Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third leading cause of cancer-related death in the world, and about 80% of the cases are associated with hepatitis B or C. Genetic and epigenetic alterations are ...accumulated over decades of chronic injury and may affect the functioning of tumor suppressor genes and protooncogenes. Studies have evidenced the role of Long non-coding RNAs (LncRNA) with oncogenic or tumor suppressor activities, suggesting a great potential in the treatment, diagnosis or indicator of prognosis in cancer. In this context, the aim of this study was to evaluate the global expression profile lncRNA in hepatic tissue samples with different stages of fibrosis associated with chronic hepatitis C, HCC and normal liver, in order to identify new lncRNAs that could contribute to study the progression of hepatic fibrosis to HCC associated with chronic hepatitis C. RNA-Seq was performed on Illumina NextSeq platform to identify lncRNAs expressed differently in 15 patients with chronic hepatitis C, three patients with HCC and three normal liver specimens. When the pathological tissues (fibrosis and carcinoma) were compared to normal hepatic tissue, were identified 2, 6 e 34 differentially expressed lncRNAs in moderate fibrosis, advanced fibrosis and HCC, respectively. The carcinoma group had the highest proportion of differentially expressed lncRNA (34) and of these, 29 were exclusive in this type of tissue. A heat map of the deregulated lncRNA revealed different expression patterns along the progression of fibrosis to HCC. The results showed the deregulation of some lncRNA already classified as tumor suppressors in HCC and other cancers, as well as some unpublished lncRNA whose function is unknown. Some of these lncRNAs are dysregulated since the early stages of liver injury in patients with hepatitis C, others overexpressed only in tumor tissue, indicating themselves as candidates of markers of fibrosis progression or tumor, with potential clinical applications in prognosis as well as a therapeutic target. Although there are already studies on lncRNA in hepatocellular carcinoma, this is the first study conducted in samples exclusively of HCV-related liver and HCV HCC.
Brazil has been at the core of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the second-highest death toll worldwide. A mass vaccination campaign was initiated on May 16th, 2021, in Botucatu, Brazil, where two doses ...of ChadOx1-nCoV19 were offered 12 weeks apart to all 18–60- year-olds. This context offers a unique opportunity to study the vaccine safety during a mass campaign.
The first and second doses of the vaccine were administered in May and August 2021, respectively. Emergency room (ER) and hospitalization records were obtained from the Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu for six weeks before and six weeks after the first and second doses, from 4 April to 19 September 2021. Diagnoses with COVID-19-related ICD codes were excluded to distinguish any trends resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. ER and hospital visits during the two time periods were compared, including an ICD code comparison, to identify any changes in disease distributions. Data were scanned for a defined list of Adverse Events of Special Interest (AESIs), as presented by the Safety Platform for Emergency Vaccines.
A total of 77,683 and 74,051 subjects received dose 1 and dose 2 of ChadOx1-nCoV19, respectively. Vaccination was well tolerated and not associated with any major safety concerns. Increases in ER visits 1 week following both doses were primarily seen in ICD codes related to non-serious side effects of the vaccine, including vaccination site pain and other local events. The neurological AESIs identified (2 of 3 cases of multiple sclerosis) were relapses of a pre-existing condition. One potentially serious hospitalization event for Bell’s palsy had onset before vaccination with dose 1, in a patient who also had a viral infection of the central nervous system. There was no myocarditis, pericarditis cases, or vaccine-related increases in thromboembolic events.
Variability of the HIV reverse transcriptase (RT) and protease (PR) genes has been used as indicators of drug resistance and as a mean to evaluate phylogenetic relationships among circulating virus. ...However, these studies have been carried in HIV mono-infected populations. The goal of this study was to evaluate, for the first time, the HIV PR and RT sequences from HIV/HBV and HIV/HCV co-infected patients. HIV PR and RT genes were amplificated and sequenced to resistance analysis. The bioinformatics analysis was performed to infer about sequences clustering and molecular evolution. The results showed that the most frequent amino acid substitutions in RT were L214F (67.6%), I135T (55.9%), and in PR was V15I (41.2%). The molecular clock analysis showed that the HIV circulating in co-infected patients were separated in two clusters in the years 1999-2000. Some patients included as HIV mono-infected according patients' medical records and inside the co-infected cluster were, in fact, co-infected by PCR analysis. Analysis of the decision trees showed susceptibility to lamivudine and emtricitabine were important attribute to characterize co-infected patients. In conclusion, the results obtained in this study suggest, for the first time, that HIV RT and PR genes variability could be a genetic biomarker to coinfection.
