Estudio genotóxico de una bebida experimental de quinua, kiwicha y kañiwa

Genotoxic evaluation is an important step for a product that is aimed for human consumption. A beverage composed of pseudocereals with highly nutritious elements like quinua (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.), kiwicha (Amaranthus caudatus L.) and kañiwa (Chenopodium pallidicaule Aellen) was prepared to reduce lipid contents in a group of volunteers. The objective of the present study is to evaluate the genotoxic potential of an experimental beverage using two in vitro tests that have been validated by international agencies. For the Ames test, two strains of Salmonella typhimurium (TA98 and TA100) with and without microsomal fraction (S9) were used. Four doses of the beverage were tested and also a possible protective effect (same four doses of beverage added to plates with mutagens). Cultures of binucleated lymphocytes and five doses of the beverage were used for the micronucleus test. Both Ames and the micronucleus tests showed the beverage has not genotoxic effect in all tested doses. However, in evaluating the possible protective effect of the beverage, it would be evident that on the contrary, the mutagenic effect of mutagens used for each strain is enhanced. These results suggest that additional tests should be performed to check the genotoxic potential of this beverage before consumption.La evaluación genotóxica de un producto es un paso importante para determinar su viabilidad para consumo humano. Se ha elaborado una bebida experimental a base de pseudocereales de alto valor nutricional como son quinua (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.), kiwicha (Amaranthus caudatus L.) y kañiwa (Chenopodium pallidicaule Aellen), preparada para inducir un posible efecto hipolipemiante en un grupo de personas. El objetivo de este estudio fue evaluar el potencial genotóxico de esta bebida experimental mediante dos pruebas in vitro validadas por agencias internacionales. En la prueba de Ames se utilizaron las cepas TA98 y TA100 de Salmonella typhimurium, con y sin fracción microsomal (S9). Se evaluaron 4 dosis de bebida y además un posible efecto antimutagénico (mismas 4 dosis más mutágeno). Para la prueba de micronúcleos se usó cultivos de linfocitos con células binucleadas, en presencia de cinco dosis de la bebida. Ambas pruebas indican que la bebida estudiada en sus distintas dosis, no presenta efecto genotóxico. Sin embargo, en la evaluación del posible efecto protector de la bebida, se evidenciaría que por el contrario, se potencia el efecto mutagénico de los mutágenos empleados para cada cepa. Por lo tanto, es importante que esta bebida experimental sea sometida a pruebas adicionales in vitro e in vivo para evaluar el potencial genotóxico antes de su consumo

Survival in male COVID-19 patients linked to testosterone recovery

Infection with SARS-CoV-2 portends a broad range of outcomes, from a majority of asymptomatic cases or mild clinical courses to a lethal disease. Robust correlates of severe COVID-19 include old age, male sex, poverty and co-morbidities such as obesity, diabetes or cardiovascular disease. A precise knowledge is still lacking of the molecular and biological mechanisms that may explain the association of severe disease with male sex. Here, we show that testosterone trajectories are highly accurate individual predictors (AUC of ROC = 0.928, p < 0.0001) of survival in male COVID-19 patients. Longitudinal determinations of blood levels of luteinizing hormone (LH) and androstenedione suggest an early modest inhibition of the central LH-androgen biosynthesis axis in a majority of patients, followed by either full recovery in survivors or a peripheral failure in lethal cases. Moreover, failure to reinstate physiological testosterone levels was associated with evidence of impaired T helper differentiation and decrease of non-classical monocytes. The strong association of recovery or failure to reinstate testosterone levels with survival or death from COVID-19 in male patients is suggestive of a significant role of testosterone status in the immune responses to COVID-19.This study was funded by grants from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (RTI2018-096055-B-I00), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas COVID-19 Research Fund (CSIC-COV19-006, CSIC-COV19-201), Agencia de Gestio Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (2020PANDE00048 and 2017SGR 1411 GRC), Plan Nacional de I+D (PID-107139RB-C21) and Instituto Nacional de la Salud Carlos III (PI18/00346 and COVID-19_00416).N

