From bench to bedside: in vitro and in vivo evaluation of a neonate-focused nebulized surfactant delivery strategy.

Background: Non-invasive delivery of nebulized surfactant has been a neonatology long-pursued goal. Nevertheless, the clinical efficacy of nebulized surfactant remains inconclusive, in part, due to the great technical challenges of depositing nebulized drugs in the lungs of preterm infants. The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of delivering nebulized surfactant (poractant alfa) in vitro and in vivo with an adapted, neonate-tailored aerosol delivery strategy.

The Association With Two Different Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Differently Affects Water Stress Tolerance in Tomato.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are very widespread, forming symbiotic associations with ∼80% of land plant species, including almost all crop plants. These fungi are considered of great interest for their use as biofertilizer in low-input and organic agriculture. In addition to an improvement in plant nutrition, AM fungi have been reported to enhance plant tolerance to important abiotic and biotic environmental conditions, especially to a reduced availability of resources.

Mass spectrometry and metallomics: A general protocol to assess stability of metallodrug-protein adducts in bottom-up MS experiments.

The bottom-up mass spectrometry approach is today one of the best tools of Metallomics to characterize the binding of metal-based drugs to proteins. Yet, the stability of metal-protein coordination bonds along the whole process may be a critical issue. This led us to build up a general protocol to test metallodrug-protein adduct stability under the typical conditions of the filter-aided sample preparation (FASP)/bottom-up procedure, ranging from the analysis of solutions containing metal-protein adducts to tandem mass spectrometry experiments.

TRPA1 Mediates Aromatase Inhibitor-Evoked Pain by the Aromatase Substrate Androstenedione.

Aromatase inhibitors (AI) induce painful musculoskeletal symptoms (AIMSS), which are dependent upon the pain transducing receptor TRPA1. However, as the AI concentrations required to engage TRPA1 in mice are higher than those found in the plasma of patients, we hypothesized that additional factors may cooperate to induce AIMSS. Here we report that the aromatase substrate androstenedione, unique among several steroid hormones, targeted TRPA1 in peptidergic primary sensory neurons in rodent and human cells expressing the native or recombinant channel.