The safety of corticosteroid therapy in IGA nephropathy: analysis of a real-life Italian cohort.

Background: Systemic steroids are recommended for patients with IgA nephropathy (IgAN) and proteinuria. However, there are concerns about their safety due to an excess of serious adverse events (SAEs) in previous randomised trials. This study evaluates the incidence of SAEs in IgAN patients receiving different treatment regimens in clinical practice.

Exploiting the bile acid binding protein as transporter of a Cholic Acid/Mirin bioconjugate for potential applications in liver cancer therapy.

Bioconjugation is one of the most promising strategies to improve drug delivery, especially in cancer therapy. Biomolecules such as bile acids (BAs) have been intensively explored as carriers, due to their peculiar physicochemical properties and biocompatibility. BAs trafficking is regulated by intracellular lipid-binding proteins and their transport in the liver can be studied using chicken liver Bile Acid-Binding Proteins (cL-BABPs) as a reference model.

Plant developmental oddities.

Plants lacking shoot apical meristem develop with unique body shapes, suggesting rewiring of developmental genes. This loss of the meristem is likely influenced by a combination of environmental factors and evolutionary pressures. This study explores the development of plant bodies in three families (Podostemaceae, Lemnaceae, and Gesneriaceae) where the shoot apical meristem (SAM), a key structure for growth, is absent or altered.

Metal Ion Binding to Human Glutaminyl Cyclase: A Structural Perspective.

Glutaminyl-peptide cyclotransferases (QCs) convert the N-terminal glutamine or glutamate residues of protein and peptide substrates into pyroglutamate (pE) by releasing ammonia or a water molecule. The N-terminal pE modification protects peptides/proteins against proteolytic degradation by amino- or exopeptidases, increasing their stability. Mammalian QC is abundant in the brain and a large amount of evidence indicates that pE peptides are involved in the onset of neural human pathologies such as Alzheimer's and Huntington's disease and synucleinopathies.

Revisiting the history of autism before Kanner and Asperger: a tribute to Grunya Sukhareva.

Almost two decades before Kanner's and Asperger's works, the original paper by child psychiatrist Grunya Efimovna Sukhareva had already been written. It was published in 1926 by Sukhareva in a German scientific journal of psychiatry and neurology, with a detailed description of children who presented clinical conditions whose characteristics and evolution closely resemble autism, according to current criteria. In the present historical note, we intend to present Sukhareva's pioneering work and retrieve the meaning of her original contribution.