Publications by authors named "Ana Armada"

Article Synopsis
  • * Research focuses on how canine peripheral blood-derived DCs (moDCs) react to different parasites and their extracellular vesicles (EVs), finding that one parasite significantly boosts pro-inflammatory gene expression while another causes a mixed inflammatory response.
  • * The study indicates that EVs from these parasites can enhance moDCs' ability to attract cytotoxic CD8 T cells, suggesting a complex immune interaction that could inform new strategies for treating leishmaniasis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Leishmaniasis remains one of the ten Neglected Tropical Diseases with significant morbidity and mortality in humans. Current treatment of visceral leishmaniasis is difficult due to a lack of effective, non-toxic, and non-extensive medications. This study aimed to evaluate the selectivity of 12 synthetic endoperoxides (1,2,4-trioxolanes; 1,2,4,5-tetraoxanes) and uncover their biochemical effects on parasites responsible for visceral leishmaniasis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cancer drug resistance (CDR) is a major problem in therapeutic failure. Over 90% of patients with metastatic cancer present CDR. Several mechanisms underlie CDR, including the increased expression of efflux ABC transporters and epigenetic phenomena.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

ABCB1 is a major player in cancer drug resistance. The purpose of this study was to functionally assess the regulation of ABCB1 activity in a doxorubicin-resistant breast cancer cell line by miR-200c and miR-203. Human breast carcinoma cell lines MCF-7 (Doxorubicin-sensitive and not expressing ABCB1) and KCR (Doxorubicin-resistant and expressing ABCB1) were used to evaluate the expression levels of miR-200c and miR-203 by Real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To compare embryo quality, fertilization, implantation, miscarriage and clinical pregnancy rates for embryos cultured in two different commercial culture media until D-2 or D-3.

Methods: In this retrospective study, we analyzed 189 cycles performed in 2016. Metaphase II oocytes were microinjected and allocated into single medium (SAGE 1-STEP, Origio) until transferred, frozen or discarded; or, if sequential media were used, the oocytes were cultured in G1-PLUSTM (Vitrolife) up to D-2 or D-3 and in G2-PLUSTM (Vitrolife) to transfer.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The cell membrane P-glycoprotein (P-gp; MDR1, ABCB1) is an energy-dependent efflux pump that belongs to the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) family of transporters, and has been associated with drug resistance in eukaryotic cells. Multidrug resistance (MDR) is related to an increased expression and function of the ABCB1 (P-gp) efflux pump that often causes chemotherapeutic failure in cancer. Modulators of this efflux pump, such as the calcium channel blocker verapamil (VP) and cyclosporine A (CypA), can reverse the MDR phenotype but in vivo studies have revealed disappointing results due to adverse side effects.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Schistosomiasis is a neglected disease caused by a trematode of the genus Schistosoma that is second only to malaria in public health significance in Africa, South America, and Asia. Praziquantel (PZQ) is the drug of choice to treat this disease due to its high cure rates and no significant side effects. However, in the last years increasingly cases of tolerance to PZQ have been reported, which has caused growing concerns regarding the emergency of resistance to this drug.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: This study aimed to evaluate the usefulness of the Xpert MTB/RIF assay for the rapid direct detection of M. tuberculosis complex (MTBC) strains and rifampicin resistance associated mutations in a resource-limited setting such as Guinea-Bissau and its implications in the management of tuberculosis (TB) and drug resistant tuberculosis, complementing the scarce information on resistance and genotypic diversity of MTBC strains in this West African country.

Methods And Results: This cross-sectional prospective study included 100 consecutive TB patients with positive acid-fast smears at two months of anti-tuberculosis treatment or in a re-treatment situation, between May and December 2012.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Chlorpromazine (CPZ) was exposed to a 266 nm laser beam for different periods of time ranging from minutes to 24 h. At intervals, the products from irradiation were evaluated by thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and evaluated for their activity against mycobacteria of human interest (Mycobacterium tuberculosis, M. avium, M.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Malaria cysteine proteases have been shown to be immunogenic and are being exploited as serodiagnostic markers, drug and vaccine targets. Several Plasmodium spp. cysteine proteases have been described and the best characterized of these are the falcipains, a family of papain-family enzymes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Bacteria and cancer cells frequently increase their resistance to chemotherapeutics as a consequence of therapy. Whenever studied, refractory response to chemotherapy is due to the over-expression of efflux pumps that render the bacterium or cancer cell resistant not only to the agent used for therapy, but to many, if not all other agents as well. Control over the efflux pump that bestows multidrug resistance has been a goal of research during the past decade.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Multidrug resistance (MDR) is one of the major concerns in the treatment of cancer and one of the major causes of therapy failure. The overexpression of an ABC transporter, the ABCB1, is often associated with MDR in cancer. Previously it was observed that hydantoin compounds can modulate the activity of the ABCB1 pump.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: One major microbiological problem is the widespread antibiotic resistance. There is an urgent need for new antibiotics and ways to treat multi-drug-resistant infections. Inhibition of bacterial quorum sensing (QS) systems could be an effective alternative in a smuch as they regulate a broad spectrum of cell functions, including, virulence factor production, biofilm organisation and motility.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aim: To evaluate a new series of 16 hydantoin derivatives for activity against the intrinsic and overexpressed efflux pumps of the ATTC 25923 Staphylococcus aureus and the clinical Staphylococcus aureus HPV-107 strain, respectively.

Materials And Methods: The hydantoin compounds were evaluated for activity against the efflux pumps of the ATTC 25923 S. aureus and the clinical S.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Malaria remains one of the major human parasitic diseases, particularly in subtropical regions. Most of the fatal cases are caused by Plasmodium falciparum. The rodent parasite Plasmodium chabaudi has been the model of choice in research due to its similarities to human malaria, including developmental cycle, preferential invasion of mature erythrocytes, synchrony of asexual development, antigenic variation, gene sinteny as well as similar resistance mechanisms.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Frequently, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are designed focusing on applications and omitting transmission problems in these wireless networks. In this paper, we present a measurement campaign that has been carried out using one of the most commonly used WSN platforms, the micaZ from Crossbow(©). Based on these measurements, some guidelines to deploy a robust and reliable WSN are provided.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: fopen(/var/lib/php/sessions/ci_session6732b86kpklrbbb877jujs9jp49g4ekv): Failed to open stream: No space left on device

Filename: drivers/Session_files_driver.php

Line Number: 177

Backtrace:

File: /var/www/html/index.php
Line: 316
Function: require_once

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: session_start(): Failed to read session data: user (path: /var/lib/php/sessions)

Filename: Session/Session.php

Line Number: 137

Backtrace:

File: /var/www/html/index.php
Line: 316
Function: require_once