The role of HIV as an independent risk factor to cervical HSIL recurrence.

Objective: To evaluate the role of being human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) positive for predicting the risk of recurrence in women with a cervical high grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL) diagnosis.

Methods: Retrospective observational case-control study, comprising HIV positive (case) and HIV negative (control) women in a 1:4 ratio. Women assisted by the Erasto Gaertner Hospital, between 2009-2018, with cervical HSIL diagnosis, submitted to treatment by Loop electrosurgical excision procedure (LEEP), and with a minimum follow-up of 18 months, were included.

Astrocyte structural heterogeneity in the mouse hippocampus.

Astrocytes are integral components of brain circuits, where they sense, process, and respond to surrounding activity, maintaining homeostasis and regulating synaptic transmission, the sum of which results in behavior modulation. These interactions are possible due to their complex morphology, composed of a tree-like structure of processes to cover defined territories ramifying in a mesh-like system of fine leaflets unresolved by conventional optic microscopy. While recent reports devoted more attention to leaflets and their dynamic interactions with synapses, our knowledge about the tree-like "backbone" structure in physiological conditions is incomplete.

The Genetic Basis of Dormancy and Awakening in Cutaneous Metastatic Melanoma.

Immune dysregulation, in combination with genetic and epigenetic alterations, induces an excessive proliferation of uncontrolled melanoma cells followed by dissemination of the tumor cells to distant sites, invading organs and creating metastasis. Although immunotherapy, checkpoint inhibitors and molecular targeted therapies have been developed as treatment options for advanced melanoma, there are specific mechanisms by which cancer cells can escape treatment. One of the main factors associated with reduced response to therapy is the ability of residual tumor cells to persist in a dormant state, without proliferation.

A eutherian-specific microRNA controls the translation of Satb2 in a model of cortical differentiation.

Cerebral cortical development is controlled by key transcription factors that specify the neuronal identities in the different layers. The mechanisms controlling their expression in distinct cells are only partially known. We investigated the expression and stability of Tbr1, Bcl11b, Fezf2, Satb2, and Cux1 mRNAs in single developing mouse cortical cells.

Lysosome Dynamic Properties during Neuronal Stem Cell Differentiation Studied by Spatiotemporal Fluctuation Spectroscopy and Organelle Tracking.

We investigated lysosome dynamics during neuronal stem cell (NSC) differentiation by two quantitative and complementary biophysical methods based on fluorescence: imaging-derived mean square displacement (MSD) and single-particle tracking (SPT). The former extracts the average dynamics and size of the whole population of moving lysosomes directly from imaging, with no need to calculate single trajectories; the latter resolves the finest heterogeneities and dynamic features at the single-lysosome level, which are lost in the MSD analysis. In brief, MSD analysis reveals that, from a structural point of view, lysosomes decrement in size during NSC differentiation, from 1 μm average diameter in the embryonic cells to approximately 500 nm diameter in the fully differentiated cells.

Astrocytic signaling supports hippocampal-prefrontal theta synchronization and cognitive function.

Astrocytes interact with neurons at the cellular level through modulation of synaptic formation, maturation, and function, but the impact of such interaction into behavior remains unclear. Here, we studied the dominant negative SNARE (dnSNARE) mouse model to dissect the role of astrocyte-derived signaling in corticolimbic circuits, with implications for cognitive processing. We found that the blockade of gliotransmitter release in astrocytes triggers a critical desynchronization of neural theta oscillations between dorsal hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.

Employing an open-source tool to assess astrocyte tridimensional structure.

Astrocytes display important features that allow them to maintain a close dialog with neurons, ultimately impacting brain function. The complex morphological structure of astrocytes is crucial to the role of astrocytes in brain networks. Therefore, assessing morphologic features of astrocytes will help provide insights into their physiological relevance in healthy and pathological conditions.

SERPINA2 is a novel gene with a divergent function from SERPINA1.

Serine protease inhibitors (SERPINs) are a superfamily of highly conserved proteins that play a key role in controlling the activity of proteases in diverse biological processes. The SERPIN cluster located at the 14q32.1 region includes the gene coding for SERPINA1, and a highly homologous sequence, SERPINA2, which was originally thought to be a pseudogene.