Publications by authors named "Maria J Prieto"

The development of films, scaffolds, hydrogels, and other innovations based on biopolymers for the treatment of skin injuries is on the rise. Therefore, it is important to focus on their functionality, influence on human use, and environmental impact. This work investigates the antimicrobial capacity of gelatin films that incorporate O/W emulsions encapsulating bactericidal and healing active ingredients (EA).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Deep brain electromodulation (DBEM), also known as deep brain stimulation in different intracerebral targets, is the most widely used surgical treatment due to its effects in reducing motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease. The intracerebral microelectrode recording has been considered for decades as a necessary tool for the success of Parkinson's surgery. However, some publications give more importance to intracerebral stimulation as a better predictive test.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In the case of a radiological or nuclear event, biological dosimetry can be an important tool to support clinical decision-making. During a nuclear event, individuals might be exposed to a mixed field of neutrons and photons. The composition of the field and the neutron energy spectrum influence the degree of damage to the chromosomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: Biological and/or physical assays for retrospective dosimetry are valuable tools to recover the exposure situation and to aid medical decision making. To further validate and improve such biological and physical assays, in 2019, EURADOS Working Group 10 and RENEB performed a field exercise in Lund, Sweden, to simulate various real-life exposure scenarios.

Materials And Methods: For the dicentric chromosome assay (DCA), blood tubes were located at anthropomorphic phantoms positioned in different geometries and were irradiated with a 1.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Vismodegib is a first-in-class inhibitor for advanced basal cell carcinoma treatment. Its daily oral doses present a high distribution volume and several side effects. We evaluated its skin penetration loaded in diverse nanosystems as potential strategies to reduce side effects and drug quantities.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In recent years, advanced nanohybrid materials processed as pharmaceuticals have proved to be very advantageous. Triptans, such as the commercially available intranasal sumatriptan (SMT), are drugs employed in the treatment of painful migraine symptoms. However, SMT effectiveness by the intranasal route is limited by its high hydrophilicity and poor mucoadhesion.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Doxorubicin (DOXO) is a chemotherapeutic agent widely used for the treatment of solid tumors and hematologic malignancies in both adults and children. However, DOXO causes short- and long-term cardiotoxicity and others undesirable side effects, such as nephrotoxicity and neurotoxicity. Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) allow the delivery of drugs specifically to target place, employing an external magnet.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The term "Immunonutrition" (IMN) describes the enteral administration of certain substrates with a theoretical immunomodulating function. From all the elements conforming these IMN formulas, Omega-3 fatty acids (O3FA) are hypothesized to be the most important component for immunomodulation, with increased anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effect.

Patients And Methods: A prospective randomized clinical trial of all the patients undergoing laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass was performed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Doxorubicin (DOX) hydrochloride is a powerful anthracycline antibiotic used for the treatment of various types of malignancies, particularly ovarian and metastatic breast cancer. However, DOX presents severe side effects, such as hepatotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, dose-limiting myelosuppression, brain damage and cardiotoxicity. A liposomal formulation, Doxil®, was approved by the FDA, which has managed to reduce the number of cardiac events in patients with metastatic breast cancer.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Unlabelled: Silicon blue-emitting nanoparticles (NPs) are promising effectors for photodynamic therapy and radiotherapy, because of their production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) upon irradiation.

Results: Amino-functionalized silicon NPs (NHSiNP) were intrinsically nontoxic below 100 μg/ml in vitro (on two tumor cell lines) and in vivo (zebrafish larvae and embryos). NHSiNP showed a moderate effect as a photosensitizer for photodynamic therapy and reduced ROS generation in radiotherapy, which could be indicative of a ROS scavenging effect.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Administration of local anesthetics is one of the most effective pain control techniques for postoperative analgesia. However, anesthetic agents easily diffuse into the injection site, limiting the time of anesthesia. One approach to prolong analgesia is to entrap local anesthetic agents in nanostructured carriers (e.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

With the aim of improving the topical delivery of the antineoplastic drug 5-fluorouracil (5FU), it was loaded into ultradeformable liposomes composed of soy phosphatidylcholine and sodium cholate (UDL-5FU). The liposome populations had a mean size of 70 nm without significant changes in 56 days, and the ultradeformable formulations were up to 324-fold more elastic than conventional liposomes. The interaction between 5FU and the liposomal membrane was studied by three methods, and also release profile was obtained.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This article reports novel results about nanotoxicological and teratogenic effects of the PAMAM dendrimers DG4 and DG4.5 in zebrafish (Danio rerio). Zebrafish embryos and larvae were used as a rapid, high-throughput, cost-effective whole-animal model.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Ethanolic extract from blueberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) is rich in anthocyanins and thus exhibits antioxidant activity. On the other hand, ultradeformable liposomes are capable of penetrating to the impermeable barrier of skin. Nanoberries are ultradeformable liposomes carrying blueberry extract.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: A European network was initiated in 2012 by 23 partners from 16 European countries with the aim to significantly increase individualized dose reconstruction in case of large-scale radiological emergency scenarios.

