Microcontaminants (MCs) and microplastics (MPs) originating from the textile sector are today receiving a great deal of attention due to potential environmental concerns. Environmental pressures and impacts related to the textile system include not only the use of resources (, water) but also the release of a wide variety of pollutants. This review's main objective is to highlight the presence of textile MCs and MPs in water, in their full path from textile factories (from raw materials to the final product) to wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), and finally to the receiving surface waters.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDate seed polysaccharides were utilized to synthesize selenium nanoparticles (MPS-NP) through a redox reaction involving sodium selenite and ascorbic acid. Characterization of MPS-NP showed a uniform, amorphous, spherical shape with a particle size of 89.2 nm, remaining stable for 42 days.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLeishmaniases affect millions of people around the world, caused by Leishmania parasites. Leishmania are transmitted by female sandflies from Phlebotominae subfamily during their blood meals. In mammals, promastigotes are phagocytosed mainly by macrophages, differentiate into amastigotes and multiply.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe human body contains trillions of cells, classified into specific cell types, with diverse morphologies and functions. In addition, cells of the same type can assume different states within an individual's body during their lifetime. Understanding the complexities of the proteome in the context of a human organism and its many potential states is a necessary requirement to understanding human biology, but these complexities can neither be predicted from the genome, nor have they been systematically measurable with available technologies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMain protease (Mpro), also known as 3-chymotrypsin-like protease (3CLpro), is a nonstructural protein (NSP5) of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) responsible for the cleavage of virus polyproteins during viral replication at 11 sites, which generates 12 functional proteins. Mpro is a cysteine protease that presents specificity for the amino acid residue glutamine (Gln) at the P1 position of the substrate. Due to its essential role in processing the viral polyprotein for viral particle formation (assembly), Mpro inhibition has become an important tool to control coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), since Mpro inhibitors act as antivirals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Targeted and immune therapies have recently been associated with the occurrence of multiple cutaneous toxicities, often challenging to differentiate by clinical examination alone without histology. Line-field confocal optical coherence tomography (LC-OCT) is a non-invasive and innovative imaging technique that has been shown to be almost as effective as histology in diagnosing several skin conditions. Our study aimed to assess the effectiveness of LC-OCT in predicting the clinical evolution of early maculopapular eruptions related to antineoplastic targeted therapy and immunotherapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere has been a growing interest in bacteriophages as therapeutic agents to treat multidrug-resistant bacterial infections. The present work aimed at expanding the microbiological and molecular characterization of lytic phages ZC01 and ZC03 and investigating their efficacy in the control of infection in an invertebrate animal model. These two phages were previously isolated from composting using strain PA14 as the enrichment host and had their genomes sequenced.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA 15-year-old boy presented with a yellowish, asymptomatic nodule on the left forearm, which developed in the last year. A diagnosis of juvenile xanthogranuloma was confirmed with histopathology. Line-field confocal optical coherence tomography (LC-OCT), a new skin imaging technique, was performed prior to surgery, showing a strong correspondence with histopathological sections.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDynamic control of gene expression is critical for blood stage development of malaria parasites. Here, we used multi-omic analyses to investigate transcriptional regulation by the chromatin-associated microrchidia protein, MORC, during asexual blood stage development of the human malaria parasite . We show that MORC (PF3D7_1468100) interacts with a suite of nuclear proteins, including APETALA2 (ApiAP2) transcription factors (AP2-G5, AP2-O5, AP2-I, PF3D7_0420300, PF3D7_0613800, PF3D7_1107800, and PF3D7_1239200), a DNA helicase DS60 (PF3D7_1227100), and other chromatin remodelers (CHD1 and EELM2).
View Article and Find Full Text PDF: Acral melanocytic lesions often pose a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge for many clinicians. Reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) is an imaging technique widely used for the assessment of skin cancers. The aim of this review is to explore the applicability of RCM for the diagnosis of nevi and melanoma on the acral sites.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlycosylation is one of the most structurally and functionally diverse co- and post-translational modifications in a cell. Addition and removal of glycans, especially to proteins and lipids, characterize this process which has important implications in several biological processes. In mammals, the repeated enzymatic addition of a sialic acid unit to underlying sialic acids (Sia) by polysialyltransferases, including ST8Sia2, leads to the formation of a sugar polymer called polysialic acid (polySia).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Line-field confocal optical coherence tomography is a novel technology able to reproduce a "virtual biopsy" of the skin. The aim of this review is to explore the application of line-field confocal optical coherence tomography (LC-OCT) in various skin diseases, covering skin cancers, inflammatory and infectious skin diseases, genetic diseases, cosmetic procedures, and less common disorders.
Methods: Study selection was conducted based on LC-OCT and using pertinent MeSh terms, following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines from inception to March 2024; to evaluate the quality and risk of bias of studies, Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 (QUADAS-2) was used.
This study analyzes the extracellular matrix (ECM) signatures of the outer (OF = capsule + subcapsular + zona glomerulosa cells) and inner fractions (IF = zona fasciculata cells) of the rat adrenal cortex, which comprise two distinct microenvironment niches. Proteomic profiles of decellularized OF and IF samples, male and female rats, identified 252 proteins, with 32 classified as ECM-component and ECM-related. Among these, 25 proteins were differentially regulated: 17 more abundant in OF, including Col1a1, Col1a2, Col6a1, Col6a2, Col6a3, Col12a1, Col14a1, Lama5, Lamb2, Lamc1, Eln, Emilin, Fbln5, Fbn1, Fbn2, Nid1, and Ltbp4, and eight more abundant in IF, including Col4a1, Col4a2, Lama2, Lama4, Lamb1, Fn1, Hspg2, and Ecm1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFComp Biochem Physiol B Biochem Mol Biol
August 2024
Proteomics
September 2024
Evolutionary relationships among parasites of the subfamily Leishmaniinae, which comprises pathogen agents of leishmaniasis, were inferred based on differential protein expression profiles from mass spectrometry-based quantitative data using the PhyloQuant method. Evolutionary distances following identification and quantification of protein and peptide abundances using Proteome Discoverer and MaxQuant software were estimated for 11 species from six Leishmaniinae genera. Results clustered all dixenous species of the genus Leishmania, subgenera L.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDeveloping molecular strategies to manipulate gene expression in trypanosomatids is challenging, particularly with respect to the unique gene expression mechanisms adopted by these unicellular parasites, such as polycistronic mRNA transcription and multi-gene families. In the case of Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi), the causative agent of Chagas Disease, the lack of RNA interference machinery further complicated functional genetic studies important for understanding parasitic biology and developing biomarkers and potential therapeutic targets.
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