Coronaviruses are the etiologic agents of several diseases. Coronaviruses of critical medical importance are characterized by highly inflammatory pathophysiology, involving severe pulmonary ...impairment and infection of multiple cell types within the body. Here, we discuss the interplay between coronaviruses and autophagy regarding virus life cycle, cell resistance, and inflammation, highlighting distinct mechanisms by which autophagy restrains inflammatory responses, especially those involved in coronavirus pathogenesis. We also address different autophagy modulators available and the rationale for drug repurposing as an attractive adjunctive therapy. We focused on pharmaceuticals being tested in clinical trials with distinct mechanisms but with autophagy as a common target. These autophagy modulators act in cell resistance to virus infection and immunomodulation, providing a double-strike to prevent or treat severe disease development and death from coronaviruses diseases.
Abstract Objective The purpose of this study was to measure the acute (1 session) and chronic effects (6 sessions) and the follow-up (2 weeks) of anteroposterior articular mobilization of the talus, ...grade III of Maitland, on the dorsiflexion range of motion (ROM), pain, and functional capacity of individuals with subacute and chronic traumatic injuries of the ankle. Methods Thirty-eight volunteers, men and women, with a mean age of 40.8 years, with subacute and chronic ankle injuries participated. The volunteers were blinded to the study purpose and were allocated into the experimental group (EG) or sham group (SG). Dorsiflexion ROM, pain, and functional capacity were measured using the universal goniometer, visual analog scale, and Foot and Ankle Ability Measure, respectively. Measurements were taken on 4 different occasions: (1) baseline, (2) after the first session, (3) after the sixth session, and (4) at follow-up. Articular anteroposterior mobilization of the talus grade III of Maitland was applied to the EG, whereas manual contact was applied to the SG. Three series of 30 seconds each with a 30-second rest interval between the series were conducted. Results Significant increases in ankle dorsiflexion ROM were observed only for the EG after the first (EG: 9.5 ± 1.1; SG: 7.6 ± 1.1) and sixth (EG: 12.8 ± 1.2; SG: 8.4 ± 1.2) sessions and were maintained at follow-up (EG: 13.2 ± 1.1; SG: 9.3 ± 1.3). Decreases in pain and improvements in functional capacity (FC) were identified for both groups after the first and sixth sessions (Pain, EG: 1.3 ± 0.5; SG: 1.8 ± 0.6 and EG: 0.7 ± 0.3; SG: 0.7 ± 0.3; FC, EG: 64.6 ± 3.5; SG: 67.4 ± 4.4 and EG: 79.9 ± 3.3; SG: 86.2 ± 3.3) and remained at follow-up (Pain, EG: 0.3 ± 0.2; SG: 0.5 ± 0.3; FC, EG: 86.8 ± 2.7; SG: 89.8 ± 3.7). Conclusion Articular grade III mobilization improved ankle dorsiflexion ROM, when compared with the SG. Changes in pain and functional capacity were similar in both groups.
Laboratory and clinical features of childhood tuberculosis (TB) are non-specific and establishing an accurate diagnosis remains a challenge. This study evaluated a Single tube nested-PCR (STNPCR) to ...detect genomic DNA of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex in blood and urine.
Biological samples were obtained from children (<15 years old) with clinical suspicion of pulmonary and extrapulmonary TB at public hospitals in Recife-Pernambuco, Brazil. Cultures yielded negative results in a majority of childhood TB cases, which are generally paucibacillary. A set of clinical, epidemiological, radiological, and laboratory criteria with evident clinical improvement after anti-TB treatment were frequently used to define childhood TB cases.
Ninety children with clinical suspicion were enrolled in this study (44 with TB and 46 without TB). The pulmonary TB group had 20 confirmed cases and 46 negative controls, while the extrapulmonary TB group had 24 confirmed cases. The STNPCR showed sensitivities to pulmonary and extrapulmonary TB of 47.4% and 52.2% (blood) and 38.8% and 20% (urine), respectively. Considering the low performance of STNPCR on separate samples, we decided to perform a combined analysis (parallel sensitivity analysis) of the results from blood and urine samples. The parallel sensitivity increased to 65% in blood and 62.5% in urine. The specificity in both samples ranged from 93.5-97.8%.
