Gut microbiota (GM) after bariatric surgery (BS) has been considered as a factor associated with metabolic improvements and weight loss. In this systematic review, we evaluate changes in the GM, ...characterized by 16S rRNA and metagenomics techniques, in obese adults who received BS. The PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and LILACS databases were searched. Two independent reviewers analyzed articles published in the last ten years, using Rayyan QCRI. The initial search resulted in 1275 documents, and 18 clinical trials were included after the exclusion criteria were applied. The predominance of intestinal bacteria phyla varied among studies; however, most of them reported a greater amount of
(B),
(P), and diversity (D) after BS.
(F), B, and the (F/B) ratio was inconsistent, increasing or decreasing after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) and sleeve gastrectomy (SG) were conducted, compared to before surgery. There was a reduction in the relative proportion of F. Moreover, a higher proportion of
(A) was observed after RYGB was conducted. However, the same was not identified when SG procedures were applied. Genera abundance and bacteria predominance varied according to the surgical procedure, with limited data regarding the impact on phyla. The present study was approved by PROSPERO, under registration number CRD42020209509.
Abstract Ghrelin has been shown to be anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective in models of neurologic injury. We hypothesize that treatment with ghrelin will attenuate breakdown of the blood brain ...barrier (BBB) and apoptosis 24 h following traumatic brain injury (TBI). We believe this protection is at least in part mediated by up-regulation of UCP-2, thereby stabilizing mitochondria and preventing up-regulation of caspase-3. A weight drop model was used to create severe TBI. Balb/c mice were divided into 3 groups. Sham: no TBI or ghrelin treatment; TBI: TBI only; TBI/ghrelin: 20 μg (IP) ghrelin at the time of TBI. BBB permeability to 70 kDa FITC-Dextran was measured 24 h following injury and quantified in arbitrary integrated fluorescence (afu). Brain tissue was subjected to TUNEL staining and TUNEL positive cells were quantified. Immunohistochemistry was performed on injured tissue to reveal patterns of caspase-3 and UCP-2 expression. TBI increased cerebral vascular permeability by three-fold compared to sham. Ghrelin treatment restored vascular permeability to the level of shams. TUNEL staining showed that ghrelin mitigated the significant increase in apoptosis that follows TBI. TBI increased both caspase-3 compared to sham. Treatment with ghrelin significantly increased UCP-2 compared to TBI alone and this increase in UCP-2 expression was associated with a decrease in expression of caspase-3. Early ghrelin treatment prevents TBI induced BBB disruption and TBI mediated apoptosis 24 h following injury. These results demonstrate the neuroprotective potential of ghrelin as a therapy in TBI.
We have recently performed exome analysis in a 7 year boy who presented in infancy with an encephalopathy characterized by ataxia and myoclonic epilepsy. Parents were not consanguineous and there was ...no family history of the disease. Exome analysis did not show any pathogenic variants in genes known to be associated with seizures and/or ataxia in children, including all known human channelopathies. However, we have identified a mutation in KCNA2 that we believe to be responsible for the disease in our patient. This gene, which encodes a member of the potassium channel, voltage‐gated, shaker‐related subfamily, has not been previously described as a cause of disease in humans, but mutations of the orthologous gene in mice (Kcna2) are known to cause both ataxia and convulsions. The mutation is c.890C>A, leading to the amino acid substitution p.Arg297Gln, which involves the second of the critical arginines in the S4 voltage sensor. This mutation is characterized as pathogenic by five different prediction programs. RFLP analysis and Sanger sequencing confirmed the presence of the mutation in the patient, but not in his parents, characterizing it as de novo. We believe that this discovery characterizes a new channelopathy.
