Publications by authors named "Rusconi F"

Extracellular vesicles (EV) have emerged as promising cell-free therapeutics in regenerative medicine. However, translating primary cell line-derived EV to clinical applications requires large-scale manufacturing and several challenges, such as replicative senescence, donor heterogeneity, and genetic instability. To address these limitations, we used a reprogramming approach to generate human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) from the young source of cord blood mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (CBMSC).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - Children born via cesarean delivery have a greater risk of various health issues compared to those born vaginally, but the exact reasons are still not fully understood.
  • - A meta-analysis involving over 12,000 participants found six specific DNA methylation markers in newborns linked to cesarean delivery, but these markers did not persist into childhood.
  • - The study indicates that cesarean delivery affects certain blood cell proportions at birth, but further research is necessary to understand its long-term impacts on child health.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Human organoids have been proposed to be powerful tools mimicking the physiopathological processes of the organs of origin. Recently, human pancreatic organoids (hPOs) have gained increasing attention due to potential theragnostic and regenerative medicine applications. However, the cellular components of hPOs have not been defined precisely.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - The development of the CompOsite iNdexes For Response in asthMa (CONFiRM) aimed to create patient-centered tools that measure responses to biologics for severe asthma in both adults and children, integrating clinical data and quality of life (QoL) indicators.
  • - Experts and patients collaborated to identify significant outcome changes and devised CONFiRM scores, which demonstrated high levels of agreement on key factors, with patients emphasizing the importance of quality of life more than healthcare professionals did.
  • - The CONFiRM scores effectively measure treatment response, with strong validity metrics indicating their reliability, and they facilitate a comprehensive assessment of biologics’ effectiveness; further studies are required for prospective validation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Psychiatric disorders are multifactorial conditions without clear biomarkers, influenced by genetic, environmental, and developmental factors. Understanding these disorders requires identifying specific endophenotypes that help break down their complexity. Here, we undertake an in-depth analysis of one such endophenotype, namely imbalanced approach-avoidance conflict (AAC), reviewing its significant dependency on the hippocampus.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Peptidoglycan (PG) is a strong net-like structure that surrounds bacteria, keeping them safe from bursting in watery environments.
  • Scientists created a special method using heavy isotopes and mass spectrometry to learn how new parts are added to this PG structure during bacterial growth.
  • Their findings reveal that the protein Braun lipoprotein (Lpp) is added to PG and that it moves around a lot, sometimes being attached and other times being free within the bacterial wall.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The study of neurons is fundamental to unraveling the complexities of the nervous system. Primary neuronal cultures from rodents have long been a cornerstone of experimental studies, yet limitations related to their non-human nature and ethical concerns have prompted the development of alternatives. In recent years, the derivation of neurons from human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) has emerged as a powerful option, offering a scalable source of cells for diverse applications.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Ion mobility mass spectrometry has become popular in proteomics lately, in particular because the Bruker timsTOF instruments have found significant adoption in proteomics facilities. The Bruker's implementation of the ion mobility dimension generates massive amounts of mass spectrometric data that require carefully designed software both to extract meaningful information and to perform processing tasks at reasonable speed. In a historical move, the Bruker company decided to harness the skills of the scientific software development community by releasing to the public the timsTOF data file format specification.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Endometriosis is a benign condition characterized by the presence of ectopic endometrial tissue. Our study investigated the effect of endometriosis on the risk of endometrial cancer (EC) and the prognosis of endometriosis-associated EC. In our study, 197,196 patients with endometriosis and without a previous diagnosis of EC were compared with 6,455,556 females encountering health services for examinations, with body mass index (BMI) data, and without endometriosis or EC.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

To investigate the associations between maternal mental health disorders before and during pregnancy and perinatal outcomes and child healthcare utilization between 6 and 18 months of age. Among the 6814 mother-child pairs from the Italian Internet-based NINFEA birth cohort, maternal depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders diagnosed by a physician before and during pregnancy were assessed through self-reported questionnaires completed during pregnancy and 6 months after delivery. Perinatal outcomes (preterm birth, birth weight, small for gestational age, congenital anomalies, and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU)) and children's healthcare utilization (emergency department (ED) visits, hospitalizations, and outpatient visits) were reported by mothers at 6 and 18 months postpartum.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

