Extending large-scale forest inventories to assess urban forests

Urban areas are continuously expanding today, extending their influence on an increasingly large proportion of woods and trees located in or nearby urban and urbanizing areas, the socalled urban forests. Although these forests have the potential for significantly improving the quality the urban environment and the well-being of the urban population, data to quantify the extent and characteristics of urban forests are still lacking or fragmentary on a large scale. In this regard, an expansion of the domain of multipurpose forest inventories like National Forest Inventories (NFIs) towards urban forests would be required. To this end, it would be convenient to exploit the same sampling scheme applied in NFIs to assess the basic features of urban forests. This paper considers approximately unbiased estimators of abundance and coverage of urban forests, together with estimators of the corresponding variances, which can be achieved from the first phase of most largescale forest inventories. A simulation study is carried out in order to check the performance of the considered estimators under various situations involving the spatial distribution of the urban forests over the study area. An application is worked out on the data from the Italian NFI.L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore www.springer.co

Therapeutic strategies to prevent the recurrence of nasal polyps after surgical treatment: an update and in vitro study on growth inhibition of fibroblasts

Chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP) is the most bothersome phenotype of chronic rhinosinusitis, which is typically characterized by a Type 2 inflammatory reaction, comorbidities and high rates of nasal polyp recurrence, causing severe impact on quality of life. Nasal polyp recurrence rates, defined as the number of patients undergoing revision endoscopic sinus surgery, are 20% within a 5 year period after surgery. The cornerstone of CRSwNP management consists of anti-inflammatory treatment with local corticosteroids. We performed a literature review regarding the therapeutic strategies used to prevent nasal polyp recurrence after surgical treatment. Finally, we report an in vitro study evaluating the efficacy of lysine-acetylsalicylic acid and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (ketoprofen and diclofenac) on the proliferation of fibroblasts, obtained from nasal polyp tissue samples. Our study demonstrates that diclofenac, even more so than lysine-acetylsalicylic acid, significantly inhibits fibroblast proliferation and could be considered a valid therapeutic strategy in preventing CRSwNP recurrence

The S100B Inhibitor Pentamidine Ameliorates Clinical Score and Neuropathology of Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis Mouse Model

S100B is an astrocytic protein acting either as an intracellular regulator or an extracellular signaling molecule. A direct correlation between increased amount of S100B and demyelination and inflammatory processes has been demonstrated. The aim of this study is to investigate the possible role of a small molecule able to bind and inhibit S100B, pentamidine, in the modulation of disease progression in the relapsing-remitting experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis mouse model of multiple sclerosis. By the daily evaluation of clinical scores and neuropathologic-molecular analysis performed in the central nervous system, we observed that pentamidine is able to delay the acute phase of the disease and to inhibit remission, resulting in an amelioration of clinical score when compared with untreated relapsing-remitting experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis mice. Moreover, we observed a significant reduction of proinflammatory cytokines expression levels in the brains of treated versus untreated mice, in addition to a reduction of nitric oxide synthase activity. Immunohistochemistry confirmed that the inhibition of S100B was able to modify the neuropathology of the disease, reducing immune infiltrates and partially protecting the brain from the damage. Overall, our results indicate that pentamidine targeting the S100B protein is a novel potential drug to be considered for multiple sclerosis treatment

M tuberculosis in the adjuvant modulates time of appearance of CNS-specific effector T cells in the spleen through a polymorphic site of TLR2

DC deliver information regulating trafficking of effector T cells along T-cell priming. However, the role of pathogen-derived motives in the regulation of movement of T cells has not been studied. We hereinafter report that amount of M tuberculosis in the adjuvant modulates relocation of PLP139-151 specific T cells. In the presence of a low dose of M tuberculosis in the adjuvant, T cells (detected by CDR3 BV-BJ spectratyping, the so-called "immunoscope") mostly reach the spleen by day 28 after immunization ("late relocation") in the SJL strain, whereas T cells reach the spleen by d 14 with a high dose of M tuberculosis ("early relocation"). The C57Bl/6 background confers a dominant "early relocation" phenotype to F1 (SJL 7C57Bl/6) mice, allowing early relocation of T cells in the presence of low dose M tuberculosis. A single non-synonymous polymorphism of TLR2 is responsible for "early/late" relocation phenotype. Egress of T lymphocytes is regulated by TLR2 expressed on T cells. Thus, pathogens engaging TLR2 on T cells regulate directly T-cell trafficking, and polymorphisms of TLR2 condition T-cell trafficking upon a limiting concentration of ligand

Immunomodulation by gut microbiota: Role of toll-like receptor expressed by T cells

