Publications by authors named "Raquel Figueiredo"

Article Synopsis
  • Alzheimer's Disease (AD) leads to synapse loss and cognitive decline, and researchers are exploring ways to promote brain health since there’s no cure.
  • Environmental Enrichment (EE), which enhances cognitive stimulation through better living conditions, has been shown to improve brain plasticity and behavioral outcomes in animal models, including those with AD.
  • EE appears to influence key brain systems and proteins, suggesting it could be a new strategy for enhancing neuroprotection and plasticity in patients with Alzheimer’s Disease.
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Introduction: Activated phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)δ syndrome (APDS) is an ultra-rare inborn error of immunity (IEI) combining immunodeficiency and immune dysregulation. This study determined what represents value in APDS in Spain from a multidisciplinary perspective applying multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) methodology.

Methods: A multidisciplinary committee of nine experts scored the evidence matrix.

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Purpose: The effectiveness of mitomycin C (MMC) in trabeculectomy has long been established. The aim of this review is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of adjunctive agents in tube shunt drainage device surgery for glaucoma or ocular hypertension, since controversy still exists regarding their benefit.

Methods: We searched CENTRAL, PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Scopus, and BASE for RCTs, which have used adjuvant antimetabolites-either MMC or 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU)-and/or anti-vascular endothelial growth factors (anti-VEGF) agents.

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Article Synopsis
  • * In Arabidopsis mutants lacking functional JAGGER, multiple pollen tubes can access a single ovule, leading to potential issues with fertilization due to impaired synergid degeneration.
  • * Experimental results show that alterations in specific regions of the JAGGER protein that are crucial for GPI-anchor addition disrupt its localization and function, demonstrating the significance of this modification for plant reproduction.
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(Andiroba, Meliaceae) is considered a multipurpose tree. In Brazil, Indigenous people have used it as insect repellent and in the treatment of various diseases. Most biological activities and popular uses are attributed to limonoids, which are highly oxygenated tetranortriterpenoids.

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Sugarcane bagasse has received attention as a raw material for the production of second-generation ethanol (E2G). However, its use is limited because of the cell wall recalcitrance, mostly conferred by lignin. Recently our knowledge of the genes coding for the enzymes of the lignin biosynthesis pathway has increased; however, still little is known about the transcription factors controlling the expression of these genes in sugarcane.

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Cell wall biopolymers are major factors responsible for the high recalcitrance of sugarcane biomass. The study of suberization and lignification mechanisms in sugarcane and of the networks that control biosynthesis of these polymers will contribute to the biotechnological improvement of this crop. Here, we describe experiments that allow the visualization of the suberization and lignification mechanism in response to mechanical injury in sugarcane.

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Nuclei enrichment procedures enable a large variety of investigations. These studies include structural characterization of nuclear proteins, identification of posttranslational modifications, and regulation of stress or development-related gene expression. Successful enrichment of nuclei samples from plant tissues is crucial for a comprehensive analysis of the plant nuclear proteome.

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A sugarcane MYB present in the culm induces suberin biosynthesis and is involved both with fatty acid and phenolics metabolism. Few transcription factors have been described as regulators of cell wall polymers deposition in C4 grasses. Particularly, regulation of suberin biosynthesis in this group of plants remains poorly understood.

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We used primers designed on conserved gene regions of several species to isolate the most expressed genes of the lignin pathway in four Saccharum species. S. officinarum and S.

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Dissolution tests can be used to demonstrate suitable in vivo drug release through in vivo/in vitro correlations. This work explores the possibility of using near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to monitor in-situ dissolution tests. It aims at expanding surrogate methods in quality control of drug products.

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Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis has proved to be useful for forensic identification, especially in cases which nuclear DNA markers fail, as in degraded samples or in cases where the biological material has few traces or no nuclear DNA. Moreover, it can be applied in population genetics, inferring the origin of a population. In this work, the entire mtDNA control region of 97 individuals from the state of Espirito Santo, Brazil, was analyzed.

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Class III peroxidases (Prxs) are plant enzymes capable of using H(2)O(2) to oxidize a range of plant secondary metabolites, notably phenolic compounds. These enzymes are localized in the cell wall or in the vacuole, which is a target for secondary metabolite accumulation, but very little is known about the function of vacuolar Prxs. Here, the physiological role of the main leaf vacuolar Prx of the medicinal plant Catharanthus roseus, CrPrx1, was further investigated namely by studying its capacity to oxidize co-localized phenolic substrates at the expense of H(2)O(2).

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We have previously described the anti-allergic activities of a pooled fraction of tetranortriterpenoids (TNTPs) containing 6α-acetoxygedunin, 7-deacetoxy-7-oxogedunin, andirobin and methyl angolensate isolated from the seeds of Carapa guianensis. In the present study, we performed in vitro studies in order to elucidate the mechanisms by which TNTPs present their anti-allergic effects and to identify the bioactive compound(s) present in such fraction. Here, we show that in vitro incubation of eosinophils with the pooled TNTP fraction, as well as with each one of the five isolated tetranortriterpenoids, impaired the adhesion of eosinophils to tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α)-primed tEND.

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Ten X-chromosomal short tandem repeats (DXS8378, DXS9902, DXS7132, DXS9898, DXS6809, DXS6789, DXS7133, GATA172D05, GATA31E08 and DXS7423) were analyzed in four populations of the southeastern region of Brazil (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Vitória and Belo Horizonte). No deviations from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium were observed for any of the analyzed loci in the four populations. The average diversity per locus varied between 68% for DXS8378, DXS7133, and DXS7423 and 83%, for DXS6809, with Rio de Janeiro being the most diverse population.

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Plants possess a unique metabolic diversity commonly designated as secondary metabolism, of which the anticancer alkaloids from Catharanthus roseus are among the most studied. Recently, in a classical function-to-protein-to-gene approach, we have characterized the main class III peroxidase (Prx) expressed in C. roseus leaves, CrPrx1, implicated in a key biosynthetic step of the anticancer alkaloids.

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