Although STNPCR showed moderate sensitivity, the specificity is high; therefore, the test can be used as an auxiliary tool to diagnose TB in children. It is a rapid test that demonstrated better performance than other diagnostic tests in paucibacillary samples as it does in childhood tuberculosis.
In laparoscopic incisional hernia repair, meshes with a tissue-separating barrier are positioned intraperitoneally. Despite this property, the close contact between mesh and viscera involves a risk ...of adhesion formation. Some natural products, such as red propolis (RP), could reduce these adhesions owing to their anti-inflammatory properties. This study aimed to compare two different intraperitoneal meshes with respect to their characteristics of adhesion formation, histological findings and evaluate the role of RP in the development of these adhesions.
40 Wistar rats received placement of two different meshes (Symbotex and Dynamesh IPOM) on peritoneum. The animals were divided into two groups: control group (mesh) and treatment group (mesh and RP). After 7 and 14 days, 20 animals of each group underwent midline laparotomy to determine the adhesions and histological characteristics.
Out of the 40 animals, there were two deaths in the test group and two in the control group. All animals in both groups developed adherence to the mesh. At postoperative day (POD) 7, two Symbotex meshes presented firm adhesions and at POD 14, two Dynamesh meshes had firm adhesions as well. The comparison between the meshes under the effect of RP in relation to the control group showed no statistical difference.
Both meshes showed intraperitoneal adhesions in all evaluated samples with similar results on the characteristics of adhesions. RP showed no effect on the incidence or gradation of intraperitoneal adhesions with the mesh.
SUMMARY The objective of this study was to evaluate the macronutrient accumulations in leaf, stem, and shoot of elephant grass cv. Roxo. The treatments consisted of seven growth ages (9, 18, 27, 36, ...45, 54, and 63 days) and three growing seasons (rainy, transition, and dry). A completely randomized design and a split-plot time arrangement were used, where the ages were the plots and the seasons the subplots, with three replications. Interaction between the factors age and season of cultivation for the contents and the daily accumulation rates of N, P, K, Ca, Mg, and S in leaf, stem, and shoot fractions were calculated. The margins of daily accumulation of nutrients N, P, K, Mg, and S presented positive linear behavior in all seasons studied; however, with variation in the magnitude of the response between them. The daily accumulation rate of Ca in the canopy was adjusted to a linear model for the rainy and dry seasons and to a quadratic model for the transition season, reaching a maximum of 4.60 kg ha-1 at 59.76 days of growth. The accumulation of nutrients in elephant grass cv. Roxo showed the following decreasing order: K > N > P > Mg > Ca > S in the rainy and transition seasons, while in the dry season the following decreasing order was observed: K > P > N > Ca > Mg > S.
RESUMO Objetivou-se avaliar a marcha de acúmulo de macronutrientes na folha, colmo e na parte aérea do capim-elefante cv. Roxo. Os tratamentos consistiram em sete idades de crescimento (9; 18; 27; 36; 45; 54 e 63 dias) em três períodos de cultivo (chuvoso, de transição e seco). Adotou-se um delineamento inteiramente casualizado e um arranjo de parcelas subdivididas no tempo, onde as idades foram alocadas nas parcelas e os períodos de cultivo nas subparcelas, com três repetições. Constatou-se interação entre os fatores idade e período de cultivo para os teores e para as taxas de acúmulo diário de N, P, K, Ca, Mg e S nas frações folha, colmo e parte aérea. As marchas de acúmulo diário dos nutrientes N, P, K, Mg e S apresentaram comportamento linear positivo para todos os períodos estudados, todavia com variação na magnitude da resposta entre estes. A taxa de acúmulo diário de Ca na parte aérea do dossel ajustou-se ao modelo linear para os períodos chuvoso e seco e ao modelo quadrático para o período de transição, atingindo máximo de 4,60 kg ha-1 aos 59,76 dias de crescimento. O acúmulo dos nutrientes no capim-elefante cv. Roxo apresentou a seguinte ordem decrescente: K > N > P > Mg > Ca > S no período chuvoso e de transição enquanto no período seco observou-se a seguinte ordem decrescente: K > P > N > Ca > Mg> S.
