Publications by authors named "Julia T de Castro"

Article Synopsis
  • New variants of SARS-CoV-2 are emerging, leading experts to believe COVID-19 will become endemic, highlighting the need for booster vaccines to maintain immunity.
  • The SpiN-Tec vaccine, designed to enhance immune response to these variants, showed promising results in mice and hamsters, inducing strong antibody and cell responses against multiple SARS-CoV-2 proteins.
  • Safety tests in rats indicated that SpiN-Tec is safe, paving the way for its approval for phase I/II clinical trials.
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To develop, characterize and evaluate an oil/water nanoemulsion with squalene (CTVad1) to be approved as an adjuvant for the SpiN COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials. Critical process parameters (CPPs) of CTVad1 were standardized to meet the critical quality attributes (CQAs) of an adjuvant for human use. CTVad1 and the SpiN-CTVad1 vaccine were submitted to physicochemical, stability, and studies.

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Article Synopsis
  • Trans-sialidases (TS) are enzymes on the Trypanosoma cruzi parasite, important for its virulence in Chagas disease, and only a few have catalytic activity.
  • Researchers used CRISPR-Cas9 to create knockout cell lines lacking active trans-sialidases, finding that these mutants had no TS activity and exhibited impaired development and egress from host cells.
  • In experiments with mice, aTS mutants did not cause infection and could even provide immunity against virulent strains, suggesting they could be developed into a vaccine for Chagas disease, which currently has no effective treatment.
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The persistent circulation of SARS-CoV-2 represents an ongoing global threat due to the emergence of new viral variants that can sometimes evade the immune system of previously exposed or vaccinated individuals. We conducted a follow-up study of adult individuals that had received an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, evaluating antibody production and neutralizing activity over a period of 6 months. In addition, we performed mice immunization with inactivated SARS-CoV-2, and evaluated the immune response and pathological outcomes against Gamma and Zeta variant infection.

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Interferons are innate and adaptive cytokines involved in many biological responses, in particular, viral infections. With the final response the result of the balance of the different types of Interferons. Cytokine storms are physiological reactions observed in humans and animals in which the innate immune system causes an uncontrolled and excessive release of pro-inflammatory signaling molecules.

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P. vivax-infected Retics (iRetics) express human leukocyte antigen class I (HLA-I), are recognized by CD8+ T cells and killed by granulysin (GNLY) and granzymes. However, how Plasmodium infection induces MHC-I expression on Retics is unknown.

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Malaria-associated acute respiratory distress syndrome (MA-ARDS) and acute lung injury (ALI) are complications that cause lung damage and often leads to death. The MA-ARDS/ALI is associated with a Type 1 inflammatory response mediated by T lymphocytes and IFN-γ. Here, we used the Plasmodium berghei NK65 (PbN)-induced MA-ALI/ARDS model that resembles human disease and confirmed that lung CD4 and CD8 T cells predominantly expressed Tbet and IFN-γ.

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