A close relationship exists between gut microbiota and immune responses. An imbalance of this relationship can determine local and systemic immune diseases. In fact the immune system plays an essential role in maintaining the homeostasis with the microbiota that normally resides in the gut, while, at the same time, the gut microbiota influences the immune system, modulating number and function of effector and regulatory T cells. To achieve this aim, mutual regulation between immune system and microbiota is achieved through several mechanisms, including the engagement of toll-like receptors (TLRs), pathogen-specific receptors expressed on numerous cell types. TLRs are able to recognize ligands from commensal or pathogen microbiota to maintain the tolerance or trigger the immune response. In this review, we summarize the latest evidences about the role of TLRs expressed in adaptive T cells, to understand how the immune system promotes intestinal homeostasis, fights invasion by pathogens, and is modulated by the intestinal microbiota

Prevalence of children born small for gestational age with short stature who qualify for growth hormone treatment

Background: Recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) is approved in Europe as a treatment for short children born small for gestational age (SGA) since 2003. However, no study evaluated the prevalence of SGA children with short stature who qualify for rhGH in Europe so far. This study aimed to investigate in an Italian population the prevalence of children born SGA, of short stature in children born SGA, and of SGA children who qualify for rhGH treatment at 4 years of age. Methods: We conducted a population-based study on primary care pediatricians' databases in Trieste, Italy. Data was collected on 3769 children born between 2004 and 2014. SGA was defined as birth weight and/or birth length 64 - 2 SDS. Data on height and weight were registered at the closest well-being visit to 1, 2, 3, 4 years of age. Short stature was defined as height 64 - 2 SDS. Short children born SGA who qualify for rhGH treatment were identified according to Note AIFA #39 criteria (age 65 4 years; height 64 - 2.5 SDS; growth velocity < 50th percentile). Results: Full data at birth were available for 3250 children. The SGA prevalence was 3.6% (0.8% SGA for weight, 2.2% SGA for length, 0.6% SGA for both weight and length). The prevalence of short stature among SGA children was 9% at 1 year of age, 6% at 2 years (significantly higher in preterm in the first 2 years), 4% at 3 years, 3% at 4 years (all born at term). At 4 years of age, median height SDS was - 0.52. One child born SGA was eligible for GH treatment (0.8% among SGA children). Conclusions: The prevalence in a general pediatric population of children born SGA who qualify for GH treatment was 1:3250. Although the prevalence of SGA in our population was similar to previous studies, catch-up growth was recorded earlier in our sample compared to previous reports, and term babies had late catch-up. Height SDS of children born SGA at 4 years of age was lower than expected (- 0.52 SDS)

Regulation of and regulation by CD44: a paradigm for complex regulatory networks

CD44 is expressed on the cell surface of lymphocytes and other hematopoietic and non-hematopoietic cells, where regulates cell-cell and environment-cell interactions by binding different components of extracellular matrix. CD44 is implicated in several other cellular processes, such as regulation of growth, survival, differentiation and motility, both under physiological and pathologic conditions. Studies on CD44-null or transgenic mice also established its involvement in diseases such as cancer, atherosclerosis and myocardial infarction. Its regulation involves several control mechanisms among which a fundamental role is played by alternative splicing of its pre-mRNA and by post-translational modifications. Here we review the mechanisms of regulation upstream and downstream of CD4

<b>Mobilization of T cells is strain and TLR2-dependent.</b>

<p> F1 (SJLxB6^wt), F1 (SJLxB6^tlr−) (<b>A</b>, <b>C</b>) or SJL (B, <b>D</b>) mice were immunized with p139 in IFA in the presence of the indicated amounts of killed <i>M tb</i> (<b>A</b>), or of PPD (<b>B</b>, <b>C</b>) or of a 1∶1 w/w mixture of PAM2-(CSK)3 and PAM3-(CSK)3 (<b>D</b>). The number of mice for each group is indicated in the figure. Fourteen days later mice were sacrificed and the presence of T cells carrying the public TCR-beta chain in LN (closed symbols) and spleen (open symbols) was measured by immunoscope. Data are reported as RSI for the peak corresponding to the public BV10 TCR-beta chain for each individual mouse. Dashed lines indicate the cut off value for positivity (established as described in Results). <b>E</b>: 4 F1 (SJLxB6^wt, circles) mice and 5 F1 (SJLxB6^tlr2−, triangles) mice were immunized with regular CFA in PBS. Two weeks later cells from draining LN (full symbols) and spleen (open symbols) were recovered, labeled with CFSE and cultured in the presence or absence (background) of PPD. After 3 days, the number of CD3⁺ cells that had specifically divided in response to PPD was determined as % of CFSE^low CD3⁺ cells over total CD3⁺ cells in the PPD stimulated sample minus % of CFSE^low CD3⁺ cells over total CD3⁺ cells in background sample.</p