From mudflats and saltpans to Open Sea: Plastic ingestion and PBDE/MeO-BDE accumulation in Waterbirds from southern Portugal.

Plastic ingestion greatly affects waterbirds, causing lacerations and potentially leading to health disruptions from chemical leaching. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), used as flame retardants in plastics, remain persistent in the environment despite restrictions, along with the less studied methoxylated PBDEs (MeO-BDEs), that may result from their transformation. Since most plastic pollution in the heavily impacted marine environment comes from terrestrial sources, freshwater/estuarine and coastal environments can also be heavily exposed to contamination.

Microplastics ingestion and endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) by breeding seabirds in the east tropical Atlantic: Associations with trophic and foraging proxies (δN and δC).

In this study we found that endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) were omnipresent in a tropical seabird community comprising diverse ecological guilds and distinct foraging and trophic preferences. Because EDCs tend to bioaccumulate within the food web and microplastics can absorb and release harmful chemical compounds, our findings draw attention to the potential threats to wildlife. Thus, the goal of this study was to investigate the role of plastic ingestion, trophic and foraging patterns (δN and δC) of five tropical seabird species breeding in sympatry, on the exposure to EDCs, namely Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), methoxylated polybrominated diphenyl ethers (MeO-PBDEs) and personal care products (PCPs, e.

Anthropogenic debris ingestion in a tropical seabird community: Insights from taxonomy and foraging distribution.

Oceans have been considered as an unlimited supply of goods and services, but resource extraction and waste disposal became ubiquitous and have been damaging the health of marine ecosystems. Finding suitable sentinel species of the human impacts on the oceans is thus imperative, since they may work as early warnings of disruptive situations. In this study, we investigated how taxonomy and foraging distribution influenced the occurrence of anthropogenic debris among five seabird species inhabiting the tropical Atlantic region.

Dual drug delivery collagen vehicles for modulation of skin fibrosis.

Single molecule drug delivery systems have failed to yield functional therapeutic outcomes, triggering investigations into multi-molecular drug delivery vehicles. In the context of skin fibrosis, although multi-drug systems have been assessed, no system has assessed molecular combinations that directly and specifically reduce cell proliferation, collagen synthesis and transforming growth factor1 (TGF1) expression. Herein, a core-shell collagen type I hydrogel system was developed for the dual delivery of a TGFtrap, a soluble recombinant protein that inhibits TGFsignalling, and Trichostatin A (TSA), a small molecule inhibitor of histone deacetylases.

Adapting the Scar-in-a-Jar to Skin Fibrosis and Screening Traditional and Contemporary Anti-Fibrotic Therapies.

Skin fibrosis still constitutes an unmet clinical need. Although pharmacological strategies are at the forefront of scientific and technological research and innovation, their clinical translation is hindered by the poor predictive capacity of the currently available fibrosis models. Indeed, customarily utilised scarring models are conducted in a low extracellular matrix milieu, which constitutes an oxymoron for the in-hand pathophysiology.