Rural Environment as a Risk Factor for the Age at Onset of Machado-Joseph Disease.

Background: Machado-Joseph disease (SCA3/MJD) is a neurodegenerative condition caused by a dominant expansion of a CAG repeat (CAGexp). Most of the variability in the age at onset of symptoms (AO) remains unexplained, and environmental influences were scarcely studied.

Objective: The objective was to test if AO of SCA3/MJD carriers can be associated with markers of the rural environment, such as demographic density (DeD), proportion of rural population (PRP), and the consumption of untreated well water (CWW).

Relations between microplastic contamination and stress biomarkers under two seasonal conditions in wild carps, mullets and flounders.

Potential effects of microplastics (MP, plastic particles <5 mm) on the levels of multiple stress biomarkers were investigated in wild fish populations of Cyprinus carpio, Mugil cephalus, Platichthys flesus captured in the Minho River estuary located in the Iberian Peninsula. Specimens were collected in March and September 2018, corresponding to the end of winter and summer, respectively. Based on the concentration of MP determined by FT-IR analysis and morphological inspection, fishes from each species were divided into two groups: ≤0.

First report of a cat (Felis catus) infected by Leishmania (Viannia) guyanensis from Southeastern Brazil.

Feline leishmaniasis is increasingly recognized as a disease affecting cats worldwide, with notable prevalence in regions surrounding the Mediterranean Basin and in Brazil. An approximately one-year-old domestic shorthair cat was presented with small papules and nodules (2 mm) on the nasal planum. Physical examination and routine blood analyses were normal.

Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy associated with active systemic lupus erythematous: Anifrolumab as a potentially successful add-on therapy to intravenous immunoglobulins.

Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) is an acquired, autoimmune peripheral neuropathy, rarely reported as being associated with systemic lupus erythematous (SLE). We report the case of 53-year-old women with a long history of SLE, diagnosed with CIDP during a lupus flare beginning with progressive muscle weakness of lower and upper limbs, without affection of the central nervous system. She received treatment with steroids, intravenous immunoglobulins and anifrolumab and showed clinical and immunological improvement.

Surface coating nanoarchitectonics for optimizing cytocompatibility and antimicrobial activity: The impact of hyaluronic acid positioning as the outermost layer.

Polyelectrolyte multilayers (PEMs) based on hyaluronic acid (HA) and poly (diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDDA) were deposited on oxidized polystyrene (PS) via the layer-by-layer (LbL) method. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) confirmed the PEM deposition on PS, and atomic force microscopy (AFM) indicated that the surface roughness of PS also increased after PEM deposition. The PEMs significantly enhanced PS wettability, reducing the contact angle from 73° on PS to 24° on PDDA-terminated (PDDA/HA) PEM (2.