(p)ppGpp is a nucleotide alarmone that controls bacterial response to nutrient deprivation. Since elevated (p)ppGpp levels confer mecillinam resistance and are essential for broad-spectrum β-lactam resistance as mediated by the β-lactam-insensitive transpeptidase YcbB (LdtD), we hypothesized that (p)ppGpp might affect cell wall peptidoglycan metabolism. Here we report that (p)ppGpp-dependent β-lactam resistance does not rely on any modification of peptidoglycan metabolism, as established by analysis of Escherichia coli peptidoglycan structure using high-resolution mass spectrometry.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • A study looked at how kids' diets affect both their health and the environment, focusing on over 2,100 children in Italy.
  • The researchers found that diets causing higher greenhouse gas emissions and land use were linked to being overweight, but not necessarily shorter.
  • Eating more according to the Mediterranean Diet was linked to being a bit taller, showing that healthy eating can be good for kids and the planet too!
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Although intracellular Ca signals of oligodendroglia, the myelin-forming cells of the central nervous system, regulate vital cellular processes including myelination, few studies on oligodendroglia Ca signal dynamics have been carried out and existing software solutions are not adapted to the analysis of the complex Ca signal characteristics of these cells. Here, we provide a comprehensive solution to analyze oligodendroglia Ca imaging data at the population and single-cell levels. We describe a new analytical pipeline containing two free, open source and cross-platform software programs, Occam and post-prOccam, that enable the fully automated analysis of one- and two-photon Ca imaging datasets from oligodendroglia obtained by either ex vivo or in vivo Ca imaging techniques.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: to describe the monthly trend of breastfeeding during hospitalization and the presence of companion of woman's choice during labour and birth, and the key regional responders' perspective of homogeneity/heterogeneity of the presence of the support person, before, during (February-May 2020), and after the first COVID-19 pandemic wave in a few Italian Regions.

Design: two-phase study.

Setting And Participants: data from the italian birth certificate of six Italian Regions between 01.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: In this study, we aimed at evaluating whether, during the COVID-19 pandemic, children affected by chronic diseases were impacted by the deferral of planned healthcare caused by the restriction measures.

Design: This study was conducted using data from the Italian NINFEA birth cohort, which include children born between 2005 and 2016. Women who completed the 4-year NINFEA follow-up questionnaire before November 2020 ( = 5,307) were invited to complete a questionnaire targeted at evaluating the impacts of the pandemic on their children's health.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Biologics have proven efficacy for patients with severe asthma but there is lack of consensus on defining response. We systematically reviewed and appraised methodologically developed, defined and evaluated definitions of non-response and response to biologics for severe asthma.

Methods: We searched four bibliographic databases from inception to 15 March 2021 Two reviewers screened references, extracted data, and assessed methodological quality of development, measurement properties of outcome measures and definitions of response based on COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aims: To examine associations of assisted reproductive technology (ART) conception (vs. natural conception: NC) with offspring cardiometabolic health outcomes and whether these differ with age.

Methods And Results: Differences in systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), heart rate (HR), lipids, and hyperglycaemic/insulin resistance markers were examined using multiple linear regression models in 14 population-based birth cohorts in Europe, Australia, and Singapore, and results were combined using meta-analysis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: A newly available gel containing hyaluronic acid (HA) and polyvinylpyrrolidone was tested for efficacy on traumatic oral ulcers (TOU) caused by fixed orthodontic appliances.

Methods: A double-blind RCT was conducted to test the new gel versus a placebo. According to the sample size calculation, a total of 60 patients were considered sufficient and randomly allocated to one of the two groups out of a pool of 100 total patients who initially agreed to participate in the study.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Valid outcome measures are imperative to evaluate treatment response, yet the suitability of existing end-points for severe asthma is unclear. This review aimed to identify outcome measures for severe asthma and appraise the quality of their measurement properties.

Methods: A literature search was performed to identify "candidate" outcome measures published between 2018 and 2020.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The approach-avoidance conflict (AAC), i.e. the competing tendencies to undertake goal-directed actions or to withdraw from everyday life challenges, stands at the basis of humans' existence defining behavioural and personality domains.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - The COMSA Working Group developed standardized Core Outcome Measures (COM) sets for assessing the effectiveness of biological therapies in treating severe asthma in both adults and children to improve data synthesis and evaluation.
  • - A collaborative approach involved patients, clinicians, and health regulators across Europe, using extensive evidence reviews and surveys to shape the outcome measures, which include key metrics like forced expiratory volume (FEV) and frequency of severe exacerbations.
  • - The resulting COM sets aim to enhance future clinical trial methodologies, improve comparability of treatment outcomes, and provide a framework for understanding responses to biological therapies in severe asthma.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF