Analysis of gut microbiota in rheumatoid arthritis patients. Disease-related dysbiosis and modifications induced by etanercept

A certain number of studies were carried out to address the question of how dysbiosis could affect the onset and development of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but little is known about the reciprocal influence between microbiota composition and immunosuppressive drugs, and how this interaction may have an impact on the clinical outcome. The aim of this study was to characterize the intestinal microbiota in a groups of RA patients treatment-naïve, under methotrexate, and/or etanercept (ETN). Correlations between the gut microbiota composition and validated immunological and clinical parameters of disease activity were also evaluated. In the current study, a 16S analysis was employed to explore the gut microbiota of 42 patients affected by RA and 10 healthy controls. Disease activity score on 28 joints (DAS-28), erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C-reactive protein, rheumatoid factor, anti-cyclic citrullinated peptides, and dietary and smoking habits were assessed. The composition of the gut microbiota in RA patients free of therapy is characterized by several abnormalities compared to healthy controls. Gut dysbiosis in RA patients is associated with different serological and clinical parameters; in particular, the phylum of Euryarchaeota was directly correlated to DAS and emerged as an independent risk factor. Patients under treatment with ETN present a partial restoration of a beneficial microbiota. The results of our study confirm that gut dysbiosis is a hallmark of the disease, and shows, for the first time, that the anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) ETN is able to modify microbial communities, at least partially restoring a beneficial microbiota

Network Friendly P2P-TV: The Napa-Wine Approach

DEMO Sessio

Aquafeed production from fermented fish waste and lemon peel

In order to obtain a high-protein-content supplement for aquaculture feeds, rich in healthy microorganisms, in this study, Saccharomyces cerevisiae American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) 4126 and Lactobacillus reuteri ATCC 53608 strains were used as starters for fermenting fish waste supplemented with lemon peel as a prebiotic source and filler. Fermentation tests were carried out for 120 h until no further growth of the selected microorganisms was observed and the pH value became stable. All the samples were tested for proteins, crude lipids, and ash determination, and submitted for fatty acid analysis. Moreover, microbiological analyses for coliform bacteria identification were carried out. At the end of the fermentation period, the substrate reached a concentration in protein and in crude lipids of 48.55 ± 1.15% and 15.25 ± 0.80%, respectively, representing adequate levels for the resulting aquafeed, whereas the ash percentage was 0.66 ± 0.03. The main fatty acids detected were palmitic, oleic, and linoleic acids. Saturated fatty acids concentration was not affected by the fermentation process, whereas monounsaturated and polyunsaturated ones showed an opposite trend, increasing and decreasing, respectively, during the process. Coliform bacteria were not detected in the media at the end of the fermentation, whereas the amount of S. cerevisiae and L. reuteri were around 1011 and 1012 cells per g, respectively

Clinical translation of genetic testing in TTR Amyloidosis. genotype-phenotype correlations, management of asymptomatic carriers and familial screening

Transthyretin (TTR)-related amyloidosis (ATTR) is a heterogeneous disease with different organ involvement depending on the type of TTR infiltration [mutated (vTTR) or wild-type (wtTTR)]. Genetic testing in ATTR is required to define diagnosis and identify asymptomatic at-risk family members. Since new therapies are maximally effective in the early stages of the disease, there is a growing agreement about the need for close monitoring of genotype-positive, phenotype-negative individuals to assure a prompt treatment when minor disease signs are detected. This review summarizes the complexity of genotype-phenotype correlation and revises the current indications with respect to familiar screening and management of asymptomatic carriers

UAVs Team and Its Application in Agriculture: A Simulation Environment

n/

Influence of shock wave propagation on dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuator performance

Interest in plasma actuators as active flow control devices is growing rapidly due to their lack of mechanical parts, light weight and high response frequency. Although the flow induced by these actuators has received much attention, the effect that the external flow has on the performance of the actuator itself must also be considered, especially the influence of unsteady high-speed flows which are fast becoming a norm in the operating flight envelopes. The primary objective of this study is to examine the characteristics of a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuator when exposed to an unsteady flow generated by a shock tube. This type of flow, which is often used in different studies, contains a range of flow regimes from sudden pressure and density changes to relatively uniform high-speed flow regions. A small circular shock tube is employed along with the schlieren photography technique to visualize the flow. The voltage and current traces of the plasma actuator are monitored throughout, and using the well-established shock tube theory the change in the actuator characteristics are related to the physical processes which occur inside the shock tube. The results show that not only is the shear layer outside of the shock tube affected by the plasma but the passage of the shock front and high-speed flow behind it also greatly influences the properties of the plasma

Viriot: A cloud of things that offers iot infrastructures as a service

Many cloud providers offer IoT services that simplify the collection and processing of IoT information. However, the IoT infrastructure composed of sensors and actuators that produces this information remains outside the cloud; therefore, application developers must install, connect and manage the cloud. This requirement can be a market barrier, especially for small/medium software companies that cannot afford the infrastructural costs associated with it and would only prefer to focus on IoT application developments. Motivated by the wish to eliminate this barrier, this paper proposes a Cloud of Things platform, called VirIoT, which fully brings the Infrastructure as a service model typical of cloud computing to the world of Internet of Things. VirIoT provides users with virtual IoT infrastructures (Virtual Silos) composed of virtual things, with which users can interact through dedicated and standardized broker servers in which the technology can be chosen among those offered by the platform, such as oneM2M, NGSI and NGSI-LD. VirIoT allows developers to focus their efforts exclusively on IoT applications without worrying about infrastructure management and allows cloud providers to expand their IoT services portfolio. VirIoT uses external things and cloud/edge computing resources to deliver the IoT virtualization services. Its open-source architecture is microservice-based and runs on top of a distributed Kubernetes platform with nodes in central and edge data centers. The architecture is scalable, efficient and able to support the continuous integration of heterogeneous things and IoT standards, taking care of interoperability issues. Using a VirIoT deployment spanning data centers in Europe and Japan, we conducted a performance evaluation with a two-fold objective: showing the efficiency and scalability of the architecture; and leveraging VirIoT’s ability to integrate different IoT standards in order to make a fair comparison of some open-source IoT Broker implementations, namely Mobius for oneM2M, Orion for NGSIv2, Orion-LD and Scorpio for NGSI-LD

Study of the 12C + 12C reaction at 62 A MeV for hadrontherapy applications

The largest uncertainty on the physical dose deposition in hadrontherapy is due to ion’s nuclear interaction through the traversed material. Today the simulation codes are not able to reproduce the fragmentation process with the required precision. To improve the knowledge of 12C fragmentation at intermediate energies we have measured at the Laboratori Nazionali del Sud in Catania production cross sections, energy spectra and angular distributions of fragments produced in 12C fragmentation on thin 12C target, at 62A MeV

X-ray structures of checkpoint kinase 2 in complex with inhibitors that target its gatekeeper-dependent hydrophobic pocket

AbstractThe serine/threonine checkpoint kinase 2 (Chk2) is an attractive molecular target for the development of small molecule inhibitors to treat cancer. Here, we report the rational design of Chk2 inhibitors that target the gatekeeper-dependent hydrophobic pocket located behind the adenine-binding region of the ATP-binding site. These compounds exhibit IC50 values in the low nanomolar range and are highly selective for Chk2 over Chk1. X-ray crystallography was used to determine the structures of the inhibitors in complex with the catalytic kinase domain of Chk2 to verify their modes of binding