Cancer is fast becoming the most important cause of death worldwide, its mortality being mostly caused by late or wrong diagnosis. Novel strategies have been developed to identify early signs of ...cancer in a minimally obtrusive way, including the Electronic Nose (E-Nose) technology, user-friendly, cost- and time-saving alternative to classical approaches. This systematic review, conducted under the PRISMA guidelines, identified 60 articles directly dealing with the E-Nose application in cancer research published up to 31 January 2020. Among these works, the vast majority reported successful E-Nose use for diagnosing Lung Cancer, showing promising results especially when employing the Aeonose tool, discriminating subjects with Lung Cancer from controls in more than 80% of individuals, in most studies. In order to tailor the main limitations of the proposed approach, including the application of the protocol to advanced stage of cancer, sample heterogeneity and massive confounders, future studies should be conducted on early stage patients, and on larger cohorts, as to better characterize the specific breathprint associated with the various subtypes of cancer. This would ultimately lead to a better and faster diagnosis and to earlier treatment, possibly reducing the burden associated to such conditions.
Abundant experimental evidence demonstrates that endothelial cells are sensitive to flow; however, the effect of fluid pressure or pressure gradients that are used to drive viscous flow is not well ...understood. There are two principal physical forces exerted on the blood vessel wall by the passage of intra‐luminal blood: pressure and shear. To analyze the effects of pressure and shear independently, these two stresses were applied to cultured cells in two different types of bioreactors: a pressure‐controlled bioreactor and a laminar flow bioreactor, in which controlled levels of pressure or shear stress, respectively, can be generated. Using these bioreactor systems, endothelin‐1 (ET‐1) and nitric oxide (NO) release from human umbilical vein endothelial cells were measured under various shear stress and pressure conditions. Compared to the controls, a decrease of ET‐1 production by the cells cultured in both bioreactors was observed, whereas NO synthesis was up‐regulated in cells under shear stress, but was not modulated by hydrostatic pressure. These results show that the two hemodynamic forces acting on blood vessels affect endothelial cell function in different ways, and that both should be considered when planning in vitro experiments in the presence of flow. Understanding the individual and synergic effects of the two forces could provide important insights into physiological and pathological processes involved in vascular remodeling and adaptation.
Endothelin‐1 (ET‐1) and nitric oxide (NO) are the major endothelial biomolecules involved in regulation of endothelium function. The analysis of the effect of these two forces (shear stress and pressure generated by blood flow) acting on endothelial cell (EC) cultures in a bioreactor shows how ET‐1 is pressure and flow‐sensitive, while NO is mainly flow‐driven.
Polymethylmethacrylate core-shell fluorescent nanoparticles promote, in human lung A549 cancer cells, the internalization of a molecular beacon (MB) specific for survivin mRNA, an anti-apoptotic ...protein overexpressed in cancer cells.
To design an effective drug delivery system, the knowledge of the uptake mechanism and of the nanoparticles (NPs) and MB fate is required.
Experiments with dextran as marker for endocytosis showed that in the presence of NPs the number of endocytic vesicles per cell doubled and their mean size significantly (p < 0.001) increased with respect to controls in absence of NPs, indicating an involvement of NPs in the endocytotic process.
By using LysoTracker™ Deep Red, as marker of lysosomes, we found that nanoparticles co-localize with lysosomes. Moreover, a cellular release of nanoparticles detected in the culture medium, suggested a role of lysosomal exocytosis in nanoparticle elimination. The MB fluorescence in proximity of the labeled Endoplasmic Reticulum was indicative that the opening of the MB occurs in proximity of its target mRNA.
The results show the involvement of endocytotic pathway in the uptake of NPs, which are an appropriate delivery system capable of being eliminated by cells. Furthermore the data confirm that the MB can be considered an effective tool for the intracellular sensing.
Polymethylmethacrylate core-shell fluorescent nanoparticles (PMMA-NPs) promote endocytosis of a molecular beacon (MB) specific for survivin mRNA in human A549 cancer cells. Nanoparticles co-localize with lysosomes and are released by lysosomal exocytosis in the cell culture medium. The molecular beacon opens in proximity of the rough endoplasmic reticulum (RER) where its target mRNA is located. Display omitted
Electronic nose (eNose) systems are particularly appreciated for their portability, usability, relative low cost, and real-time or near real-time response. Their application finds space in several ...domains, including environmental monitoring. Within this field, marine monitoring is of particular scientific relevance due to the fragility of this specific environment, daily threatened by human activities that can potentially bring to catastrophic and irreversible consequences on marine wildlife. Under such considerations, a systematic review, complying with the PRISMA guidelines, was conducted covering the period up to 15 October 2018, in PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar. Despite the relatively low number of articles published on this specific topic and the heterogeneity of the technological approaches employed, the results obtained by the various groups highlight the positive contribution eNose has given and can provide in near future for the monitoring and safeguarding of this delicate environment.
Smartphones are playing a pivotal role in everyday life, due to the opportunity they grant in terms of simplifying communication, entertainment, education and many other daily activities. Against ...such positive characteristics, smartphone interaction can result, in particular cases, in dangerous smartphone addiction patterns, possibly leading to several long-term detrimental psychophysiological conditions. Therefore, this pilot aims at assessing the feasibility of using an innovative approach, based on unobtrusive wearable sensors, used for the first time in this specific topic, and psychological questionnaires, to investigate the links between stress and emotions in a group of young, nonaddicted individuals performing smartphone interaction.
