Phase I-IIa clinical trial to evaluate the safety, feasibility and efficacy of the use of a palate mucosa generated by tissue engineering for the treatment of children with cleft palate: the BIOCLEFT study protocol.

Introduction: The current gold standard treatment for patients with orofacial clefts is surgical repair of the palatal defect (uranostaphylorrhaphy), which is associated with growth defects and hypoplasia of the maxillofacial structures. This trial aims to evaluate the potential of a bioengineered artificial palate mucosa, created through tissue engineering with autologous stromal and epithelial cells and nanostructured fibrin-agarose biomaterials, to enhance treatment outcomes for patients with unilateral cleft lip and palate.

Methods And Analysis: This phase I-IIa clinical trial aims to evaluate the feasibility and biosafety of a procedure involving grafting bioartificial palate mucosa onto the areas of denudated bone in patients undergoing uranostaphylorrhaphy.

Primary lateral sclerosis associated with PSEN1 Pro284Leu variant in a Colombian family: Clinical and neuropathological features.

Introduction: This study investigates primary lateral sclerosis (PLS) as a rare manifestation of the presenilin 1 (PSEN1) NM_000021 c.851C > T p.Pro284Leu variant in three siblings of a Colombian family, outlining its clinical and neuropathological features and their relationship to Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Triboelectric Nanogenerators for the Masses: A Low-Cost Do-It-Yourself Pulsed Ion Source for Sample-Limited Applications.

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) are useful devices for converting mechanical motion into electric current using readily available materials. Though the applications for these devices span across many fields, TENG can be leveraged for mass spectrometry (MS) as inexpensive and effective power supplies for pulsed nanoelectrospray ionization (nESI). The inherently discontinuous spray provided by TENG is particularly useful in scenarios where high sample economy is imperative, as in the case of ultraprecious samples.

Triboelectric Nanogenerators: Low-Cost Power Supplies for Improved Electrospray Ionization.

Electrospray ionization (ESI) is one of the most popular methods to generate ions for mass spectrometry (MS). When compared with other ionization techniques, it can generate ions from liquid-phase samples without additives, retaining covalent and non-covalent interactions of the molecules of interest. When hyphenated to liquid chromatography, it greatly expands the versatility of MS analysis of complex mixtures.

Cell-Sized Lipid Vesicles as Artificial Antigen-Presenting Cells for Antigen-Specific T Cell Activation.

In this study, efficient T cell activation is demonstrated using cell-sized artificial antigen-presenting cells (aAPCs) with protein-conjugated bilayer lipid membranes that mimic biological cell membranes. The highly uniform aAPCs are generated by a facile method based on standard droplet microfluidic devices. These aAPCs are able to activate the T cells in peripheral blood mononuclear cells, showing a 28-fold increase in interferon gamma (IFNγ) secretion, a 233-fold increase in antigen-specific CD8 T cells expansion, and a 16-fold increase of CD4 T cell expansion.

Ion Mobility-Mass Spectrometry Reveals the Structures and Stabilities of Biotherapeutic Antibody Aggregates.

Stability is a key critical quality attribute monitored throughout the development of monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapeutics. Minor changes in their higher order structure (HOS) caused by stress or environment may alter mAb aggregation, immunogenicity, and efficacy. In addition, the structures of the resulting mAb aggregates are largely unknown, as are their dependencies on conditions under which they are created.

Occurrence of sarcoptic mange in free-ranging vicuñas (Vicugna vicugna) of the Andean high plateau region of Argentina.

Free-ranging vicuñas (Vicugna vicugna) are handled in some areas of the Andean high plateau region following an ancestral practice known as chaku, which consists in their transient capture and shearing of their fiber for commercialization. In this study, 807 vicuñas captured during 12 chaku events that took place in 2019 in the province of Jujuy, Argentina, were examined for typical mange skin lesions. Twenty-eight of the examined vicuñas presented alopecia with erythema, exudation, hyperkeratosis, and/or bleeding scarred lesions, mostly in the chest, rear and front legs, and inguinal zone.

Mass Spectrometry Methods for Measuring Protein Stability.