The biomass growth, pharmaceutical removal and light conversion efficiency of Chlorella sorokiniana under the presence of paracetamol (PC) and salicylic acid (SaC) were assessed and compared at two ...different concentrations of these pharmaceuticals (I: 25 mg l−1, II: 250 mg l−1). Microalgae were resistant to these concentrations and, moreover, their growth was significantly stimulated (p ≤ 0.05) under these drugs (biomass concentration increased above 33% PCI, 35% SaCI, 13% PCII and 45% SaCII, as compared with the respective positive controls). At the steady state of the semicontinuous culture, C. sorokiniana showed removal efficiencies above 41% and 69% for PCI and PCII, respectively; and above 93% and 98% for SaCI and SaCII, respectively. Under an irradiance of 370 μE m−2 s−1, higher quantum yields were reached by microalgae under the presence of drugs, either at dose I or II, than by the respective positive controls. These results point to C. sorokiniana as a robust strain for the bioremediation of paracetamol and salicylic acid concentrated wastewaters.
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•Drugs at doses I (25 mg l−1) and II (250 mg l−1) stimulated C. sorokiniana growth.•Under both doses, the drugs were efficiently removed from water by microalgae.•Paracetamol removal was >41% (dose I) and >69% (dose II) at the steady state.•Salicylic acid removal was >93% (dose I) and >98% (dose II) at the steady state.•C. sorokiniana is a robust strain for the bioremediation of these pharmaceuticals.
This work aimed to study both the removal of nutrients and pharmaceuticals, namely salicylic acid or paracetamol, from water by the culture of Chlorella sorokiniana. The removal of nutrients was ...nearly complete at the end of the batch culture; above 70% for nitrates and 89% for phosphates in the semicontinuous culture. The pharmaceuticals removal kinetics were 2.3 times greater for the salicylic acid than paracetamol, reaching volumetric efficiencies above 93% for salicylic acid in the semicontinuous culture. Finally, to separate the microalgae biomass from treated water, metal salts, synthetic polyelectrolytes and a biopolymer were tested as coagulants-flocculants. The best flocculation results were achieved with AlCl3 (95.23% with 200mgg(-1), 1min incubation time). However, given that resulting flocs had different characteristics, flocculants must be chosen on the basis of the subsequent use of the biomass.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a severe neurodegenerative disorder and the most common type of dementia in the elderly. The clinical symptoms of AD include a progressive loss of memory and impairment of ...cognitive functions interfering with daily life activities. The main neuropathological features consist in extracellular amyloid-β (Aβ) plaque deposition and intracellular Neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) of hyperphosphorylated Tau. Understanding the pathophysiological mechanisms that underlie neurodegeneration in AD is essential for rational design of neuroprotective agents able to prevent disease progression. According to the "Amyloid Cascade Hypothesis" the critical molecular event in the pathogenesis of AD is the accumulation of Aβ neurotoxic oligomers. Since the proteolytic processing of Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) by β-secretase (beta-site APP cleaving enzyme 1, BACE1) is the rate-limiting step in the production of Aβ, this enzyme is considered a major therapeutic target and BACE1 inhibitors have the potential to be disease-modifying drugs for AD treatment. Therefore, intensive efforts to discover and develop inhibitors that can reach the brain and effectively inhibit BACE1 have been pursued by several groups worldwide. The aim of this review is to highlight the progress in the discovery of potent and selective small molecule BACE1 inhibitors over the past decade.
The retention of human milk (HM) fat in nasogastric probes of infusion pumps can be observed during the feed of infants unable to suck at the mother's breast. The lack of homogenisation of HM could ...contribute to the fat holding. Therefore, the present study evaluated (i) the influence of homogenisation on milk fat retaining in infant feeding probes and (ii) the in vivo effect of the homogenisation on lipid absorption by Wistar rats. The animals were fed with HM treated following two processing conditions, that is, pasteurised and homogenised-pasteurised. The animals were randomly subdivided into four experimental groups: water-fed (control), pasteurised milk, homogenised-pasteurised milk and pasteurised-skimmed milk. The results of food consumption, mass body gain, corporate metrics and plasma blood levels of total cholesterol did not show any difference (P < 0·05) among the three types of HM used in the experiments. The liver, intestine and intra-abdominal adipose tissue of the four groups of animals presented normal and healthy histology. The composition of fatty acids in the brain tissue of animals fed with homogenised HM increased when compared with the groups fed with non-homogenised HM. These values were 11·08 % higher for arachidonic acids, 6·59 % for DAH and 47·92 % for nervous acids. The ingestion of homogenised HM promoted higher absorption of milk nutrients. Therefore, the addition of the homogenisation stage in HM processing could be an alternative to reduce fat retention in probes and to improve the lipids' absorption in the body.