17 volunteers were enrolled for the present study. The study protocol was divided into three phases, with an initial resting state (baseline) of three minutes, a smartphone interaction session (task) of the same length, and a final resting state (recovery), lasting three minutes. In the overall procedure, electrocardiogram (ECG) and galvanic skin response (GSR) measurements, both monitored by wearable sensors, were acquired in order to assess the functioning of the autonomic nervous system (ANS).
A significant decrease was seen in pNN50 during the smartphone interaction with respect to the baseline (
= -2.675,
= 0.007), whereas the Low-to-High Frequency (LF/HF) ratio at task was somewhat correlated with phubbing behaviors (
= 0.655,
= 0.029), assessed through dedicated questionnaires.
Taken together with the slight changes in GSR data, such results suggest the feasibility of this approach to characterize the ANS activation during smartphone interaction among young individuals. Further studies should enlarge the study population and involve smartphone-addicted subjects in order to increase the scientific and clinical relevance of such findings.
Severe infection and sepsis are a common, expensive, and frequently fatal conditions in critically ill patients. The sepsis diagnosis is not trivial, since it is an extremely complex chain of events ...involving inflammatory and anti-inflammatory processes, cellular reactions, and circulatory disorders. For these reasons, delay in diagnosis and initiation of drug treatments have shown to be crucial for this pathology. Moreover, a multitude of biomarkers has been proposed, many more than for other pathologies. In order to select optimal treatments for the highly heterogeneous group of sepsis patients and to reduce costs, novel multiplexed tools that better characterize the patient and his or her specific immune response are highly desired. In order to achieve the fundament of drastically improved multi-analyte detection and to attain low limits of detection in diagnostics, the area of point-of-care testing (POCT) technology is developing quickly, leading to the production of instruments, the reliability of which is continuously increasing. For this purpose, a selection of two biomarkers—C-reactive protein (CRP) and neopterin (NP)—was studied in this paper and a fluorescence-based integrated optical system, suitable for future POCT applications, was implemented that is capable of performing the simultaneous measurement of the two different biomarkers in replicate. A limit of detection of 10 and 2.1 µg L−1 was achieved for CRP and NP spiked in commercially available human serum, respectively. Moreover, measurements on both biomarkers were also performed on serum samples collected from septic patients.
Scaffolds are cell adhesive matrices for the realisation of tissue constructs. Here we describe how scaffolds for tissue engineering can also be used as sensors for monitoring cellular activity such ...as adhesion and spreading. Carbon nanotube polymer composites were fabricated into membranes and scaffolds with electro-conductive properties. Impedance techniques were used to measure the effects of media and cell cultures on composite membranes and the results were analysed using lumped parameter models. We show that protein adhesion can be distinguished from cell adhesion as the impedance changes are much smaller for the latter (5%). In the presence of cells, impedance changes are of the order of 40% and can be correlated with adhesion, spreading and changes in cell density.
To explore whether stent procedure may influence transcriptional response of endothelium, we applied different physical (flow changes) and/or mechanical (stent application) stimuli to human ...endothelial cells in a laminar flow bioreactor (LFB) system. Gene expression analysis was then evaluated in each experimental condition. Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were submitted to low and physiological (1 and 10 dyne/cm(2)) shear stress in absence (AS) or presence (PS) of stent positioning in a LFB system for 24 h. Different expressed genes, coming from Affymetrix results, were identified based on one-way ANOVA analysis with p values <0.01 and a fold changed >3 in modulus. Low shear stress was compared with physiological one in AS and PS conditions. Two major groups include 32 probes commonly expressed in both 1AS versus 10AS and 1PS versus 10PS comparison, and 115 probes consisting of 83 in addition to the previous 32, expressed only in 1PS versus 10PS comparison. Genes related to cytoskeleton, extracellular matrix, and cholesterol transport/metabolism are differently regulated in 1PS versus 10PS condition. Inflammatory and apoptotic mediators seems to be, instead, closely modulated by changes in flow (1 versus 10), independently of stent application. Low shear stress together with stent procedure are the experimental conditions that mainly modulate the highest number of genes in our human endothelial model. Those genes belong to pathways specifically involved in the endothelial dysfunction.
Aims. Synthetic meshes are the long-standing choice for the clinical treatment of abdominal wall hernias: the associated long-term complications have stimulated the development of a new generation of ...bioresorbable prostheses. In this work, polycaprolactone (PCL) porous membranes prepared by solvent casting/porogen leaching of PCL/poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) blends with different compositions (different PCL/PEG weight ratios and PEG molecular weights) were investigated to be applied in the field. An optimal porous membrane structure was selected based on the evaluation of physicochemical, biomechanical, and in vitro biological properties, compared to a reference commercially available hernia mesh (CMC). Findings. Selected PCL7-2i membranes, derived from PCL/PEG 70/30 (PCL: Mw 70,000-90,000 Da; PEG: 35,000 Da), showed suitable pore size for the application, intermediate surface hydrophilicity, and biomimetic mechanical properties. In vitro cell tests performed on PCL7-2i membranes showed their cytocompatibility, high cell growth during 21 days, a reduced production of proinflammatory IL-6 with respect to CMC, and a significant secretion of collagen type I. Conclusions. PCL7-2i membranes showed biomimetic biomechanical properties and in vitro biological properties similar to or even better than - in the case of anti-inflammatory behavior and collagen production - CMC, a commercially available product, suggesting potentially improved integration in the host tissue.
In this work we describe the fabrication of a biocompatible hydrophilic scaffold composed of cross-linked gelatin that mimics the porous three-dimensional structure of pulmonary tissue as well as its ...water content and mechanical properties. The lung replica also reproduces the characteristic sonographic signs of pulmonary interstitial syndrome, the B-lines or ultrasound lung comets.
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