Rapid initiation of nasal saline irrigation to reduce severity in high-risk COVID+ outpatients.

Objective: To determine whether initiating saline nasal irrigation after COVID-19 diagnosis reduces hospitalization and death in high-risk outpatients compared with observational controls, and if irrigant composition impacts severity.

Methods: Participants 55 and older were enrolled within 24 hours of a + PCR COVID-19 test between September 24 and December 21, 2020. Among 826 screened, 79 participants were enrolled and randomly assigned to add 2.

Preparation, purification and regioselective functionalization of protoescigenin--the main aglycone of escin complex.

A two-step chemical process for controlled degradation of escin, affording a mixture of olean-12-ene sapogenins, was elaborated and scaled up. The main component of the mixture--protoescigenin--was isolated and purified, in the form of its corresponding monohydrate, without resource to chromatographic methods. This material was further converted into the high purity 3,24;16,22-di-O,O-isopropylidene derivative in a validated large scale laboratory process.

Physicochemical characteristics of sunitinib malate and its process-related impurities.

In this article, details of crystal and molecular structures of sunitinib malate (SUM), an anticancer therapeutic, and its key synthetic intermediate are presented. Both these compounds were also characterized spectroscopically and thermally. SUM crystallizes in the monoclinic P2(1) space group with two molecules in the asymmetric part of the unit cell, whereas the intermediate crystallises in the triclinic P-1 space group with four independent molecules in the asymmetric unit.

Involvement of napsin A in the C- and N-terminal processing of surfactant protein B in type-II pneumocytes of the human lung.

Surfactant protein B (SP-B) is a critical component of pulmonary surfactant, and a deficiency of active SP-B results in fatal respiratory failure. SP-B is synthesized by type-II pneumocytes as a 42-kDa propeptide (proSP-B), which is posttranslationally processed to an 8-kDa surface-active protein. Napsin A is an aspartic protease expressed in type-II pneumocytes.

Different structural requirements for melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) interacting with rat MCH-R1 (SLC-1) and mouse B16 cell MCH-R.

Melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) is a neuropeptide occurring in all vertebrates and some invertebrates and is now known to stimulate pigment aggregation in teleost melanophores and food-intake in mammals. Whereas the two MCH receptor subtypes hitherto cloned, MCH-R1 and MCH-R2, are thought to mediate mainly the central effects of MCH, the MCH-R on pigment cells has not yet been identified, although in some studies MCH-R1 was reported to be expressed by human melanocytes and melanoma cells. Here we present data of a structure-activity study in which 12 MCH peptides were tested on rat MCH-R1 and mouse B16 melanoma cell MCH-R, by comparing receptor binding affinities and biological activities.