INCIDENCE OF DEEP VEIN THROMBOSIS IN FLOATING KNEE Alencar, Jonatas Brito DE; Lira, Réjelos Charles Aguiar; Cavalcante, Rafael DA Silva ...
Acta Ortopédica Brasileira,
01/2021, Volume:
29, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Open access
To report the incidence of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in ipsilateral femur and tibial fractures (floating knee).
This is a retrospective, analytical, observational study conducted with the medical ...records of thirty patients admitted to a trauma hospital between October 2016 and July 2017 with floating knee.
Patients aged between 21-30 years were the most affected by the condition (36%). Seventeen patients affected the dominant limb (57%); 19 (63%) patients were classified as Fraser type I, 18 (60%) had open (compound) fractures, 16 (53%) tibial fractures, and 8 (26%) femoral fractures. External fixation of the femur and tibia (25 patients = 83%) was the most common emergency treatment. In total, 17% of patients presented deep venous thrombosis (p = 0.409).
Despite antithrombotic prophylaxis, the incidence of DVT in the affected limb of patients with floating knee was high. We found patients with Fraser I fractures, male, and with fractures in the non-dominant limb to present a higher chance of developing DVT.
Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium tuberculosis antimicrobial resistance has been followed with great concern during the last years, while the need for new drugs able to control leprosy and ...tuberculosis, mainly due to extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), is pressing. Our group recently showed that M. leprae is able to induce lipid body biogenesis and cholesterol accumulation in macrophages and Schwann cells, facilitating its viability and replication. Considering these previous results, we investigated the efficacies of two statins on the intracellular viability of mycobacteria within the macrophage, as well as the effect of atorvastatin on M. leprae infections in BALB/c mice. We observed that intracellular mycobacteria viability decreased markedly after incubation with both statins, but atorvastatin showed the best inhibitory effect when combined with rifampin. Using Shepard's model, we observed with atorvastatin an efficacy in controlling M. leprae and inflammatory infiltrate in the BALB/c footpad, in a serum cholesterol level-dependent way. We conclude that statins contribute to macrophage-bactericidal activity against Mycobacterium bovis, M. leprae, and M. tuberculosis. It is likely that the association of statins with the actual multidrug therapy effectively reduces mycobacterial viability and tissue lesion in leprosy and tuberculosis patients, although epidemiological studies are still needed for confirmation.
Proposal of a simulator for evolutionary production systems da Silva Mendonca, Rafael; Duarte Cavalcante, Andre Luiz; de Lucena, Vicente Ferreira
2017 22nd IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA),
2017-Sept.
Conference Proceeding
One simulator reproduces the behavior of real systems in order to facilitate testing new approaches, study the systems under new environmental conditions, and evolve the available platform. In this ...paper one simulator of an Evolutionary Production System will be described. The simulator reproduces the characteristics of mechatronic agents as interaction, cooperation, and evolution helping the analysis of the time of execution, self-organization, and performance improvement of the real system. Inputs of the simulator are simple descriptions of the mechatronic agents, finite state machines, and production orders. Tests considering one real system were performed and proved the good functioning of the simulator. The analysis of the functioning and efficiency of the proposed system is presented along the paper.
Alcaligenes faecalis is a Gram-negative rod that is ubiquitous in the environment and is an opportunistic human pathogen. Here, we report the whole-genome sequencing analysis of A. faecalis HZ01, ...which presents mycobacterial growth inhibitory activity and was isolated from a contaminated culture of Mycobacterium chubuense ATCC 27278.
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