A novel N95 respirator with chitosan nanoparticles: mechanical, antiviral, microbiological and cytotoxicity evaluations.

Background: It is known that some sectors of hospitals have high bacteria and virus loads that can remain as aerosols in the air and represent a significant health threat for patients and mainly professionals that work in the place daily. Therefore, the need for a respirator able to improve the filtration barrier of N95 masks and even inactivating airborne virus and bacteria becomes apparent. Such a fact motivated the creation of a new N95 respirator which employs chitosan nanoparticles on its intermediate layer (SN95 + CNP).

Two Years into the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons Learned.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a highly transmissible and virulent human-infecting coronavirus that emerged in late December 2019 in Wuhan, China, causing a respiratory disease called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which has massively impacted global public health and caused widespread disruption to daily life. The crisis caused by COVID-19 has mobilized scientists and public health authorities across the world to rapidly improve our knowledge about this devastating disease, shedding light on its management and control, and spawned the development of new countermeasures. Here we provide an overview of the state of the art of knowledge gained in the last 2 years about the virus and COVID-19, including its origin and natural reservoir hosts, viral etiology, epidemiology, modes of transmission, clinical manifestations, pathophysiology, diagnosis, treatment, prevention, emerging variants, and vaccines, highlighting important differences from previously known highly pathogenic coronaviruses.

Widespread contamination of SARS-CoV-2 on highly touched surfaces in Brazil during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although SARS-CoV-2 surface contamination has been investigated in health care settings, little is known about the SARS-CoV-2 surface contamination in public urban areas, particularly in tropical countries. Here, we investigated the presence of SARS-CoV-2 on high-touch surfaces in a large city in Brazil, one of the most affected countries by the COVID-19 pandemic in the world. A total of 400 surface samples were collected in February 2021 in the City of Recife, Northeastern Brazil.

High FUT3 expression is a marker of lower overall survival of breast cancer patients.

The complex enzyme network responsible for glycan synthesis suffers significant changes during the first steps of tumor development, leading to the early formation of tumor-associated glycan signatures. Among the glycosylation pathways, changes in fucosylation emerged as one of most important features in cancer. Αlpha-1,3/4-fucosyltransferase (FUT3) has been linked to pro-tumor and anti-tumor pathways depending on the cancer type.

The challenge of determining the impact of FUT3 tumor-associated polymorphism rs2306969 (-6951 C> T) in invasive breast cancer cells.

FUT3 gene is responsible for encode an homonymous α1,3/4-fucosyltransferase involved in the synthesis of sialyl-Lewis antigens. FUT3-fucosylated glycoconjugates play key roles in pathways involved in tumor biology and metastasis, such as cellular ligation to E-selectins, TGF-β-induced epithelial-mesenchymal transition, NK cell-mediated tumor cytotoxicity and apoptosis. Tumor-associated FUT3 promoter polymorphism rs2306969 (-6951 C> T, position related to the gene's translation start site) has been linked to breast, ovarian and intestinal gastric cancer.

Fut3 role in breast invasive ductal carcinoma: Investigating its gene promoter and protein expression.

Fucosylated glycans synthesized by α1,3/4-fucosyltransferase (FUT3) enzyme play an important role in breast cancer prognosis and metastasis, being involved in the binding of circulating tumor cells to the endothelium and being related to tumor stage, metastatic potential and chemoresistance. Despite the pro-tumor action of this enzyme, studies have demonstrated its role in natural killer-induced cytotoxicity through the recognition of sialyl Lewis X by C-type lectin receptors and through extrinsic apoptosis pathway triggered by Apo2L-TRAIL. This study aimed to investigate the expression pattern of FUT3 in invasive breast carcinoma (IDC) from patients of Pernambuco state, Northeast of Brazil, and genotype FUT3 promoter region to identify possible SNPs that could be associated with variations in FUT3 expression.