Mass spectrometry is a central technology in the life sciences, providing our most comprehensive account of the molecular inventory of the cell. In parallel with developments in mass spectrometry technologies targeting such assessments of cellular composition, mass spectrometry tools have emerged as versatile probes of biomolecular stability. In this review, we cover recent advancements in this branch of mass spectrometry that target proteins, a centrally important class of macromolecules that accounts for most biochemical functions and drug targets.

An fNIRS Investigation of Discrete and Continuous Cognitive Demands During Dual-Task Walking in Young Adults.

: Dual-task studies have demonstrated that walking is attention-demanding for younger adults. However, numerous studies have attributed this to task type rather than the amount of required to accomplish the task. This study examined four tasks: two discrete (i.

Collision-Induced Unfolding Reveals Stability Differences in Infliximab Therapeutics under Native and Heat Stress Conditions.

Ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) and collision-induced unfolding (CIU) assays of monoclonal antibody (mAb)-based biotherapeutics have proven sensitive to disulfide bridge structures, glycosylation patterns, and small molecule conjugation levels. Despite promising prior reports detailing the capabilities of IM-MS and CIU to differentiate biosimilars, generic mAb therapeutics, there remain questions surrounding the sensitivity of CIU to mAb structure changes that occur upon stress, the reproducibility of such measurements across IM-MS platforms, and the correlation between CIU and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) datasets. In this report, we describe a comprehensive IM-MS and CIU dataset acquired for three Infliximabs: Remicade, Inflectra, and Renflexis.

Body-fat sensor triggers ribosome maturation in the steroidogenic gland to initiate sexual maturation in Drosophila.

Fat stores are critical for reproductive success and may govern maturation initiation. Here, we report that signaling and sensing fat sufficiency for sexual maturation commitment requires the lipid carrier apolipophorin in fat cells and Sema1a in the neuroendocrine prothoracic gland (PG). Larvae lacking apolpp or Sema1a fail to initiate maturation despite accruing sufficient fat stores, and they continue gaining weight until death.

Occurrence and molecular characterization of cyst nematode species (Globodera spp.) associated with potato crops in Colombia.

Potato cyst nematodes (PCN) from the genus Globodera spp. cause major losses in the potato (Solanum tuberosum) industry worldwide. Despite their importance, at present little is known about the status of this plant pathogen in cultivated potatoes in Colombia.

The drop plate method as an alternative for Azospirillum spp. viable cell enumeration within the consensus protocol of the REDCAI network.

Quality evaluation of commercial inoculants is essential to warrant an adequate crop response to inoculation within a biosecurity framework. In this sense, this work is aimed at standardizing and validating the drop plate method for the enumeration of Azospirillum viable cells as an alternative to the spread plate technique, which is currently proposed in the consensus protocol of the REDCAI network. Between 14 and 25 private and public laboratories participated in three independent trials.

Wnt5a modulates dendritic spine dynamics through the regulation of Cofilin via small Rho GTPase activity in hippocampal neurons.

Dendritic spines are small, actin-rich protrusions that act as the receiving sites of most excitatory inputs in the central nervous system. The remodeling of the synapse architecture is mediated by actin cytoskeleton dynamics, a process precisely regulated by the small Rho GTPase family. Wnt ligands exert their presynaptic and postsynaptic effects during formation and consolidation of the synaptic structure.

Frequency of Aspirin Resistance in Ischemic Stroke Patients and Healthy Controls from Colombia.

Objective: To evaluate the aspirin resistance prevalence in patients with previous ischemic cerebrovascular disease undergoing aspirin therapy for secondary prevention.

Materials And Methods: Three hundred fifty patients presenting ischemic strokes and 100 healthy controls under aspirin treatment were evaluated using the optic platelet aggregation test.

Results: Aspirin resistance was found in 7.

Enhanced Collision Induced Unfolding and Electron Capture Dissociation of Native-like Protein Ions.