We propose a novel method to harmonize diffusion MRI data acquired from multiple sites and scanners, which is imperative for joint analysis of the data to significantly increase sample size and ...statistical power of neuroimaging studies. Our method incorporates the following main novelties: i) we take into account the scanner-dependent spatial variability of the diffusion signal in different parts of the brain; ii) our method is independent of compartmental modeling of diffusion (e.g., tensor, and intra/extra cellular compartments) and the acquired signal itself is corrected for scanner related differences; and iii) inter-subject variability as measured by the coefficient of variation is maintained at each site. We represent the signal in a basis of spherical harmonics and compute several rotation invariant spherical harmonic features to estimate a region and tissue specific linear mapping between the signal from different sites (and scanners). We validate our method on diffusion data acquired from seven different sites (including two GE, three Philips, and two Siemens scanners) on a group of age-matched healthy subjects. Since the extracted rotation invariant spherical harmonic features depend on the accuracy of the brain parcellation provided by Freesurfer, we propose a feature based refinement of the original parcellation such that it better characterizes the anatomy and provides robust linear mappings to harmonize the dMRI data. We demonstrate the efficacy of our method by statistically comparing diffusion measures such as fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity and generalized fractional anisotropy across multiple sites before and after data harmonization. We also show results using tract-based spatial statistics before and after harmonization for independent validation of the proposed methodology. Our experimental results demonstrate that, for nearly identical acquisition protocol across sites, scanner-specific differences can be accurately removed using the proposed method.
Strategy for detecting Salmonella using PDA vesicles incorporated with monoclonal antibody. The interaction between Salmonella and the monoclonal antibody was not through electrostatic interaction ...(because both have a surface charge negative) but through affinity interaction causing a change in PDA chain and consequently a color transition from blue to red.
•PDA physical properties could affect the sensitivity and stability of the system.•4 factors were evaluated (temp, time, pH, antibody) simultaneously in PDA vesicles.•Smallest particle size showed highest CR (90%), indicating size enhance sensibility.•Changes in size and zeta potential by PDA aggregation, high temp or Salmonella presence.•Interaction between Salmonella and antibody was by affinity involving Salmonella flagellum protein.
Antibody incorporation in polydiacetylene (PDA) liposome was used to specifically detect Salmonella. Modifying physical properties of PDA liposome, such as size, surface charge, and packing of lipids, could affect the sensitivity and the stability of it. Therefore, the main goal of this study was to evaluate four factors simultaneously in PDA/antibody vesicles to detect Salmonella. Raman spectra were carried out to confirm covalent binding between antibody and PDA. The work followed through concomitant study of incubation temperature, incubation time, pH and antibody concentration allowing the development of some models that explain those variables related to colorimetric response, size and zeta potential. The smallest particle size (208nm) showed the highest colorimetric response (90%), indicating PDA size enhanced sensitivity. Besides that, there is a relation between size and zeta potential: while particle size improved (from 300nm to 700nm), zeta potential enlarged too (from −30 to −20). This effect could be explained by PDA aggregation over time, by high temperature effect or by Salmonella presence. The study of zeta potential helped to understand that the interaction between Salmonella and antibody was through affinity between them. Therefore, understanding the parameters is important to improve PDA biosensors to apply in food industry and laboratory areas.
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