Leukocytapheresis treatment for recurrence Virus C infection in liver transplant recipients

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Comparative study on the preventing effects of oral vanadyl sulfate and dietary restriction on the age-related glucose intolerance in rats.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Aging is associated with a progressive impairment of glucose tolerance. The aim of this study was to explore the protective effects of the chronic oral administration of the insulino-mimetic agent vanadyl sulfate (VOSO4) as compared with those exerted by a long-lasting dietary restriction. METHODS: Male Sprague-Dawley rats, either fed ad libitum (AL) or subjected to 40% dietary restriction (DR), were used. VOSO4 (0.5 mg/mL drinking water) was administered to a subgroup of AL rats for two months, starting at 16 months of age. Rats were subjected to an intravenous glucose tolerance test (IVGTT) at 16 and 18 months of age. Finally, the beta-cell responsiveness to glucose was evaluated in vitro by the isolated perfused pancreas preparation. RESULTS: The IVGTT performed in 16-month-old rats showed that DR prevented the development of the moderate glucose intolerance observed in AL rats. The IVGTT performed at 18 months of age confirmed the beneficial effect of DR and showed that VOSO4 was able to prevent the further age-related progression of glucose intolerance observed in AL rats. Pancreas perfusion studies showed that no increase in insulin secretion occurred in both VOSO4-treated and DR rats with respect to the age-matched AL controls, consistently with the in vivo observation of post-loading insulinaemic changes. CONCLUSIONS: On the basis of these results, we conclude that the beneficial effect of both treatments is mostly related to an improvement of tissue sensitivity to insulin rather than to an insulinotropic effect

Safety of polymyxin-B-based hemoperfusion in kidney and liver transplant recipients.

Abstract Infection represents one of the primary barriers to successful organ transplantation. Our principal end point was to use a new assay, Entotoxin Activity Assay (EAA), which was developed to rapidly detect endotoxin activity (EA) for an early diagnosis of this complication. We also sought to prove the validity and safety of endotoxin removal using polymyxin-B–based hemoperfusion (PMX-DHP). The criterion for inclusion in the study was suspected infection when a patient experienced at least 2 of the 4 criteria of the systemic inflammatory response syndrome. EAA was performed on 71 patients: 29 liver transplantations and 42 kidney transplantations. Twenty-eight patients (39.5%) with EA >0.60 underwent PMX-DHP treatment to remove endotoxins. Each treatment was performed for 2 hours with a blood flow of 100 mL/min. All of the patients were treated with PMX-DHP until achieving an E

Insufficient adaptive capability of pancreatic endocrine function in dexamethasone-treated ageing rats.

This study was aimed at exploring the capability of the pancreatic endocrine adaptive mechanisms of ageing Sprague-Dawley rats to counteract the metabolic challenge induced by the prolonged administration of dexamethasone (DEX) (0.13 mg/kg per day for 13 days). DEX treatment induced peripheral insulin resistance in 3-, 18- and 26-month-old rats, as indicated by the significant and persistent rise of plasma insulin levels in each age group (plasma insulin in 3-, 18- and 26-month-old rats from basal values of 4.3+/-0.8, 4.7+/-0.5 and 5.6+/-1.0 ng/ml (means+/-s.e.m.) respectively, rose to 11.9+/-1.7, 29.1+/-5.5 and 27.9+/-2.7 ng/ml respectively, after 9 days of administration). However, plasma glucose concentrations remained unchanged during the treatment in young rats, whereas they increased up to frankly diabetic levels in most 18-month-old and in all 26-month-old animals after a few days of DEX administration. Plasma free fatty acid concentrations increased 2-fold in 3- and 26-month-old rats and 4-fold in 18-month-old rats and could possibly be involved in the glucocorticoid-induced enhancement in insulin resistance, although they showed no significant correlation with glycaemic values. Incubation of pancreatic islets obtained from treated rats showed that DEX administration increased the insulin responsiveness of islets from not only younger but also older donors. However, in the islets of ageing rats, which already showed an age-dependent impairment of the sensitivity to glucose and other secretagogues, this enhancing effect was clearly attenuated with respect to the younger counterpart. Furthermore, DEX treatment depressed significantly the priming effect of glucose in islets isolated from all the three age groups. In conclusion, our results show that ageing rats are unable to counteract effectively a prolonged hyperglycaemic challenge as such induced by DEX administration. This homeostatic defect can be ascribed to the age-dependent failure of the endocrine pancreas to provide enough insulin to overcome the aggravation of an antecedent state of increased peripheral insulin resistance

HLA allele frequencies and susceptibility to COVID-19 in a group of 99 Italian patients

With the aim to individuate alleles that may reflect a higher susceptibility to the disease, in the present study we analyzed the HLA allele frequency distribution in a group of 99 Italian patients affected by a severe or extremely severe form of COVID-19. After the application of Bonferroni's correction for multiple tests, a significant association was found for HLA-DRB1*15:01, -DQB1*06:02 and -B*27:07, after comparing the results to a reference group of 1017 Italian individuals, previously typed in our laboratory. The increased frequencies observed may contribute to identify potential markers of susceptibility to the disease, although controversial results on the role of single HLA alleles in COVID-19 patients have been recently reported

Caracterização dos agroecossistemas e manejo de germoplasma de Citrullus em três regiões do Nordeste brasileiro.

Sendo assim, este trabalho teve como objetivos caracterizar, estudar e descrever os agroecossistemas nordestinos representados pelos distritos de Jamarí-MA, Massaroca-BA e Urimamã-PE

Resposta de tangerinas e híbridos ao virus da leprose dos citros.

A leprose dos citros é uma das mais importantes viroses da citricultura brasileira. A doença, causada pelo Citrus leprosis virus C (CiLV-C) transmitido por Brevipalpus phoenicis, caracteriza-se pela indução de lesões locais no hospedeiro vegetal. Por ser uma virose não sistêmica, ao contrário da maioria das que ocorrem em plantas, o conhecimento dos mecanismos envolvidos nas interações vírus x planta x vetor se tornam ainda mais importantes, principalmente em relação ao manejo da doença no campo.A leprose tem a sua maior importância econômica no Brasil, embora relatos de sua ocorrência em países das Américas vêm aumentando significativamente nos últimos anos (Bastianel et al., 2010). Por ser um sério problema fitossanitário em pomares de laranjas doces, graças ao plantio em grande escala de variedades altamente suscetíveis, poucos estudos sobre a importância da leprose em outros grupos de citros, como as tangerinas e tangores têm sido relatados. Neste trabalho, estudos foram conduzidos com o objetivo de se ampliar o conhecimento da resposta da doença em variedades de tangerinas e híbridos de importância econômica.pdf 145

QUARTZ CRYSTAL MICROBALANCE WITH DISSIPATION (QCM-D) AS TOOL TO EXPLOIT ANTIGEN-ANTIBODY INTERACTIONS IN PANCREATIC DUCTAL ADENOCARCINOMA DETECTION

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