Análise da capacidade diagnóstica dos exames preventivos do câncer de colo uterino Análisis de la capacidad diagnóstica de los exámenes preventivos del cáncer de cuello uterino Analysis of the capacity of preventive diagnostic tests for cervical cancer

OBJETIVO: Avaliar a capacidade diagnóstica dos exames citológicos, colposcópico e histológico na detecção de lesões pré-malignas. MÉTODOS: Estudo documental, retrospectivo, com abordagem quantitativa, realizado no Instituto de Prevenção do Câncer (IPC), em Fortaleza-CE. A população foi composta por prontuários de 112 mulheres que possuíam o resultado dos três exames. Adotou-se o teste de qui-quadrado e considerou-se estatisticamente significativo quando p < 0,05. Foram aplicados a sensibilidade e especificidade, valor preditivo positivo (VPP) e valor preditivo negativo (VPN) para a citologia e colposcopia. RESULTADOS: A partir da comparação entre os exames diagnósticos observou-se que a citologia obteve uma sensibilidade de 89,8%, uma especificidade de 35,7%, um VPP de 90,7% e um VPN de 33,3%. A colposcopia alcançou uma sensibilidade de 84,7%, uma especificidade de 50%, um VPP de 92,2% e um VPN de 31,8%. CONCLUSÃO: Observou-se que esses exames apresentaram valores de sensibilidade e especificidade que podem alternar-se, indicando-se a associação de ambos para melhorar a acurácia do diagnóstico das lesões pré-malignas.<br>OBJETIVO: Evaluar la capacidad diagnóstica de los exámenes citológicos, colposcópico e histológico en la detección de lesiones pre-malignas. MÉTODOS: Estudio documental, retrospectivo, con abordaje cuantitativo, realizado en el Instituto de Prevención del Cáncer (IPC), en Fortaleza-CE. La población estuvo compuesta por historias clínicas de 112 mujeres que poseían el resultado de los tres exámenes. Se adoptó el test de Chi-cuadrado y se consideró estadísticamente significativo cuando p < 0,05. Fueron aplicados la sensibilidad y especificidad, valor predictivo positivo (VPP) y valor predictivo negativo (VPN) para la citología y colposcopía. RESULTADOS: A partir de la comparación entre los exámenes diagnósticos se observó que la citología obtuvo una sensibilidad de 89,8%, una especificidad de 35,7%, un VPP de 90,7% y un VPN de 33,3%. La colposcopía alcanzó una sensibilidad de 84,7%, una especificidad de 50%, un VPP de 92,2% y un VPN de 31,8%. CONCLUSIÓN: Se observó que esos exámenes presentaron valores de sensibilidad y especificidad que pueden alternarse, indicándose la asociación de ambos para perfeccionar el diagnóstico de las lesiones pre-malignas.<br>OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the diagnostic capacity of cytological, colposcopic, and histological exams on the detection of premalignant lesions. METHODS: A documentary, retrospective study, with a quantitative approach, conducted in the Cancer Prevention Institute (CPI), in Fortaleza-CE. The population consisted of medical records of 112 women who had the results of these three exams. We adopted the chi-square test and considered it statistically significant when p <0.05. We applied sensitivity and specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) for cytology and colposcopy. RESULTS: From the comparison between the diagnostic tests, we observed that cytology obtained a sensitivity of 89.8%, a specificity of 35.7%, a PPV of 90.7% and an NPV of 33.3%. Colposcopy achieved a sensitivity of 84.7%, a specificity of 50%, a PPV of 92.2% and an NPV of 31.8%. CONCLUSION: We found that these tests presented sensitivity and specificity that can alternate with one another, indicating the association of both to improve the accuracy of diagnosis of premalignant lesions

Intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) deficiency protects mice against severe forms of experimentally induced colitis

ICAM-1 (CD54), the ligand for LFA-1 and Mac-1, is up-regulated during inflammatory reaction on the activated vascular endothelium. To determine its role in intestinal inflammation, we induced acute experimental colitis in mice with a deleted ICAM-1 gene, by feeding them with 3% dextran sodium sulphate (DSS) in drinking water for 7 days. Chronic colitis was elicited by DSS similarly, followed by 2 weeks with water. In the acute phase of inflammation, ICAM-1-deficient mice exhibited a significantly lower mortality rate (5%) than control C57Bl/6J mice (35%). Control animals, but not the ICAM-1-deficient mice, exhibited diarrhoea and rectal bleeding. Histological examination of large-bowel samples evaluated the intensity of inflammatory changes, and type and extent of mucosal lesions. In the acute phase, 33.3% of samples from ICAM-1-deficient mice exhibited mucosal defects (flat and fissural ulcers), predominantly mild to moderate inflammatory infiltrate within the lamina propria mucosae and lower grades of mucosal lesions. Much stronger inflammatory changes were present in control animals, flat ulcers (sometimes multiple) and fissural ulcers being observed in 62.5% of samples. Mucosal inflammatory infiltrate was moderate to severe, typically with higher grades of mucosal lesions. In chronic colitis, smaller inflammatory changes were found in the large bowel. The two mouse strains differed, the chronic colitis being accompanied by an increased serum level of anti-epithelial IgA autoantibodies in C57Bl/6 control mice but not in ICAM-1-deficient mice. These findings provide direct evidence of the participation of ICAM-1 molecule in the development of experimentally induced intestinal inflammation

Cytoplasmic localization of PML particles in laminopathies

Item does not contain fulltextThere is growing evidence that laminopathies, diseases associated with mutations in the LMNA gene, are caused by a combination of mechanical and gene regulatory distortions. Strikingly, there is a large variability in disease symptoms between individual patients carrying an identical LMNA mutation. This is why classical genetic screens for mutations appear to have limited predictive value for disease development. Recently, the widespread occurrence of repetitive nuclear ruptures has been described in fibroblast cultures from various laminopathy patients. Since this phenomenon was strongly correlated with disease severity, the identification of biomarkers that report on these rupture events could have diagnostic relevance. One such candidate marker is the PML nuclear body, a structure that is normally confined to the nuclear interior, but leaks out of the nucleus upon nuclear rupture. Here, we show that a variety of laminopathies shows the presence of these cytoplasmic PML particles (PML CPs), and that the amount of these protein aggregates increases with severity of the disease. In addition, between clinically healthy individuals, carrying LMNA mutations, significant differences can be found. Therefore, we postulate that detection of PML CPs in patient fibroblasts could become a valuable marker for diagnosis of disease development

Correction to: A molecular perspective on starch metabolism in woody tissues

The original article can be found online at http://hdl.handle.net/1822/55743The original article was corrected.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Systematic assessment of secondary bile acid metabolism in gut microbes reveals distinct metabolic capabilities in inflammatory bowel disease

Background The human gut microbiome performs important functions in human health and disease. A classic example for host-gut microbial co-metabolism is host biosynthesis of primary bile acids and their subsequent deconjugation and transformation by the gut microbiome. To understand these system-level host-microbe interactions, a mechanistic, multi-scale computational systems biology approach that integrates the different types of omic data is needed. Here, we use a systematic workflow to computationally model bile acid metabolism in gut microbes and microbial communities. Results Therefore, we first performed a comparative genomic analysis of bile acid deconjugation and biotransformation pathways in 693 human gut microbial genomes and expanded 232 curated genome-scale microbial metabolic reconstructions with the corresponding reactions (available at https://vmh.life). We then predicted the bile acid biotransformation potential of each microbe and in combination with other microbes. We found that each microbe could produce maximally six of the 13 secondary bile acids in silico, while microbial pairs could produce up to 12 bile acids, suggesting bile acid biotransformation being a microbial community task. To investigate the metabolic potential of a given microbiome, publicly available metagenomics data from healthy Western individuals, as well as inflammatory bowel disease patients and healthy controls, were mapped onto the genomes of the reconstructed strains. We constructed for each individual a large-scale personalized microbial community model that takes into account strain-level abundances. Using flux balance analysis, we found considerable variation in the potential to deconjugate and transform primary bile acids between the gut microbiomes of healthy individuals. Moreover, the microbiomes of pediatric inflammatory bowel disease patients were significantly depleted in their bile acid production potential compared with that of controls. The contributions of each strain to overall bile acid production potential across individuals were found to be distinct between inflammatory bowel disease patients and controls. Finally, bottlenecks limiting secondary bile acid production potential were identified in each microbiome model. Conclusions This large-scale modeling approach provides a novel way of analyzing metagenomics data to accelerate our understanding of the metabolic interactions between the host and gut microbiomes in health and diseases states. Our models and tools are freely available to the scientific community