Native ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) is capable of revealing much that remains unknown within the structural proteome, promising such information on refractory protein targets. Here, we report the development of a unique drift tube IM-MS (DTIM-MS) platform, which combines high-energy source optics for improved collision induced unfolding (CIU) experiments and an electromagnetostatic cell for electron capture dissociation (ECD). We measured a series of high precision collision cross section (CCS) values for protein and protein complex ions ranging from 6-1600 kDa, exhibiting an average relative standard deviation (RSD) of 0.

A Low-Cost Automatic Vehicle Identification Sensor for Traffic Networks Analysis.

In recent years, different techniques to address the problem of observability in traffic networks have been proposed in multiple research projects, being the technique based on the installation of automatic vehicle identification sensors (AVI), one of the most successful in terms of theoretical results, but complex in terms of its practical application to real studies. Indeed, a very limited number of studies consider the possibility of installing a series of non-definitive plate scanning sensors in the elements of a network, which allow technicians to obtain a better conclusions when they deal with traffic network analysis such as urbans mobility plans that involve the estimation of traffic flows for different scenarios. With these antecedents, the contributions of this paper are (1) an architecture to deploy low-cost sensors network able to be temporarily installed on the city streets as an alternative of rubber hoses commonly used in the elaboration of urban mobility plans; (2) a design of the low-cost, low energy sensor itself, and (3) a sensor location model able to establish the best set of links of a network given both the study objectives and of the sensor needs of installation.

An intelligent tutoring system for supporting active learning: A case study on predictive parsing learning.

The way in which people learn and institutions teach is changing due to the ever-increasing impact of technology. People access the Internet anywhere, anytime and request online training. This has brought about the creation of numerous online learning platforms which offer comprehensive and effective educational solutions which are 100% online.

Directed evolution of custom polymerases using droplet microfluidics.

DNA polymerases are critical tools for a large number of emerging applications in biotechnology, but oftentimes polymerases with desired functions are not readily available. Directed evolution provides a possible solution to this problem by enabling the creation of engineered polymerases that are better equipped to recognize a given unnatural substrate. Here we report a microfluidic-based method for evolving new polymerase functions that involves ultrahigh throughput sorting of fluorescent water-in-oil (w/o) microdroplets.

Programmed Allelic Mutagenesis of a DNA Polymerase with Single Amino Acid Resolution.

Most DNA polymerase libraries sample unknown portions of mutational space and are constrained by the limitations of random mutagenesis. Here we describe a programmed allelic mutagenesis (PAM) strategy to comprehensively evaluate all possible single-point mutations in the entire catalytic domain of a replicative DNA polymerase. By applying the PAM strategy with ultrafast high-throughput screening, we show how DNA polymerases can be mapped for allelic mutations that exhibit enhanced activity for unnatural nucleic acid substrates.

Pregnancy rates in hair sheep after Ovsynch synchronization and a combined intracervical fixed-time artificial insemination and 10-day mating period.

Aim: This study aimed to evaluate the pregnancy rates in hair ewes using an Ovsynch synchronization protocol under a breeding system that combines fixed-time insemination plus a 10-day mating period as an alternative.

Materials And Methods: Through an experimental study (n=27), ewes were randomly located into one of three treatments: (1) Pre-synch (n=9): Prostaglandin F2α (PGF2α)+Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH)+PGF2α+GnRH; (2) Ovsynch (n=9): GnRH+PGF2α+GnRH; and (3) control: Ewes bred by natural mating (NM) (n=9). Ewes were fixed-time inseminated (fixed-time artificial insemination [FTAI]) with fresh semen, collected just before the insemination time through vaginoscopy at 16 h after the second GnRH (gonadorelin) injection.

Assessment of biosimilarity under native and heat-stressed conditions: rituximab, bevacizumab, and trastuzumab originators and biosimilars.

Biosimilars are highly similar to, but not identical with, their originator products. As a result, structural differences between originators and biosimilars can be difficult to detect and characterize without the appropriate analytical tools. Therefore, we first focus on identifying initial structural differences between rituximab, bevacizumab, and trastuzumab originator and biosimilar pairs and later address how these differences change after applying thermal stress at 40 °C with orbital shaking for 4 weeks.