Embriotoxic effects of Crotalus durissus terrificus snake venom

A atividade neurotóxica, miotóxica e coagulante do veneno das serpentes Crotalus durissus terrificus (VCdt) são responsáveis pelas altas taxas de mortalidade observada em acidentes envolvendo estas serpentes. Estes acidentes, quando ocorrem na gravidez, podem levar ao aborto devido à interferência com a homeostasia materna e/ou à embrioletalidade, por efeito direto do veneno. Materiais e Métodos - Este trabalho estudou os efeitos tóxicos do ( VCdt), administrado nas doses de 75 mg/kg or 200 mg/kg por via subcutânea em camundongas no terceiro dia da sua gestação (período de pré-implantação). O grupo controle foi tratado da mesma forma que os experimentais, porém com solução salina. No último dia da gestação as fêmeas foram submetidos a eutanásia e observadas as possíveis malformações ósseas e viscerais de sua prole. Resultados e Conclusão - Os resultados mostraram que a administração da menor dose do VCdt não causou alterações significantes no desenvolvimento ósseo e visceral dos animais. No entanto, quando expostos a maior dose este promoveu aumento significante das anomalias e malformações, sugerindo que o envenenamento com esta dose no período inicial da gestação altera o desenvolvimento normal da prole de camundongosIntroduction - The neurotoxic, myotoxic and coagulant activities of Crotalus durissus terrificus snake venom (VCdt) are responsible for the mortality rates observed in accidents involving the rattlesnake. Accidents during women pregnancy are a challenge, since animal venoms could led to pregnancy interruption as a consequence of maternal homeostasis disorder and/or a direct embryotoxic effect of the venom. Materials and Methods - In order to evaluate the possible embryotoxic effects of VCdt, doses of 75 mg/kg or 200 mg/kg of the venom were administered by subcutaneous route at day 3 of mice pregnancy (preimplantation period). The control group received saline in the same volume and during the same period as their respective experimental groups. The animals were submitted to euthanasia at term. Results and Conclusion - The treatment of the females during the preimplantation period did not cause significant changes in fetuses development, but the higher dose of the venom increased the number of anomalies or malformations of the fetuses. These results suggest that the VCdt in the higher dose (200 mg/kg) altered the normal development of the concept after implantatio

Aberrant MEK5/ERK5 signalling contributes to human colon cancer progression via NF-κB activation

© 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited All rights reserved. Cell Death and Disease is an open-access journal published by Nature Publishing Group. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0This study was designed to evaluate MEK5 and ERK5 expression in colon cancer progression and to ascertain the relevance of MEK5/ERK5 signalling in colon cancer. Expression of MEK5 and ERK5 was evaluated in 323 human colon cancer samples. To evaluate the role of MEK5/ERK5 signalling in colon cancer, we developed a stable cell line model with differential MEK5/ERK5 activation. Impact of differential MEK5/ERK5 signalling was evaluated on cell cycle progression by flow cytometry and cell migration was evaluated by wound healing and transwell migration assays. Finally, we used an orthotopic xenograft mouse model of colon cancer to assess tumour growth and progression. Our results demonstrated that MEK5 and ERK5 are overexpressed in human adenomas (P<0.01) and adenocarcinomas (P<0.05), where increased ERK5 expression correlated with the acquisition of more invasive and metastatic potential (P<0.05). Interestingly, we observed a significant correlation between ERK5 expression and NF-κB activation in human adenocarcinomas (P<0.001). We also showed that ERK5 overactivation significantly accelerated cell cycle progression (P<0.05) and increased cell migration (P<0.01). Furthermore, cells with overactivated ERK5 displayed increased NF-κB nuclear translocation and transcriptional activity (P<0.05), together with increased expression of the mesenchymal marker vimentin (P<0.05). We further demonstrated that increased NF-κB activation was associated with increased IκB phosphorylation and degradation (P<0.05). Finally, in the mouse model, lymph node metastasis was exclusively seen in orthotopically implanted tumours with overactivated MEK5/ERK5, and not in tumours with inhibited MEK5/ERK5. Our results suggested that MEK5/ERK5/NF-κB signalling pathway is important for tumour onset, progression and metastasis, possibly representing a novel relevant therapeutic target in colon cancer treatment.This study was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (HMSP-ICT/0018/2011, SFRH/BD/96517/2013, SFRH/BD/88619/2012 and SFRH/BD/79356/2011).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

sensitivity analysis

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Sorogrupos e genes de virulência em Escherichia coli isoladas de psitacídeos

Escherichia coli isolates from 24 sick psittacine birds were serogrouped and investigated for the presence of genes encoding the following virulence factors: attaching and effacing (eae), enteropathogenic E. coli EAF plasmid (EAF), pili associated with pyelonephritis (pap), S fimbriae (sfa), afimbrial adhesin (afa), capsule K1 (neu), curli (crl, csgA), temperature-sensitive hemagglutinin (tsh), enteroaggregative heat-stable enterotoxin-1 (astA), heat-stable enterotoxin -1 heat labile (LT) and heat stable (STa and STb) enterotoxins, Shiga-like toxins (stx1 and stx2), cytotoxic necrotizing factor 1 (cnf1), haemolysin (hly), aerobactin production (iuc) and serum resistance (iss). The results showed that the isolates belonged to 12 serogroups: O7; O15; O21; O23; O54; O64; O76; O84; O88; O128; O152 and O166. The virulence genes found were: crl in all isolates, pap in 10 isolates, iss in seven isolates, csgA in five isolates, iuc and tsh in three isolates and eae in two isolates. The combination of virulence genes revealed 11 different genotypic patterns. All strains were negative for genes encoding for EAF, EAEC, K1, sfa, afa, hly, cnf, LT, STa, STb, stx1 and stx2. Our findings showed that some E. coli isolated from psittacine birds present the same virulence factors as avian pathogenic E. coli (APEC), uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) and Enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC) pathotypes.Amostras de Escherichia coli isoladas de 24 psitacídeos doentes foram sorogrupadas e investigadas para a presença de genes que codificam os seguintes fatores de virulência: attaching e effacing (eae), plasmídeo EAF (EAF), pili associado à pielonefrite (pap), fímbria S (sfa), adesina afimbrial (afa), cápsula K1 (neu), curli (crl, csgA), hemaglutinina termosensível (tsh), enterotoxina termo-estável 1 de E. coli enteroagregativa (astA), toxina termolábil (LT) e toxina termoestável (STa e STb), Shiga-like toxinas (stx1 e stx2), fator citotóxico necrotizante 1 (cnf1), hemolisina (hly), produção de aerobactina (iuc) e resistência sérica (iss). Os resultados mostraram que os isolados pertenciam a 12 sorogrupos: O7; O15; O21; O23; O54; O64; O76; O84; O88; O128; O152 e O166. Os genes de virulência encontrados foram: crl em todos os isolados, pap em 10 isolados, iss em sete isolados, csgA em cinco isolados, iuc e tsh em três isolados e eae em dois isolados. A combinação dos genes de virulência revelou 11 perfis genotípicos distintos. Todas as amostras foram negativas para os genes que codificam EAF, EAEC, K1, sfa, afa, hly, cnf, LT, STa, STb, stx1 e stx2. Estes resultados demonstraram que algumas amostras de E. coli isoladas de psitacídeos apresentam os mesmos fatores de virulência presentes nos patotipos de E. coli patogênicas para aves (APEC), uropatogênicas (UPEC) e E. coli enteropatogênicas (EPEC).Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Faculdades Metropolitanas Unidas Laboratório de Epidemiologia e Doenças InfecciosasUniabc Faculdade de Medicina VeterináriaUniversidade de São Paulo Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e ZootecniaUniversidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP) Escola Paulista de MedicinaUniversidade Estadual de Campinas Instituto de BiologiaUniversidade de Santiago de Compostela Facultad de Veterinaria Departamento de Microbiologia e ParasitologíaUNIFESP, EPMSciEL

InsPLAD: A Dataset and Benchmark for Power Line Asset Inspection in UAV Images

Power line maintenance and inspection are essential to avoid power supply interruptions, reducing its high social and financial impacts yearly. Automating power line visual inspections remains a relevant open problem for the industry due to the lack of public real-world datasets of power line components and their various defects to foster new research. This paper introduces InsPLAD, a Power Line Asset Inspection Dataset and Benchmark containing 10,607 high-resolution Unmanned Aerial Vehicles colour images. The dataset contains seventeen unique power line assets captured from real-world operating power lines. Additionally, five of those assets present six defects: four of which are corrosion, one is a broken component, and one is a bird's nest presence. All assets were labelled according to their condition, whether normal or the defect name found on an image level. We thoroughly evaluate state-of-the-art and popular methods for three image-level computer vision tasks covered by InsPLAD: object detection, through the AP metric; defect classification, through Balanced Accuracy; and anomaly detection, through the AUROC metric. InsPLAD offers various vision challenges from uncontrolled environments, such as multi-scale objects, multi-size class instances, multiple objects per image, intra-class variation, cluttered background, distinct point-of-views, perspective distortion, occlusion, and varied lighting conditions. To the best of our knowledge, InsPLAD is the first large real-world dataset and benchmark for power line asset inspection with multiple components and defects for various computer vision tasks, with a potential impact to improve state-of-the-art methods in the field. It will be publicly available in its integrity on a repository with a thorough description. It can be found at https://github.com/andreluizbvs/InsPLAD.Comment: This is an original manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in the International Journal of Remote Sensing on 29 Nov 2023, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2023.228390

As fraturas da modernização em Morte e Vida Severina

O Grupo Literatura e modernidade periférica consta do Diretório dos Grupos de Pesquisa no Brasil do CNPq e é coordenado pelo Prof. Dr. Hermenegildo José de Menezes Bastos, da Universidade de Brasília. Integram-no professores da UnB e alunos do programa de pós-graduação em literatura. Atuando nas áreas de crítica materialista e histórica e enfocando, primordialmente, as relações entre o sistema literário e o projeto modernizador ocidental, o grupo tem produzido dissertações de mestrado e teses de doutorado. Tem, ainda, publicado livros e artigos em periódicos especializados e participado de congressos de amplitude nacional e internacional. O presente trabalho foi escrito em conjunto pelos pesquisadores: Profa Dra. Ana Laura dos Reis Corrêa; Drnd° André Matias Nepomuceno; Prof. Drnd" Alexandre Pilati; Profa Drnd". Deane Maria Fonseca de Castro e Costa; Profa Drnda Maria Izabel Brunacci; Profa Drnda Germana Henriques Pereira de Sousa e Grnd° Thiago Chacon.Morte e vida severina é um impressionante exemplo de como a literatura pode evidenciar um significativo sentimento de dilaceramento do autor diante das contradições entre a realidade local periférica e a universalidade literária, política e econômica. Os muitos Severinos do poema expõem as tensões de uma existência cujo destino é "seguir o próprio enterro". O objetivo do trabalho é analisar tais tensões com ferramentas da crítica materialista, mostrando como o poema testemunha os efeitos predatórios de uma globalização espoliadora. _______________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACTMorte e vida severina is an impressive example of how literature can evidence a meaningful feeling of a writer tearing up in presence of the contradictions between the local peripheral reality and the literary, political and economic universality. The poor peasants, "Severinos", that emerge from the poem expose existence tensions whose fate is "to follow the own funeral". This paper intends to analyze such tensions with materialist critics tools, in order to show how the poem evidence the predatory effects of exploitative globalization

Phenotype of BTK‐lacking myeloid cells during prolonged COVID‐19 and upon convalescent plasma

© 2022 The Authors. European Journal of Haematology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.XLA patient with 7-month course of COVID-19 with persistent plasma SARS-CoV-2 load revealed a sustained non-inflammatory profile of myeloid cells in association with contained severity of disease, arguing in favor of the use of BTK inhibitors in SARS-COV-2 infection.This work was funded by the following grants from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, through “Apoio Especial Research4COVID-19,” project numbers 125 and 803. André M. C. Gomes and Guilherme B. Farias received Fellowships funded by FCT (Doctorates4COVID-19, 2020.10202.BD), and Janssen-Cilag Farmacêutica, respectively.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Lineage tracing of acute myeloid leukemia reveals the impact of hypomethylating agents on chemoresistance selection

Chemotherapy-resistant cancer recurrence is a major cause of mortality. In acute myeloid leukemia (AML), chemorefractory relapses result from the complex interplay between altered genetic, epigenetic and transcriptional states in leukemic cells. Here, we develop an experimental model system using in vitro lineage tracing coupled with exome, transcriptome and in vivo functional readouts to assess the AML population dynamics and associated molecular determinants underpinning chemoresistance development. We find that combining standard chemotherapeutic regimens with low doses of DNA methyltransferase inhibitors (DNMTi, hypomethylating drugs) prevents chemoresistant relapses. Mechanistically, DNMTi suppresses the outgrowth of a pre-determined set of chemoresistant AML clones with stemness properties, instead favoring the expansion of rarer and unfit chemosensitive clones. Importantly, we confirm the capacity of DNMTi combination to suppress stemness-dependent chemoresistance development in xenotransplantation models and primary AML patient samples. Together, these results support the potential of DNMTi combination treatment to circumvent the development of chemorefractory AML relapses

Respirometry and Ruminant Nutrition

The gaseous exchange between an organism and the environment is measured by respirometry or indirect calorimetry. Once the oxygen consumption (O2) and the production of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) are known, the energy losses by gas and heat can be calculated. Energy metabolism and methane production have been studied in the Calorimetry and Metabolism Laboratory of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, located in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Animals used are mainly Zebu cattle and their crossbreeds that represent most beef and dairy cattle breed grazed on tropical pastures. System calibration and routine work are addressed in this text. The results obtained on respirometric chambers are expressed in net energy (NE), which can be net energy for maintenance (NEm), lactation (NEL), weight gain (NEg), and pregnancy (NEp). NE is, in fact, what is used by the animal for maintenance and each productive function. The values of k (conversion efficiency of ME into NE) for maintenance (km), milk (kL), weight gain or growth (kg), and pregnancy (kp) are determined. Thanks to the peculiarity of the respirometric technique, the same animal can be evaluated several times, in different physiological states and planes of nutrition