Ethanol (EtOH) alters many cellular processes in yeast. An integrated view of different EtOH-tolerant phenotypes and their long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) is not yet available. Here, large-scale data ...integration showed the core EtOH-responsive pathways, lncRNAs, and triggers of higher (HT) and lower (LT) EtOH-tolerant phenotypes. LncRNAs act in a strain-specific manner in the EtOH stress response. Network and omics analyses revealed that cells prepare for stress relief by favoring activation of life-essential systems. Therefore, longevity, peroxisomal, energy, lipid, and RNA/protein metabolisms are the core processes that drive EtOH tolerance. By integrating omics, network analysis, and several other experiments, we showed how the HT and LT phenotypes may arise: (1) the divergence occurs after cell signaling reaches the longevity and peroxisomal pathways, with CTA1 and ROS playing key roles; (2) signals reaching essential ribosomal and RNA pathways via SUI2 enhance the divergence; (3) specific lipid metabolism pathways also act on phenotype-specific profiles; (4) HTs take greater advantage of degradation and membraneless structures to cope with EtOH stress; and (5) our EtOH stress-buffering model suggests that diauxic shift drives EtOH buffering through an energy burst, mainly in HTs. Finally, critical genes, pathways, and the first models including lncRNAs to describe nuances of EtOH tolerance are reported here.
Delta VOC is highly diverse with more than 120 sublineages already described as of November 30, 2021. In this study, through active monitoring of circulating severe acute respiratory ...syndrome coronavirus‐2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) variants in the state of São Paulo, southeast Brazil, we identified two emerging sublineages from the ancestral AY.43 strain which were classified as AY.43.1 and AY.43.2. These sublineages were defined by the following characteristic nonsynonymous mutations ORF1ab:A4133V and ORF3a:T14I for the AY.43.1 and ORF1ab:G1155C for the AY.43.2 and our analysis reveals that they might have a likely‐Brazilian origin. Much is still unknown regarding their dissemination in the state of São Paulo and Brazil as well as their potential impact on the ongoing vaccination process. However, the results obtained in this study reinforce the importance of genomic surveillance activity for timely identification of emerging SARS‐CoV‐2 variants which can impact the ongoing SARS‐CoV‐2 vaccination and public health policies.
Two hundred days after the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Brazil, the epidemic has rapidly spread in metropolitan areas and advanced throughout the countryside. We followed the temporal epidemic ...pattern at São Paulo State, the most populous of the country, the first to have a confirmed case of COVID-19, and the one with the most significant number of cases until now. We analysed the number of new cases per day in each regional health department and calculated the effective reproduction number (Rt) over time. Social distance measures, along with improvement in testing and isolating positive cases, general population mask-wearing and standard health security protocols for essential and non-essential activities, were adopted and impacted on slowing down epidemic velocity but were insufficient to stop transmission.
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is involved in the pathogenesis of autoimmune and rheumatic disorders. Although the human platelet antigens (HPA) polymorphism are associated with HCV persistence, ...they have not been investigated in rheumatological manifestations (RM). This study focused on verifying associations between allele and genotype HPA and RM in patients with chronic hepatitis C.
Patients (159) with chronic hepatitis C of both genders were analyzed.
Women showed association between HPA-3 polymorphisms and RM.
An unprecedented strong association between rheumatological manifestations and HPA-3 polymorphism, possibly predisposing women to complications during the disease course, was observed.
HPA polymorphism has been associated with HCV presence and fibrosis progression in chronic hepatitis C. However, it is unknown if there is an association between HPA-1 polymorphism and hepatocellular ...carcinoma (HCC). Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate HPA-1 polymorphism in the presence of HCC.
PCR-SSP was used to perform HPA genotyping on 76 HCV-infected patients.
There was no association between patients with and without HCC. There was significant difference in HPA-1 genotypic frequency distribution between HCC and F1/F2 fibrosis degree.
The HPA-1a/1b polymorphism appears to be more associated with liver damage progression than with HCC presence.
The introduction of cover crops in tropical cropping systems under no-till (NT) is paramount for improving the chemical and physical properties of the soil as well as the sustainability of the ...system. Soil carbon is increased under cover crops, and the soil microbiota is undoubtedly modified. However, the effects of different cover crops on the abundance and structure of the soil bacterial community remain unclear. Therefore, this study used 16S rRNA sequencing to assess the abundance and structure of the bacterial community in a crop rotation system under NT using the following cover crop species: pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), grain sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), and Sunn hemp (Crotalaria juncea). For comparison, one additional treatment was kept under bare fallow. Soil samples were collected to a depth of 10 cm to assess the bacterial community. Redundancy analysis (RDA) showed that the bacterial community was correlated with microbial biomass N under millet, ammonium under Sunn hemp, and soil base saturation and P under sorghum and fallow. The most abundant phyla were Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, and Chloroflexi under millet, Chloroflexi and Latescibacteria under Sunn hemp, and Proteobacteria and Patescibacteria under sorghum. Co-occurrence network analysis showed that the complexity of the bacterial community was highest under millet, followed by fallow, Sunn hemp, and sorghum. In summary, this study shows that cover crop species specifically shape microbial community structure and networks, with changes in the abundance of bacterial groups related to soil quality and health.
•Different cover crops shape the bacterial community structure and network.•Bacterial network in Millet is more complex than Fallow, Sunn hemp, and Sorghum.•The abundance of beneficial bacterial groups increased with the use of cover crops.
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