Results: The network was built on three complementary pillars: (1) an operational basis with seven biological and physical dosimetric assays in ready-to-use mode, (2) a basis for education, training and quality assurance, and (3) a basis for further network development regarding new techniques and members. Techniques for individual dose estimation based on biological samples and/or inert personalized devices as mobile phones or smart phones were optimized to support rapid categorization of many potential victims according to the received dose to the blood or personal devices.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The disinfection of 100 mL of synthetic water containing 7 mM Na2SO4 with 10(6) CFU mL(-1) of either Gram-negative or Gram-positive bacteria has been studied by electrochemical oxidation. The electrolytic cell was a stirred tank reactor equipped with a boron-doped diamond (BDD) anode and a stainless steel cathode and the trials were performed at acidic and neutral pH, at 33.3 mA cm(-2) and 25 °C.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: To establish a training data set of digital images and to investigate the scoring criteria and dose assessment of the dicentric assay within the European network of biodosimetry (RENEB), a web based scoring inter-comparison was undertaken by 17 RENEB partners.

Materials And Methods: Two sets of 50 high resolution images were uploaded onto the RENEB website. One set included metaphases after a moderate exposure (1.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: RENEB, 'Realising the European Network of Biodosimetry and Physical Retrospective Dosimetry,' is a network for research and emergency response mutual assistance in biodosimetry within the EU. Within this extremely active network, a number of new dosimetry methods have recently been proposed or developed. There is a requirement to test and/or validate these candidate techniques and inter-comparison exercises are a well-established method for such validation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Development of improved drug and gene delivery systems directly into the lungs is highly desirable given the important burden of respiratory diseases. We aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of liposomes composed of photopolymerized lipids [1,2-bis-(tricosa-10,12-diynoyl)-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine] associated with amino acids as vectors for gene delivery into the lungs of healthy animals. Lipopolymer vesicles, in particular, are more stable than other types of liposomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: To validate a school-based amblyopia screening program model by comparing its outcomes to those of a state-of-the-art conventional ophthalmic clinic examination in a kindergarten population of children between the ages of 4 and 5 years.

Methods: An amblyopia screening protocol, which consisted of visual acuity measurement using Lea charts, ocular alignment test, ocular motility assessment, and stereoacuity with TNO random-dot test, was performed at school in a pediatric 4- to 5-year-old population by qualified healthcare professionals. The outcomes were validated in a selected group by a conventional ophthalmologic examination performed in a fully equipped ophthalmologic center.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Emulsions are gaining increasing interest to be applied as drug delivery systems. The main goal of this work was the formulation of an oil/water nutraceutical emulsion (NE) for oral administration, enriched in omega 3 (ω3) and omega 6 (ω6), and able to encapsulate risperidone (RISP), an antipsychotic drug widely used in the treatment of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). RISP has low solubility in aqueous medium and poor bioavailability because of its metabolism and high protein binding.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Risperidone is an approved antipsychotic drug belonging to the chemical class of benzisoxazole. This drug has low solubility in aqueous medium and poor bioavailability due to extensive first-pass metabolism and high protein binding (>90%). Since new strategies to improve efficient treatments are needed, we studied the efficiency of anionic G4.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Ler is a DNA-binding, oligomerizable protein that regulates pathogenicity islands in enterohemorrhagic and enteropathogenic Escherichia coli strains. Ler counteracts the transcriptional silencing effect of H-NS, another oligomerizable nucleoid-associated protein. We studied the oligomerization of Ler in the absence and presence of DNA by atomic force microscopy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The synthesis, characterization, DNA interaction and antiproliferative behavior of new π-arene ruthenium(II) piano-stool complexes with nitrogen ligands are described. Three series of organometallic compounds of formulae [RuCl(2)(η(6)-p-cym)L] were synthesized (with L=2-, 3- or 4-methylpyridine; L=2,3-, 2,4-, 2,5-, 3,4-, 3,5-dimethylpyridine and L=1,2-, 1,3- 1,4-methylaminobenzene). The crystal structures of [RuCl(2)(p-cym)(4-methylpyridine)], [RuCl(2)(p-cym)(3,4-dimethylpyridine)] and [RuCl(2)(p-cym)(1,4-methylaminobenzene)] were resolved and the characterization was completed by spectroscopic UV-vis, FT-IR and (1)H NMR studies.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The mixed-chelate copper(II) complexes Casiopeínas® have been tested in several models in vitro and in vivo, showing promising antitumoral results. However, their mechanism of action remains to be defined. Trying to get a deeper insight into their molecular mode of action, further analyses, including gel electrophoresis, atomic force microscopy and circular dichroism were carried out to study their interaction with DNA and some cytoskeleton proteins.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF