Sensing Biomechanical Alterations in Red Blood Cells of Type 1 Diabetes Patients: Potential Markers for Microvascular Complications.

In physiological conditions, red blood cells (RBCs) demonstrate remarkable deformability, allowing them to undergo considerable deformation when passing through the microcirculation. However, this deformability is compromised in Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) and related pathological conditions. This study aims to investigate the biomechanical properties of RBCs in T1DM patients, focusing on identifying significant mechanical alterations associated with microvascular complications (MCs).

Exploratory study of extracellular matrix biomarkers for non-invasive liver fibrosis staging: A machine learning approach with XGBoost and explainable AI.

Background: Novel circulating markers for the non-invasive staging of chronic liver disease (CLD) are in high demand. Although underutilized, extracellular matrix (ECM) components offer significant diagnostic potential. This study evaluates ECM-related markers in hepatitis C virus (HCV)-positive patients across varying fibrosis stages.

Serum levels of free light chains and syndecan-1 in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus.

Objectives: Systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARDs) are characterized by chronic inflammation. Reliable biomarkers are crucial for diagnosis, monitoring disease progression and therapeutic responses. This study explores serum Syndecan-1 (SDC-1) as a biomarker for these conditions and its relationship with free light chain (FLC) levels.

Exploring novel circulating biomarkers for liver cancer through extracellular vesicle characterization with infrared spectroscopy and plasmonics.

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common form of liver cancer, with cirrhosis being a major risk factor. Traditional blood markers like alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) demonstrate limited efficacy in distinguishing between HCC and cirrhosis, underscoring the need for more effective diagnostic methodologies. In this context, extracellular vesicles (EVs) have emerged as promising candidates; however, their practical diagnostic application is restricted by the current lack of label-free methods to accurately profile their molecular content.

Optical discrimination of pathological red blood cells.

Fast diagnostic methods are crucial to reduce the burden on healthcare systems. Currently, detection of diabetes complications such as neuropathy requires time-consuming approaches to observe the correlated red blood cells (RBCs) morphological changes. To tackle this issue, an optical analysis of RBCs in air was conducted in the 250-2500 nm range.

Advancements in Mid-Infrared spectroscopy of extracellular vesicles.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are lipid vesicles secreted by all cells into the extracellular space and act as nanosized biological messengers among cells. They carry a specific molecular cargo, composed of lipids, proteins, nucleic acids, and carbohydrates, which reflects the state of their parent cells. Due to their remarkable structural and compositional heterogeneity, characterizing EVs, particularly from a biochemical perspective, presents complex challenges.

Antenna-enhanced mid-infrared detection of extracellular vesicles derived from human cancer cell cultures.

Background: Extracellular Vesicles (EVs) are sub-micrometer lipid-bound particles released by most cell types. They are considered a promising source of cancer biomarkers for liquid biopsy and personalized medicine due to their specific molecular cargo, which provides biochemical information on the state of parent cells. Despite this potential, EVs translation process in the diagnostic practice is still at its birth, and the development of novel medical devices for their detection and characterization is highly required.

3D-printed graphene polylactic acid devices resistant to SARS-CoV-2: Sunlight-mediated sterilization of additive manufactured objects.

Additive manufacturing has played a crucial role in the COVID-19 global emergency allowing for rapid production of medical devices, indispensable tools for hospitals, or personal protection equipment. However, medical devices, especially in nosocomial environments, represent high touch surfaces prone to viral infection and currently used filaments for 3D printing can't inhibit transmission of virus [1]. Graphene-family materials are capable of reinforcing mechanical, optical and thermal properties of 3D printed constructs.

Opportunities Offered by Graphene Nanoparticles for MicroRNAs Delivery for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Treatment.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is characterized by the degeneration and death of motor neurons. This neurodegenerative disease leads to muscle atrophy, paralysis, and death due to respiratory failure. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding ribonucleic acids (RNAs) with a length of 19 to 25 nucleotides, participating in the regulation of gene expression.

Different quaternary structures of human RECQ1 are associated with its dual enzymatic activity.

RecQ helicases are essential for the maintenance of chromosome stability. In addition to DNA unwinding, some RecQ enzymes have an intrinsic DNA strand annealing activity. The function of this dual enzymatic activity and the mechanism that regulates it is, however, unknown.

Proteomic studies on low- and high-grade human brain astrocytomas.

Human brain astrocytomas range from the indolent low-grade to the highly infiltrating and aggressive high-grade form, also known as glioblastoma multiforme. The extensive heterogeneity of astrocytic tumors complicates their pathological classification. In this study, we compared the protein pattern of low-grade fibrillary astrocytomas to that of glioblastoma multiforme by 2D electrophoresis.

The simultaneous use of telomerase, cytokeratin 20 and CD4 for bladder cancer detection in urine.

Objective: Because of the low sensitivity of urinary cytological diagnosis of urinary bladder carcinoma, new molecular diagnostic methods have been proposed. We decided to verify the expression of telomerase mRNA coding for the catalytic component (hTRT), cytokeratin 20 (CK20) and CD4 antigen mRNAs in urine as possible diagnostic tool.

Methods: Evaluation of hTRT, CK20, CD4 mRNAs was performed in 50 ml of naturally voided urine of 205 patients of which 153 with bladder cancer (Tis, n = 11; TaGx, n = 4; TaG1, n = 25; TaG2, n = 26; TaG3, n = 8; T1G1, n = 16; T1G2, n = 17; T1G3, n = 20; T2G2, n = 6; T2G3, n = 13; T3G3, n = 7) and 52 controls.

PCR analysis in archival postmortem tissues.

Background: Formalin fixed and paraffin wax embedded tissues of necropsy origin are an important source for molecular analysis especially in rare diseases, neuropathology, or molecular epidemiology studies. Because of DNA degradation, only short sequences can be amplified from this type of tissue, very often less than 100 bases. This poses problems because studies on polymorphism and mutations occurring in large genes often require the analysis of long sequences.

Molecular analyses of sentinel lymph nodes: an open question.

Aims: To detect micrometastases in the sentinel lymph nodes (SLN) of melanoma patients the authors analysed 52 lymph nodes (47 SLNs and five non-sentinel) and 17 corresponding primary skin melanomas using reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction assays in paraffin-embedded tissues to detect the mRNAs of tyrosinase, MAGE1, MAGE3, MIA, MART-1 and mRNA coding for telomerase catalytic component.

Results: Our data show that the use of molecular markers for melanoma micrometastases detection in SLN is still in a very preliminary stage. In comparing the molecular analysis results with the pathological staging we did not find any evident correlation with the expression of the analysed genes in SLN.

Catalytic subunit of telomerase expression is related to RNA component expression.

Telomere length is maintained by the ribonucleoprotein enzyme telomerase. The RNA component of telomerase (hTR) is widespread, and only the expression of the mRNA encoding the catalytic protein subunit (hTRT) is correlated with telomerase activity. We have studied the level of expression of hTR and hTRT in four different models of neoplastic and preneoplastic lesions using the RT-PCR method on RNA extracted from paraffin-embedded human tissues after microdissection.