Introduction
The influence of aligners on the activity of the masticatory muscles is still controversial, especially regarding the behaviour associated with awake bruxism (AB).
Objective
To compare ...the frequency of AB behaviours between patients treated with aligners and fixed appliances.
Methods
The sample comprised 38 Class I patients (mean age 22.08 years), divided by simple randomisation into two groups: OA group; orthodontic aligners (n 19) and FA group; fixed appliance (n 19). The frequency of AB was investigated by the ecological momentary assessment using an online device (mentimeter), during 7 following days at different timepoints, before and after appliance placement and in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th months of orthodontic treatment. These variables were also evaluated: level of anxiety by the State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory, stress by the Perceived Stress Scale, catastrophising related to pain and degree of hypervigilance by the Pain Vigilance and Awareness Questionnaire, and the presence of facial pain evaluated by the DC/TMD.
Results
There was no difference between groups in the frequency of AB behaviours, with mean of 53.5% for group OA and 51.3% for FA. The most frequent behaviour was slightly touching the teeth, and in FA group, there was a significant reduction in this behaviour soon after appliance placement. The groups did not differ concerning the degree of anxiety, stress, catastrophising, hypervigilance and facial pain.
Conclusion
The orthodontic treatment performed with aligners or fixed appliances did not influence the frequency of AB during the 6 months of treatment.
Registry of Clinical Trials
(REBEC): RBR‐9zytwf.
•Palygorskite was characterized by chemical analysis, morphology and particle size.•Using XRD pattern, it was observed that palygorskite is the main mineral.•SEM images show the fibrous aspect of the ...palygorskite and ribbon-like structures.•Palygorskite is positively charged below pH 8 and becomes negatively charged above it.
In this work, the adsorption of Fe(III) onto Brazilian palygorskite nanoparticles was investigated and the modifications of the mineral–aqueous solution interface properties were evaluated. We also investigated the influence of the adsorbent concentration and the best contact time for the adsorption to occur. The results showed that an increase in adsorbent dosage also increased the Fe(III) adsorption and the Langmuir model fitted the experimental data, showing that palygorskite is a potential clay mineral for the removal of cations from solutions.
The non-classical histocompatibility antigen G (HLA-G) is an immune checkpoint molecule that has been implicated in viral disorders. We evaluated the plasma soluble HLA-G (sHLA-G) in 239 individuals, ...arranged in COVID-19 patients (n = 189) followed up at home or in a hospital, and in healthy controls (n = 50). Increased levels of sHLA-G were observed in COVID-19 patients irrespective of the facility care, gender, age, and the presence of comorbidities. Compared with controls, the sHLA-G levels increased as far as disease severity progressed; however, the levels decreased in critically ill patients, suggesting an immune exhaustion phenomenon. Notably, sHLA-G exhibited a positive correlation with other mediators currently observed in the acute phase of the disease, including IL-6, IL-8 and IL-10. Although sHLA-G levels may be associated with an acute biomarker of COVID-19, the increased levels alone were not associated with disease severity or mortality due to COVID-19. Whether the SARS-CoV-2 per se or the innate/adaptive immune response against the virus is responsible for the increased levels of sHLA-G are questions that need to be further addressed.
•Nanopalygorskites’ surface modification was confirmed by characterization.•The magnetism of nanoparticles was characterized by different techniques.•Methylene blue was easily removed using the ...magnetic nanopalygorskites.
Recently there has been considerable interest in magnetic sorbents materials, which is added excellent capabilities such as sorption and magnetic response to an applied field. Accordingly, palygorskite nanoparticles were covered by magnetite using a co-precipitation technique and characterized by: X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), surface analysing and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with element analysis and mapping, particle size, pore surface area (BET), density, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and zeta potential. Additionally, magnetic properties were studied by SQUID magnetometer, magnetic force microscopy (MFM) and also using a simple experimental setup. Magnetic nanoparticles produced had average diameters in a nanometric range. The amount of iron present in the nanoparticles increased by six times after the magnetization and a superparamagnetic behavior was exhibited with high saturation magnetization, from 4.0×10−4Am2/kg to about 20Am2/kg. A weight loss was also observed around 277°C–339°C by TGA, indicating a structural change from magnetite to maghemite, which confirms the magnetization of palygorskite. Batch adsorption experiments were carried out for the removal of methylene blue cationic dye from aqueous solution using pure and covered by magnetite palygorskite nanoparticles as adsorbents. Furthermore, about 90% of methylene blue was removed within 3min using magnetized palygorskite.
