the parse trees. We demonstrate that late fusion can effectively help to disambiguate user intention and improve system accuracy.This research has received funding from the EC’s 7th Framework Programme (FP7/2007-13) under grant agreement No.287576- CasMaCat; from the Spanish MEC under the STraDA project (TIN2012-37475- C02-01) and the MITTRAL project (TIN2009-14633-C03-01); from the GV under the Prometeo project; and from the Universidad del Cauca (Colombia)Benedí Ruiz, JM.; Sánchez Peiró, JA.; Leiva, LA.; Sánchez Sáez, R.; Maca, M. (2013). Multimodal Interactive Parsing. En Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis. Springer. 484-491. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38628-2_57S484491Afonso, S., Bick, E., Haber, R., Santos, D.: Floresta sintá(c)tica: a treebank for portuguese. In: Proc. LREC, pp. 1698–1703 (2002)Brants, T., Plaehn, O.: Interactive corpus annotation. In: Proc. LREC (2000)Guyon, I., Schomaker, L., Plamondon, R., Liberman, M., Janet, S.: UNIPEN project of on-line data exchange and recognizer benchmarks. In: Proc. ICPR, pp. 29–33 (1994)Lease, M., Charniak, E., Johnson, M., McClosky, D.: A look at parsing and its applications. In: Proc. AAAI, pp. 1642–1645 (2006)Marcus, M.P., Santorini, B., Marcinkiewicz, M.A.: Building a large annotated corpus of English: the Penn Treebank. Computational Linguistics 19(2), 313–330 (1993)Ortiz, D., Leiva, L.A., Alabau, V., Casacuberta, F.: Interactive machine translation using a web-based architecture. In: Proc. IUI, pp. 423–425 (2010)Romero, V., Leiva, L.A., Toselli, A.H., Vidal, E.: Interactive multimodal transcription of text images using a web-based demo system. In: Proc. IUI, pp. 477–478 (2009)Sánchez-Sáez, R., Leiva, L.A., Sánchez, J.A., Benedí, J.M.: Interactive predictive parsing using a web-based architecture. In: Proc. NAACL-HLT, pp. 37–40 (2010)Sánchez-Sáez, R., Sánchez, J.A., Benedí, J.M.: Interactive predictive parsing. In: Proc. IWPT, pp. 222–225 (2009)Sánchez-Sáez, R., Sánchez, J.A., Benedí, J.M.: Confidence measures for error discrimination in an interactive predictive parsing framework. In: Proc. COLING, pp. 1220–1228 (2010

Desalination brine effects beyond excess salinity: Unravelling specific stress signaling and tolerance responses in the seagrass Posidonia oceanica

Desalination has been proposed as a global strategy for tackling freshwater shortage in the climate change era. However, there is a concern regarding the environmental effects of high salinity brines discharged from desalination plants on benthic communities. In this context, seagrasses such as the Mediterranean endemic and ecologically important Posidonia oceanica have shown high vulnerability to elevated salinities. Most ecotoxicological studies regarding desalination effects are based on salinity increments using artificial sea salts, although it has been postulated that certain additives within the industrial process of desalination may exacerbate a negative impact beyond just the increased salinities of the brine. To assess the potential effect of whole effluent brines on P. oceanica, mesocosm experiments were conducted within 10 days, simulating salinity increment with either artificial sea salts or brines from a desalination plant (at 43 psμ, 6 psμ over the natural 37 psμ). Morphometrical (growth and necrosis), photochemical (PSII chlorophyll a fluorometry), metabolic, such as hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), thiobarbituric reactive substances (TBARS) and ascorbate/dehydroascorbate (ASC/DHA), and molecular (expression of key tolerance genes) responses were analyzed in each different treatment. Although with a still positive leaf growth, associated parameters decreased similarly for both artificial sea salt and brine treatments. Photochemical parameters did not show general patterns, although only P. oceanica under brines demonstrated greater energy release through heat (NPQ). Lipid peroxidation and upregulation of genes related to oxidative stress (GR, MnSOD, and FeSOD) or ion exclusion (SOS3 and AKT2/3) were similarly incremented on both hypersalinity treatments. Conversely, the ASC/DHA ratio was significantly lower, and the expression of SOS1, CAT, and STRK1 was increased under brine influence. This study revealed that although metabolic and photochemical differences occurred under both hypersalinity treatments, growth (the last sign of physiological detriment) was similarly compromised, suggesting that the potential effects of desalination are mainly caused by brine-associated salinities and are not particularly related to other industrial additives.This investigation was funded by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (888415) granted to C.A. Sáez. F. Blanco-Murillo was supported by a grant from Universidad de Alicante (Grant ID: FPUUA98). F. Rodríguez-Rojas was financed by the ANID project FONDECYT 11220425. C.A. Sáez was also financed by project ANID InES I+D 2021 (INID210013)

Influencia de la fertilización nitrogenada sobre las concentraciones de K+, Mg2+ y Ca2+ y sus bioindicadores en raíces y hojas de plantas de judía

The pyruvate kinase (PK) and ATPase activities taking part in nitrogen (N) assimilation is essential for the growth and development of plants. Studies on the kinetics of these enzymes reveal that its activities are dependent of the cofactors K+, Ca2+, and Mg2+. Therefore, the objective of the present work was to determine the effect of different doses of N on enzymatic activities of ATPase and PK as potentials biochemical indicators of the levels of K+, Mg2+, and Ca2+ in the roots and leaves of green bean plants. The N was applied to the nutrient solution as NH4NO3 at the following rates: 1.5, 3.0, 6.0, 12.0, 18.0, and 24.0 mM of N. These results indicate that deficient conditions of N (N1 and N2) were characterized by the lowest accumulation of K+, Mg2+ and Ca2+ in both total and soluble forms, and also minimum activities of PK and ATPase induced by K+, Mg2+ and Ca2+, with respect to the activity of basal PK and ATPase; this could mean near optimum conditions for these cations. On the contrary, high-N treatments (N4, N5 and N6) were characterized by presenting decreasing concentrations of total and soluble K+, Mg2+ and Ca2+ in roots and leaves of green bean plants; however, the activities of PK and ATPase induced with K+, Mg2+ and Ca2+ were increased reaching their maximum activity with respect to basal PK and ATPase, both enzymes reflecting the level of cations in roots and leaves, hence being considered as good physiological bioindicators of these cations.Las actividades piruvato kinasa (PK) y ATPasa participan en la asimilación de nitrógeno (N), la cual es esencial para el crecimiento y desarrollo de las plantas. Estudios sobre cinéticas de estas enzimas revelan que sus actividades son dependientes de los cofactores K+, Ca2+ y Mg2+. Por lo tanto, el objetivo del presente trabajo fue determinar el efecto de diferentes dosis de N sobre las actividades de la ATPasa y PK como posibles bioindicadores de los niveles de K+, Mg2+ y Ca2+ en raíces y hojas de plantas de judía (Phaseolus vulgaris L. cv. Strike). Se aplicó N a la solución nutritiva como NH4NO3 en las siguientes dosis: N1=1,5 mM, N2=3,0 mM, N3=6,0 mM, N4=12,0 mM, N5=18,0 mM y N6=24,0 mM. Los resultados indican que bajo condiciones deficientes de N (N1 y N2), las plantas presentaron menor acumulación de K+, Mg2+ y Ca2+ en su forma total y soluble, así como mínimas actividades PK y ATPasa inducidas por K+, Mg2+ y Ca2+ respecto a la actividad PK y ATPasa basal; lo cual indica condiciones cercanas a las óptimas de estos cationes. Por el contrario, en los tratamientos elevados de N (N4, N5 y N6) las plantas presentaron concentraciones decrecientes de K+, Mg2+ y Ca2+ total y soluble tanto en raíces como en hojas; sin embargo, las actividades PK y ATPasa inducidas con K+, Mg2+ y Ca2+ se incrementaron alcanzando sus máximas actividades con respecto a la PK y ATPasa basal, lo que indica una mayor necesidad fisiológica de estos cationes en los tratamientos elevados de N. Finalmente, la actividad ATPasa basal y la inducida con K+, Mg2+ y Ca2+ se comportaron de forma similar a la actividad PK, lo que refleja el nivel de cationes en raíces y en hojas, por lo que se consideran buenos bioindicadores fisiológicos de estos cationes

Cycloreversion of beta-lactams via photoinduced electron transfer

The radical anions of beta-lactams, photogenerated in the presence of DABCO as an electron donor, undergo cycloreversion via N-C4 bond cleavage, back electron transfer and final C2-C3 bond cleavage, leading to olefins. The involved intermediates are 1,4-radical anions and 1,4-biradicals. The experimental observations are consistent with the results of DFT calculations.Financial support from the Spanish Government (CTQ2013-47872-C2-1-P, SEV-2012-0267, BES-2011-043706, JCI-2010-06204), from CSIC (JAEDOC 101-2011 co-funded by FSE) and from the Generalitat Valenciana (PROMETEOII/2013/005) is gratefully acknowledged. J. A. S. acknowledges the computational facilities provided by the Theoretical Computational Chemistry Group of Prof. L. R. Domingo at the Universitat de Valencia.Pérez Ruiz, R.; Sáez Cases, JA.; Jiménez Molero, MC.; Miranda Alonso, MÁ. (2014). Cycloreversion of beta-lactams via photoinduced electron transfer. 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Design of β-Lactams with Mechanism Based Nonantibacterial Activities. Current Medicinal Chemistry, 10(17), 1741-1757. doi:10.2174/0929867033457089Chemistry and Biology of β-Lactam Antibiotics , ed. R. B. Morin and M. Gorman , Academic Press , New York , 1982 , pp. 1–3Nathwani, D., & Wood, M. J. (1993). Penicillins. Drugs, 45(6), 866-894. doi:10.2165/00003495-199345060-00002Fischer, M. (1968). Photochemische Reaktionen, IV. Photochemische Fragmentierungen von β-Lactamen. Chemische Berichte, 101(8), 2669-2678. doi:10.1002/cber.19681010809Fabre, H., Ibork, H., & Lerner, D. A. (1994). Photoisomerization Kinetics of Cefuroxime Axetil and Related Compounds. Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, 83(4), 553-558. doi:10.1002/jps.2600830422Rossi, E., Abbiati, G., & Pini, E. (1999). Substituted 1-benzyl-4-(benzylidenimino)-4-phenylazetidin-2-ones: Synthesis, thermal and photochemical reactions. 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Methylation alterations are not a major cause of PTTG1 missregulation

Background: On its physiological cellular context, PTTG1 controls sister chromatid segregation during mitosis. Within its crosstalk to the cellular arrest machinery, relies a checkpoint of integrity for which gained the over name of securin. PTTG1 was found to promote malignant transformation in 3T3 fibroblasts, and further found to be overexpressed in different tumor types. More recently, PTTG1 has been also related to different processes such as DNA repair and found to trans-activate different cellular pathways involving c-myc, bax or p53, among others. PTTG1 over-expression has been correlated to a worse prognosis in thyroid, lung, colorectal cancer patients, and it can not be excluded that this effect may also occur in other tumor types. Despite the clinical relevance and the increasing molecular characterization of PTTG1, the reason for its up-regulation remains unclear. Method: We analysed PTTG1 differential expression in PC-3, DU-145 and LNCaP tumor cell lines, cultured in the presence of the methyl-transferase inhibitor 5-Aza-2'-deoxycytidine. We also tested whether the CpG island mapping PTTG1 proximal promoter evidenced a differential methylation pattern in differentiated thyroid cancer biopsies concordant to their PTTG1 immunohistochemistry status. Finally, we performed whole-genome LOH studies using Affymetix 50 K microarray technology and FRET analysis to search for allelic imbalances comprising the PTTG1 locus. Conclusion: Our data suggest that neither methylation alterations nor LOH are involved in PTTG1 over-expression. These data, together with those previously reported, point towards a post-transcriptional level of missregulation associated to PTTG1 over-expression.This project was funded by The Fundación de Investigación Biomédica Mutua Madrileña Automovilista. Neocodex have been partially funded by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia of Spain (FIT-010000-2004-69, PTQ04-1-0006, PTQ2003-0549, PTQ2003-0546 and PTQ2003-0783). MAJ was also supported by SAF2005- 07713-C03-03 and CS by FIS 06/757

Possibilities of novel strategies of education in Clinical Pharmacy

La revolución introducida en 1999 por la Declaración de Bolonia en lo referente al concepto de aprendizaje del estudiante pretende mejorar significativamente la calidad de la formación de grado. En este sentido, se ha postulado que la evaluación educativa debe sufrir un proceso de remodelación que la aleje del modelo clásico, contribuyendo a que el estudiante se convierta en el actor principal de su proceso de enseñanza – aprendizaje. Una de las herramientas para lograr esto es la carpeta de aprendizaje o portafolios, la cuál es muy apreciada en el diagnóstico y la orientación en educación. En el presente trabajo pretendemos desarrollar un modelo de evaluación educativa para la asignatura Farmacia Clínica centrado en el trabajo de aprendizaje del estudiante. La carpeta de aprendizaje que hemos diseñado recoge eficazmente las producciones de los estudiantes para comprobar sus conocimientos, habilidades y actitudes. Así se facilita la realización de actividades de evaluación y apoyo en aspectos específicos. En este estudio participaron 4 estudiantes de la asignatura Farmacia Clínica de la Licenciatura en Farmacia por la Universidad de Granada (curso académico 2009/2010). La utilidad de esta herramienta se analizó en dos unidades didácticas del temario de Farmacia Clínica. El portafolios permitió recopilar sistemáticamente los materiales y los procesos realizados por los alumnos. De esta manera, el profesor pudo examinar el esfuerzo, los progresos y los logros de sus estudiantes. Este instrumento fomentó también el pensamiento reflexivo de éstos. El portafolios demostró ser una herramienta muy adecuada para que el estudiante dominara las competencias u objetivos exigidos en las unidades didácticas ejemplificadas y, además, para que el profesor se implicara todavía más en el proceso de aprendizaje de su alumnado.It is clear that the Bologna Declaration (1999) has revolutionized the concept of learning. As a result, the teaching-education process should improve the quality of the university degrees in education. In this sense, the evaluation in education has been greatly affected since the student must be the principal actor of the teaching - learning process at any time. At the moment, the portfolio is a very popular technique in the diagnosis and guidance of the education. The objective of our work is the development of an educational model for the subject Clinical Pharmacy focused on the work done by the student in the teaching – learning process. The portfolio that we have designed aims to very efficiently collect all the productions of the students that could allow measuring their knowledge, skills and attitudes. This approach is intended to enable the realization of activities of evaluation and support on specific issues. 4 students of the subject Clinical Pharmacy of the Degree in Pharmacy at the University of Granada (academic year 2009/2010) participated in this study. The effectiveness of this tool was analyzed after its application to two teaching units of this course. It was observed that the portfolio allowed a systematical compilation of the materials and processes done by students during their teaching-learning process. This instrument established the basis for examining the effort, progress and achievements of the students. In addition, it also promoted the reflection and critical thinking. The portfolio is a very appropriate tool for the students to achieve the competencies or objectives of the subject Clinical Pharmacy, and also for the teacher to further enhance his implication in the learning process

Enhancement of the capabilities of the future pharmacist in the realization of campaigns of health promotion

Una de las medidas sanitarias actuales más importantes en la lucha contra la enfermedad es la realización de programas de educación sanitaria y promoción de la salud. En este sentido, el importante papel que puede desempeñar el farmacéutico como profesional sanitario más accesible para el ciudadano queda fuera de toda duda. En el presente trabajo pretendemos: i) enseñar a enseñar al estudiante en el marco de actividades de educación sanitaria dirigidas a diversos grupos de población; y, de esta manera, ii) concienciar al alumno sobre la importancia de las actividades de educación para la salud desde cualquiera de las vertientes profesionales del farmacéutico. En este estudio participaron 20 estudiantes de la asignatura Farmacia Clínica de la Licenciatura en Farmacia por la Universidad de Granada (curso académico 2009/2010). Tras el aprendizaje de los aspectos más importantes sobre el diseño y puesta en funcionamiento de campañas de educación para la salud, se les asignó por grupos una actividad de este tipo. Cada grupo de trabajo puso en práctica la acción sanitaria bajo la supervisión del tutor. Una vez finalizada la campaña y mediante un cuestionario autoadministrado, se comprobó la utilidad que para el estudiante había tenido esta actividad y su valoración personal sobre ésta. Se determinó también el grado de dominio de los estudiantes en cuanto a la implantación y el desarrollo de programas de educación sanitaria. En este estudio pudo comprobarse cómo todos los grupos de trabajo mostraron una muy prometedora destreza en la realización de campañas de educación sanitaria. Estos futuros profesionales farmacéuticos han podido reflexionar sobre la importancia de este tipo de actividades sanitarias. En concreto, la mayoría de los estudiantes (95 %) resaltaron el papel clave que puede desempeñar el farmacéutico en las actividades de educación para la salud. Una formación de calidad del estudiante de Farmacia en todo lo referente a las actividades relacionadas con la promoción de la salud, y el uso racional del medicamento, permitirá satisfacer las necesidades de la sociedad actual en cuanto a profesionales sanitarios de primer nivel.One of the most important health approaches in the fight against diseases is the implementation of education and health promotion programs. In this sense, it is clear the important role that pharmacists can play as the group of health professionals more accessible to citizens. The principal objectives of this work are to: i) train the future pharmacist in the development of health education activities directed to several groups of population; and, thus, ii) enhance the consciousness of the student of Pharmacy on the importance and beneficial effects that such activities could have in the population. In this study participated 20 students of the subject Clinical Pharmacy included in the Degree in Pharmacy at the University of Granada (academic year 2009/2010). After learning the most important aspects related to the design and realization of health education campaigns, they were divided into different groups of work. Each group designed one health education program/activity under the supervision of the professor. At the end of the health education campaign, a self-administered questionnaire was given to the students in order to define the utility that this teaching activity represented to them. It was also analyzed the student proficiency in the implementation and development of health education programs. Very interestingly, it was observed that all the groups of work presented a satisfactory job skill in conducting health education campaigns. Furthermore, all the students clearly agree with the importance of the health education activities. In particular, 95 % of the students emphasized the key role that pharmacists can play in health education. Only with an adequate training of the students of Pharmacy in all the things related to activities of health education and promotion, and rational use of medicines, the future pharmacist will meet the needs of the society of XXI century in terms of first-level health professionals