Privacy is a central issue in the digitalization of society and directly concerns all Internet users. Privacy education is part of the picture of a more just digital society: it aims at making users more aware of the importance of their data and of the technical and financial tools and processes that involve their personal data. Nonetheless, privacy education is confronted with a paradox: while people perceive the importance of privacy, they seldom take action to actually protect their personal data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGrowing evidence indicates that astrocytes are tightly connected to Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathogenesis. However, the way in which astrocytes participate in AD initiation and progression remains to be clarified. Our previous data show that astrocytes engulf large amounts of aggregated amyloid-beta (Aβ) but are unable to successfully degrade the material.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Astrocytes play a central role in maintaining brain energy metabolism, but are also tightly connected to the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Our previous studies demonstrate that inflammatory astrocytes accumulate large amounts of aggregated amyloid-beta (Aβ). However, in which way these Aβ deposits influence their energy production remain unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Astrocytes are crucial for maintaining brain homeostasis and synaptic function, but are also tightly connected to the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Our previous data demonstrate that astrocytes ingest large amounts of aggregated amyloid-beta (Aβ), but then store, rather than degrade the ingested material, which leads to severe cellular stress. However, the involvement of pathological astrocytes in AD-related synaptic dysfunction remains to be elucidated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the last decade, the development of new radiopharmaceuticals for the imaging and therapy of prostate cancer has been a highly active and important area of research, especially focusing on the prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA), an antigen which is upregulated in prostate, as well as in other tumor cells. A large variety of PSMA ligands have been radiolabeled, to date. Among the various derivatives, PSMA-617 resulted to be one of the most interesting in terms of interaction with the antigen and clinical properties, and its lutetium-177 labeled version has recently been approved by regulatory agencies for therapeutic purposes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTraumatic brain injury (TBI) presents a widespread health problem in the elderly population. In addition to the acute injury, epidemiological studies have observed an increased probability and earlier onset of dementias in the elderly following TBI. However, the underlying mechanisms of the connection between TBI and Alzheimer's disease in the aged brain and potential exacerbating factors is still evolving.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAggregation of the amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptide is one of the main neuropathological events in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Neprilysin is the major enzyme degrading Aβ, with its activity enhanced by the neuropeptide somatostatin (SST). SST levels are decreased in the brains of AD patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by a substantial loss of neurons and synapses throughout the brain. The exact mechanism behind the neurodegeneration is still unclear, but recent data suggests that spreading of amyloid-β (Aβ) pathology via extracellular vesicles (EVs) may contribute to disease progression. We have previously shown that an incomplete degradation of Aβ protofibrils by astrocytes results in the release of EVs containing neurotoxic Aβ.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Data on the epidemiology of bacteremias and invasive fungal diseases (IFD) in children with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) are scarce.
Design And Methods: In a multi-center, retrospective study, we analyzed proportion, rate per 1,000 person-days at risk, and cumulative risk of bacteremias and IFD in children with AML.
Results: Between January 1998 and December 2005, 240 children were treated for AML at 8 Italian Centers, for a total of 521 treatment courses and 63,232 person-days at risk.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one leading gram-negative organism associated with nosocomial infections. Bacteremia is life-threatening in the immunocompromised host. Increasing frequency of multi-drug-resistant (MDRPA) strains is concerning.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Autoimmune hemolytic anemia in children younger than 2 years of age is usually characterized by a severe course, with a mortality rate of approximately 10%. The prolonged immunosuppression following specific treatment may be associated with a high risk of developing severe infections. Recently, the use of monoclonal antibodies (rituximab) has allowed sustained remissions to be obtained in the majority of pediatric patients with refractory autoimmune hemolytic anemia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFREST is a transcriptional repressor that targets a group of neuronal genes in non-neuronal cells. In embryonic stem (ES) cells, REST has been implicated in controlling the expression of transcription factor genes that are crucial for lineage determination and for maintaining ES cell potential. Here, we asked whether REST directly regulates neural-specifying genes in mouse ES cells using siRNA-mediated REST knockdown and ES cells that lack functional REST protein as a result of gene targeting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Pediatr Gastroenterol Nutr
November 2007
The cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitor p57Kip2 is a negative regulator of cell proliferation, binding to a variety of cyclin-CDK complexes and inhibiting their kinase activities. The p57Kip2 gene was recognized as a target gene for p73beta, one member of the p53 family. In spite of this, the phenotypes of p73 and p57Kip2 knockout mice do not resemble each other while there is a phenotypic overlap between the p57Kip2 null mice, the p63 null mice and patients affected by p63 associated syndromes, suggesting that p57Kip2 could be indeed a downstream target of p63.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe evaluated the incidence of FLT3/internal tandem duplication (ITD) mutation in childhood acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) diagnosed over 15 years. FLT3/ITD was found in 10 of 45 (22.2%) non-acute promyelocytic leukaemia (non-APL) patients.
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