The present study aimed to determine the ideal ratios of digestible essential amino acids (EAAs) for pacu (Piaractus mesopotamicus) juveniles by the amino acid (AA) deletion method. A completely ...randomized design which consisted of 11 treatments and three replicates each was used. The treatments included a control diet (CD) containing 55% of nonpurified natural ingredients and 45% of purified synthetic amino acids and ingredients, and other ten isonitrogenous and isoenergetic EAA limiting diets (LDs), each being deficient in 44.4 ± 0.02% of the respective EAA. Pacu juveniles with initial average body weight of 6.22 ± 0.09 g were distributed among 33 fiber glass tanks. Fish were fed with semipurified and extruded diets for 113 days two times a day until apparent satiation. The ideal ratio of each dietary EAA was calculated on the basis of the relationship between body N retention and amount of EAA deleted from the respective EAA LD. Based on the AA deletion method, the ideal ratios of digestible EAAs for pacu juveniles, relative to lysine requirement of 100% were estimated as: methionine 14.6%, threonine 35.0%, tryptophan 6.6%, arginine 62.8%, histidine 13.6%, isoleucine 26.3%, leucine 43.7%, phenylalanine 27.2%, and valine 35.8%.
The organophilization of clays to increase interfacial interactions is a typical practice when the objective is its encapsulation with a polymer. This work intend to synthesize and characterize an ...organo-palygorskite-Fe3O4, to change the hydrophilicity of the material and investigate its efficiency in the removal of two anionic dyes from aqueous solution with the aim to use this material to treat wastewater contaminated with dyes. The organophilization of modified palygorskite–Fe3O4 was done with a cationic surfactant (cetyl trimethylammonium bromide, CTAB) and the material obtained was characterized by XRF, SEM, XRD, FTIR, Nano Zetasizer, density, BET surface area, TGA/DTA and contact angle measurements. XRF and FTIR confirmed the presence of carbon in the modified palygorskite–Fe3O4 nanoparticles while XRD showed new crystalline phases from CTAB. Furthermore, a positive zeta potential value appeared and an inversion in the nanoparticles' hydrophobicity happened due to the increase of organic carbon content in the organo-palygorskite-Fe3O4. The adsorbed anionic dye on organo-palygorskite-Fe3O4 may be completely recovered by the action of a magnet, showing an excellent adsorptive property and economical alternative adsorbents to treat dye wastewater. The negative values calculated for the free energies of adsorption indicate that the adsorption of methyl orange and indigo carmine on the active sites of organo-palygorskite-Fe3O4 surface was spontaneous and that the indigo carmine had the best interaction with the magnetic organo clay.
•An organo palygorskite–Fe3O4 nanoparticles was prepared in this work.•By using different techniques was observed that palygorskite was organophilized.•Contact angle shows nanoparticle's change from partially hydrophobic to hydrophilic.•Anionic dyes on organoclay may be completely recovered by the action of a magnet.
COVID-19 is associated with a dysregulated immune response. Currently, several medicines are licensed for the treatment of this disease. Due to their significant role in inhibiting pro-inflammatory ...cytokines and lipid mediators, glucocorticoids (GCs) have attracted a great deal of attention. Similarly, the endocannabinoid (eCB) system regulates various physiological processes including the immunological response. Additionally, during inflammatory and thrombotic processes, phospholipids from cell membranes are cleaved to produce platelet-activating factor (PAF), another lipid mediator. Nonetheless, the effect of GCs on this lipid pathway during COVID-19 therapy is still unknown. This is a cross-sectional study involving COVID-19 patients (
= 200) and healthy controls (
= 35). Target tandem mass spectrometry of plasma lipid mediators demonstrated that COVID-19 severity affected eCBs and PAF synthesis. This increased synthesis of eCB was adversely linked with systemic inflammatory markers IL-6 and sTREM-1 levels and neutrophil counts. The use of GCs altered these lipid pathways by reducing PAF and increasing 2-AG production. Corroborating this, transcriptome analysis of GC-treated patients blood leukocytes showed differential modulation of monoacylglycerol lipase and phospholipase A2 gene expression. Altogether, these findings offer a breakthrough in our understanding of COVID-19 pathophysiology, indicating that GCs may promote additional protective pharmacological effects by influencing the eCB and PAF pathways involved in the disease course.
