APOE4 drives inflammation in human astrocytes via TAGLN3 repression and NF-κB activation.

Apolipoprotein E4 (APOEε4) is the major allelic risk factor for late-onset sporadic Alzheimer's disease (sAD). Inflammation is increasingly considered as critical in sAD initiation and progression. Identifying brain molecular mechanisms that could bridge these two risk factors remain unelucidated.

Skin biological responses to urban pollution in an ex vivo model.

The skin epidermis is continuously exposed to external aggressions, including environmental pollution. The cosmetic industry must be able to offer dedicated products to fight the effects of pollutants on the skin. We set up an experimental model that exposed skin explants maintained in culture to a pollutant mixture.

A Wearable Low-Power Sensing Platform for Environmental and Health Monitoring: The Convergence Project.

The low-power sensing platform proposed by the Convergence project is foreseen as a wireless, low-power and multifunctional wearable system empowered by energy-efficient technologies. This will allow meeting the strict demands of life-style and healthcare applications in terms of autonomy for quasi-continuous collection of data for early-detection strategies. The system is compatible with different kinds of sensors, able to monitor not only health indicators of individual person (physical activity, core body temperature and biomarkers) but also the environment with chemical composition of the ambient air (NO, CO, NH particles) returning meaningful information on his/her exposure to dangerous (safety) or pollutant agents.

Ultrasound-stimulated Brownian ratchet enhances diffusion of molecules retained in hydrogels.

We demonstrate that low-frequency ultrasonic stimulation applied directly to a hydrogel, at energy levels below the cavitation threshold, can control the release of a therapeutic molecule. The hydrogel that contained the molecules was enclosed within a hollow acoustic horn. The harmonic modes in the acoustic horn combined with the physical gel structure to induce a flashing ratchet that released all of the retained molecules in less than 90 s at an intensity of 1.

Impact of cigarette smoke on physical-chemical and molecular proprieties of human skin in an ex vivo model.

Background: This is a study about the skin ageing exposome, focusing on the effect of cigarette smoke. Human living skin explants (HSE) were exposed to cigarette smoke (CS) of two cigarettes for 2 hours using a custom-made exposure chamber, the Pollubox . Effects on the surface physico-chemistry and molecular properties of the skin were analyzed and reported for the first time.