Additional file 1 of Recovery of serum testosterone levels is an accurate predictor of survival from COVID-19 in male patients [Dataset]

Additional file 1: Table ST1. Treatments comparison by outcome in male patients. Table ST2. Treatments comparison by outcome in female patients. Table ST3. WHO classification of disease outcome. Table ST4. Panels and antibodies used for immunophenotyping. Figure SF1. Patients distribution by outcome, age, and comorbidities. Figure SF2. Distribution of male patients with comorbidities according to age and testosterone levels. Figure SF3. Longitudinal analysis of serum levels of IL-6, C-reactive protein (CRP), ferritin and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) in male patients. Figure SF4. Bioavailable testosterone serum levels and correlation between age and sex-hormone binding globulin (SHBG). Figure SF5. Flow cytometry analysis of circulating immune subpopulations in three illustrative cases with moderate, severe survivor and severe deceased outcomes.Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca Conselleria d'Educació, Investigació, Cultura i Esport Instituto de Salud Carlos IIIPeer reviewe

Molecular mechanisms of cell death: recommendations of the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death 2018.

Over the past decade, the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death (NCCD) has formulated guidelines for the definition and interpretation of cell death from morphological, biochemical, and functional perspectives. Since the field continues to expand and novel mechanisms that orchestrate multiple cell death pathways are unveiled, we propose an updated classification of cell death subroutines focusing on mechanistic and essential (as opposed to correlative and dispensable) aspects of the process. As we provide molecularly oriented definitions of terms including intrinsic apoptosis, extrinsic apoptosis, mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT)-driven necrosis, necroptosis, ferroptosis, pyroptosis, parthanatos, entotic cell death, NETotic cell death, lysosome-dependent cell death, autophagy-dependent cell death, immunogenic cell death, cellular senescence, and mitotic catastrophe, we discuss the utility of neologisms that refer to highly specialized instances of these processes. The mission of the NCCD is to provide a widely accepted nomenclature on cell death in support of the continued development of the field

Non-standard neutrino interactions in IceCube

Non-standard neutrino interactions (NSI) may arise in various types of new physics. Their existence would change the potential that atmospheric neutrinos encounter when traversing Earth matter and hence alter their oscillation behavior. This imprint on coherent neutrino forward scattering can be probed using high-statistics neutrino experiments such as IceCube and its low-energy extension, DeepCore. Both provide extensive data samples that include all neutrino flavors, with oscillation baselines between tens of kilometers and the diameter of the Earth. DeepCore event energies reach from a few GeV up to the order of 100 GeV - which marks the lower threshold for higher energy IceCube atmospheric samples, ranging up to 10 TeV. In DeepCore data, the large sample size and energy range allow us to consider not only flavor-violating and flavor-nonuniversal NSI in the μ−τ sector, but also those involving electron flavor. The effective parameterization used in our analyses is independent of the underlying model and the new physics mass scale. In this way, competitive limits on several NSI parameters have been set in the past. The 8 years of data available now result in significantly improved sensitivities. This improvement stems not only from the increase in statistics but also from substantial improvement in the treatment of systematic uncertainties, background rejection and event reconstruction

IceCube Search for Earth-traversing ultra-high energy Neutrinos

The search for ultra-high energy neutrinos is more than half a century old. While the hunt for these neutrinos has led to major leaps in neutrino physics, including the detection of astrophysical neutrinos, neutrinos at the EeV energy scale remain undetected. Proposed strategies for the future have mostly been focused on direct detection of the first neutrino interaction, or the decay shower of the resulting charged particle. Here we present an analysis that uses, for the first time, an indirect detection strategy for EeV neutrinos. We focus on tau neutrinos that have traversed Earth, and show that they reach the IceCube detector, unabsorbed, at energies greater than 100 TeV for most trajectories. This opens up the search for ultra-high energy neutrinos to the entire sky. We use ten years of IceCube data to perform an analysis that looks for secondary neutrinos in the northern sky, and highlight the promise such a strategy can have in the next generation of experiments when combined with direct detection techniques