Background
Effective and safe vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are critical to controlling the COVID-19 pandemic and will remain the most important tool ...in limiting the spread of the virus long after the pandemic is over.
Methods
We bring pioneering contributions on the maintenance of the immune response over a year on a real-life basis study in 1,587 individuals (18-90 yrs, median 39 yrs; 1,208 female/379 male) who underwent vaccination with two doses of CoronaVac and BNT162b2 booster after 6-months of primary protocol.
Findings
Elevated levels of anti-spike IgG antibodies were detected after CoronaVac vaccination, which significantly decreased after 80 days and remained stable until the introduction of the booster dose. Heterologous booster restored antibody titers up to-1·7-fold, changing overall seropositivity to 96%. Titers of neutralising antibodies to the Omicron variant were lower in all timepoints than those against Delta variant. Individuals presenting neutralising antibodies against Omicron also presented the highest titers against Delta and anti-Spike IgG. Cellular immune response measurement pointed out a mixed immune profile with a robust release of chemokines, cytokines, and growth factors on the first month after CoronaVac vaccination followed by a gradual reduction over time and no increase after the booster dose. A stronger interaction between those mediators was noted over time. Prior exposure to the virus leaded to a more robust cellular immune response and a rise in antibody levels 60 days post CoronaVac than in individuals with no previous COVID-19. Both vaccines were safe and well tolerated among individuals.
Interpretation
Our data approach the effectiveness of CoronaVac association with BNT162b2 from the clinical and biological perspectives, aspects that have important implications for informing decisions about vaccine boosters.
Funding
Fiocruz, Brazil.
Species occurrence records provide the basis for many biodiversity studies. They derive from georeferenced specimens deposited in natural history collections and visual observations, such as those ...obtained through various mobile applications. Given the rapid increase in availability of such data, the control of quality and accuracy constitutes a particular concern. Automatic filtering is a scalable and reproducible means to identify potentially problematic records and tailor datasets from public databases such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF;
http://www.gbif.org
), for biodiversity analyses. However, it is unclear how much data may be lost by filtering, whether the same filters should be applied across all taxonomic groups, and what the effect of filtering is on common downstream analyses. Here, we evaluate the effect of 13 recently proposed filters on the inference of species richness patterns and automated conservation assessments for 18 Neotropical taxa, including terrestrial and marine animals, fungi, and plants downloaded from GBIF. We find that a total of 44.3% of the records are potentially problematic, with large variation across taxonomic groups (25–90%). A small fraction of records was identified as erroneous in the strict sense (4.2%), and a much larger proportion as unfit for most downstream analyses (41.7%). Filters of duplicated information, collection year, and basis of record, as well as coordinates in urban areas, or for terrestrial taxa in the sea or marine taxa on land, have the greatest effect. Automated filtering can help in identifying problematic records, but requires customization of which tests and thresholds should be applied to the taxonomic group and geographic area under focus. Our results stress the importance of thorough recording and exploration of the meta-data associated with species records for biodiversity research.
COVID‐19 has a broad spectrum of clinical manifestations associated with the host immune response heterogeneity. Despite the advances in COVID‐19 research, it is still crucial to seek a panel of ...molecular markers that enable accurate stratification of COVID‐19 patients. Here, we performed a study that combined analysis of blood transcriptome, demographic data, clinical aspects and laboratory findings from 66 participants classified into different degrees of COVID‐19 severity and healthy subjects. We identified a perturbation in blood‐leukocyte transcriptional profile associated with COVID‐19 aggravation, which was mainly related to processes that disfavoured lymphocyte activation and favoured neutrophil activation. This transcriptional profile stratified patients according to COVID‐19 severity. Hence, it enabled identification of a turning point in transcriptional dynamics that distinguished disease outcomes and non‐hospitalized from hospitalized moderate patients. Central genes of this unique neutrophil signature were S100A9, ANXA3, CEACAM6, VNN1, OLFM4, IL1R2, TCN1 and CD177. Our study indicates the molecular changes that are linked with the differing clinical aspects presented by humans when suffering from COVID‐19, which involve neutrophil activation.
COVID‐19 aggravation is linked to distinct transcriptional profiles of blood leukocytes.
The turning point in transcriptional dynamics is associated with a unique signature of neutrophils and COVID‐19 severity.
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