Knowledge of, and attitude towards, the treatment of hepatitis C in people who inject drugs.

Background: Direct acting antivirals (DAAs) as a curative treatment of hepatitis C have been available for several years and have replaced interferon-containing therapies. However, treatment rates of people who inject drugs (PWID) are declining in Germany, putting the elimination of hepatitis C by 2030 at risk. This study aimed at elucidating the knowledge of, and attitude towards, hepatitis C treatment in a clinical sample of PWID.

Staying on track - Keeping things running in a high-end scientific imaging core facility.

Modern life science research is a collaborative effort. Few research groups can single-handedly support the necessary equipment, expertise and personnel needed for the ever-expanding portfolio of technologies that are required across multiple disciplines in today's life science endeavours. Thus, research institutes are increasingly setting up scientific core facilities to provide access and specialised support for cutting-edge technologies.

Fast 2-photon stimulation using holographic patterns.

Two decades after its introduction, optogenetics - a biological technique to control the activity of neurons or other cell types with light - remains a cutting edge and promising tool to study biological processes. Its increasing usage in research varies widely from causally exploring biological mechanisms and neural computations, to neurostimulation and sensory restauration. To stimulate neurons in the brain, a variety of approaches have been developed to generate precise spatiotemporal light patterns.

A lysosome membrane regeneration pathway depends on TBC1D15 and autophagic lysosomal reformation proteins.

Acute lysosomal membrane damage reduces the cellular population of functional lysosomes. However, these damaged lysosomes have a remarkable recovery potential independent of lysosomal biogenesis and remain unaffected in cells depleted in TFEB and TFE3. We combined proximity-labelling-based proteomics, biochemistry and high-resolution microscopy to unravel a lysosomal membrane regeneration pathway that depends on ATG8, the lysosomal membrane protein LIMP2, the RAB7 GTPase-activating protein TBC1D15 and proteins required for autophagic lysosomal reformation, including dynamin-2, kinesin-5B and clathrin.

Protein import motor complex reacts to mitochondrial misfolding by reducing protein import and activating mitophagy.

Mitophagy is essential to maintain mitochondrial function and prevent diseases. It activates upon mitochondria depolarization, which causes PINK1 stabilization on the mitochondrial outer membrane. Strikingly, a number of conditions, including mitochondrial protein misfolding, can induce mitophagy without a loss in membrane potential.

A role for BDNF- and NMDAR-induced lysosomal recruitment of mTORC1 in the regulation of neuronal mTORC1 activity.

Memory and long term potentiation require de novo protein synthesis. A key regulator of this process is mTORC1, a complex comprising the mTOR kinase. Growth factors activate mTORC1 via a pathway involving PI3-kinase, Akt, the TSC complex and the GTPase Rheb.

SRSF3 and SRSF7 modulate 3'UTR length through suppression or activation of proximal polyadenylation sites and regulation of CFIm levels.

Background: Alternative polyadenylation (APA) refers to the regulated selection of polyadenylation sites (PASs) in transcripts, which determines the length of their 3' untranslated regions (3'UTRs). We have recently shown that SRSF3 and SRSF7, two closely related SR proteins, connect APA with mRNA export. The mechanism underlying APA regulation by SRSF3 and SRSF7 remained unknown.

Cross-cultural adaptation and translation into Brazilian Portuguese of the instruments Sick Control One Stone Fat Food Questionnaire (SCOFF), Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) and Clinical Impairment Assessment Questionnaire (CIA).

Introduction: Eating disorders (EDs) affect up to 13% of young people and are associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Nevertheless, important, internationally recognized instruments for brief ED screening (Sick Control One Stone Fat Food Questionnaire [SCOFF]), symptom severity assessment and diagnosis (Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire [EDE-Q]) and assessment of ED-associated psychosocial impairment (Clinical Impairment Assessment Questionnaire [CIA]) were not yet available in Brazilian Portuguese. Our objective was to perform the cross-cultural adaptation and translation into Brazilian Portuguese of the instruments SCOFF, EDE-Q and CIA.

Supercritical Angle Fluorescence Microscopy and Spectroscopy.

Fluorescence detection, either involving propagating or near-field emission, is widely being used in spectroscopy, sensing, and microscopy. Total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) confines fluorescence excitation by an evanescent (near) field, and it is a popular contrast generator for surface-selective fluorescence assays. Its emission equivalent, supercritical angle fluorescence (SAF), is comparably less established, although it achieves a similar optical sectioning as TIRF does.

Fast 3-D Imaging of Brain Organoids With a New Single-Objective Planar-Illumination Two-Photon Microscope.

Human inducible pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) hold a large potential for disease modeling. hiPSC-derived human astrocyte and neuronal cultures permit investigations of neural signaling pathways with subcellular resolution. Combinatorial cultures, and three-dimensional (3-D) embryonic bodies (EBs) enlarge the scope of investigations to multi-cellular phenomena.

Calibrating Evanescent-Wave Penetration Depths for Biological TIRF Microscopy.

Roughly half of a cell's proteins are located at or near the plasma membrane. In this restricted space, the cell senses its environment, signals to its neighbors, and exchanges cargo through exo- and endocytotic mechanisms. Ligands bind to receptors, ions flow across channel pores, and transmitters and metabolites are transported against concentration gradients.

Decoding the Information Contained in Fluorophore Radiation Patterns.

Dipole radiation patterns change when a fluorescent molecule comes close to the boundary between media of different refractive indices. Near-interface molecules emit mostly into the higher-index medium, predominantly around the critical angle. The radiation pattern encodes information about the emitter distance, orientation, and the refractive index of the embedding medium.

Near-Membrane Refractometry Using Supercritical Angle Fluorescence.

Total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy and its variants are key technologies for visualizing the dynamics of single molecules or organelles in live cells. Yet truly quantitative TIRF remains problematic. One unknown hampering the interpretation of evanescent-wave excited fluorescence intensities is the undetermined cell refractive index (RI).

Dependence of descriptors of co-localization on microscope spatiotemporal resolution and the choice of regions of interest.

The advent and increasing availability of super-resolution microscopies has prompted re-searchers to re-investigate questions of co-localization and co-clustering in the hope of providing more precise and relevant data. Here, we focus on the problem of studying inter-organelle interfaces, a topic of growing interest in cell biology. We sought to identify mitochondria-associated membrane (MAM) candidate sites from dual-colour large-field super-resolution images.

Improving image contrast in fluorescence microscopy with nanostructured substrates.

Metallic and dielectric nanostructures can show sharp contrasted resonances, sensitive to the environment, and high field enhancement in sub-wavelength volumes. For this reason, these structures are commonly used as molecular sensors. Only few works have focused on their application in optical microscopy, in particular in superresolution.

Eliminating unwanted far-field excitation in objective-type TIRF. Part II. combined evanescent-wave excitation and supercritical-angle fluorescence detection improves optical sectioning.

Azimuthal beam scanning makes evanescent-wave (EW) excitation isotropic, thereby producing total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) images that are evenly lit. However, beam spinning does not fundamentally address the problem of propagating excitation light that is contaminating objective-type TIRF. Far-field excitation depends more on the specific objective than on cell scattering.

Eliminating unwanted far-field excitation in objective-type TIRF. Part I. identifying sources of nonevanescent excitation light.

Total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIRFM) achieves subdiffraction axial sectioning by confining fluorophore excitation to a thin layer close to the cell/substrate boundary. However, it is often unknown how thin this light sheet actually is. Particularly in objective-type TIRFM, large deviations from the exponential intensity decay expected for pure evanescence have been reported.

Full-field dual-color 100-nm super-resolution imaging reveals organization and dynamics of mitochondrial and ER networks.

Most structured illumination microscopes use a physical or synthetic grating that is projected into the sample plane to generate a periodic illumination pattern. Albeit simple and cost-effective, this arrangement hampers fast or multi-color acquisition, which is a critical requirement for time-lapse imaging of cellular and sub-cellular dynamics. In this study, we designed and implemented an interferometric approach allowing large-field, fast, dual-color imaging at an isotropic 100-nm resolution based on a sub-diffraction fringe pattern generated by the interference of two colliding evanescent waves.

Impairment in psychosocial functioning in patients with different subtypes of eating disorders.

Objective: To examine psychosocial functioning in eating disorder (ED) patients with restrictive and purgative subtypes.

Method: Forty-four adult female patients with a diagnosis of ED were divided into restrictive (RP) and purgative (PP) groups according the presence of purgative symptoms. Functioning was assessed using the Functioning Assessment Short Test (FAST) and the Global Assessment of Functioning Scale (GAF).

Enhancement of a nano cavity lifetime by induced slow light and nonlinear dispersions.

We start from a 2D photonic crystal nanocavity with moderate Q-factor and dynamically increase it by two order of magnitude by the joint action of coherent population oscillations and nonlinear refractive index.

Nanocavity linewidth narrowing and group delay enhancement by slow light propagation and nonlinear effects.

Slow light induced by coherent population oscillations and cavity dispersive nonlinear response are combined achieving 2 orders of magnitude enhancement of the group delay and an equivalent decreasing of the spectral linewidth of a L3 two-dimensional photonic crystal nanocavity.

Contrasted effects of the multitarget TKi vandetanib on docetaxel-sensitive and docetaxel-resistant prostate cancer cell lines.

Objectives: Overexpression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and angiogenic factors is associated with the progression of androgen-independent prostate cancer (AIPC). We examined the effects of vandetanib, an inhibitor of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGFR), EGFR, and rearranged during transfection (RET) tyrosine-kinase activities, alone or combined with docetaxel, on PC3 docetaxel-sensitive (PC3wt) or docetaxel-resistant (PC3R) AIPC cell growth in vivo and in vitro.

Methods: Mice bearing PC3wt or PC3R tumors were treated for 3 weeks with vandetanib (25 or 50 mg/kg/d p.

Development and validity data of the Brazilian Internet Study on Temperament and Psychopathology (BRAINSTEP).

Background: The internet provides a research opportunity for psychiatry and psychology. This article presents the development and preliminary data of a large web-survey created to study how temperament relates to other psychological measures, behavior and psychiatric disorders.

Methods: We used the Affective and Emotional Composite Temperament Scale (AFECTS) to evaluate temperament and we selected several self-report instruments to evaluate behavior, psychological constructs and mental disorders.

The Affective and Emotional Composite Temperament (AFECT) model and scale: a system-based integrative approach.

Unlabelled: Based on many temperament frameworks, here we propose an integration of emotional and affective temperaments (the AFECT model), forming a common substrate for mood, behavior, personality and part of cognition. Temperament is conceived as a self-regulated system with six emotional dimensions: volition, anger, inhibition, sensitivity, coping and control. The different combinations of these emotional dimensions result in 12 affective temperament types, namely depressive, anxious, apathetic, obsessive, cyclothymic, dysphoric, irritable, volatile, disinhibited, hyperthymic and euphoric.