1,329 results match your criteria: "Universita' degli Studi di Siena[Affiliation]"

Aims: ultrasound (US) diagnosis of enthesitis is burdened of low specificity, especially when it is performed in patients with psoriasis (PsO) but without clinical psoriatic arthritis (PsA), because of mechanical, dysmetabolic and age-related concurrent enthesopatic changes. We propose a novel US score to quantify the cortical-entheseal bone remodeling burden of several peripheral entheses, aiming to improve the specificity of US for PsA-related enthesitis, and to evaluate its diagnostic value in PsO patients with subsequent diagnosis of psoriatic arthritis (PsO/PsA).

Methods: clinical and US data of 119 consecutive patients with moderate/severe PsO and nonspecific musculoskeletal symptoms, were included in this retrospective study.

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Article Synopsis
  • Research reveals that rejuvenation and memory in spin glasses are linked to multiple length scales, supported by simulations from the Janus II supercomputer.
  • The study combines numerical simulations with experiments to introduce two key coefficients that measure memory in spin glasses.
  • A new coefficient from Freedberg et al. is shown to be physically equivalent by analyzing its behavior in relation to temperature and waiting time.
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The functional units of natural photosynthetic systems control the process of converting sunlight into chemical energy. In this article, we explore a series of chemically and structurally modified bacteriochlorophyll and chlorophyll pigments through computational chemistry to evaluate their electronic spectroscopy properties. More specifically, we use multiconfigurational and time-dependent density functional theory methods, along with molecular dynamics simulations, to compute the models' energetics both in an implicit and explicit solvent environment.

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Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) have revolutionized the treatment landscape for metastatic breast cancer, offering targeted delivery of cytotoxic agents with improved efficacy and tolerability compared to conventional chemotherapy. This narrative review explores key predictive factors influencing the efficacy of ADCs, focusing on HER2-targeted therapies, such as trastuzumab emtansine and trastuzumab deruxtecan, as well as sacituzumab govitecan for triple-negative breast cancer. HER2 expression, TROP-2 levels, hormone receptor status, and the tumor microenvironment emerge as critical biomarkers for patient selection and therapeutic outcomes.

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Purpose: Mild Traumatic brain injury is classified based on Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS 13-15), it also involves transient alteration of brain function, which may lead to severe short- and long-term sequelae. When treating a patient with a mild head injury outside the hospital, it is of crucial importance to decide whether to transport him to a center without neurosurgery or to a center equipped with neurosurgery (primary centralization). Recent decades have seen exploration of portable, non-invasive devices for intracranial injury and stroke detection, with microwave frequency electromagnetic field technology showing promising clinical outcomes.

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The automatic rhodopsin modeling (ARM) approach is a computational workflow devised for the automatic buildup of hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) models of wild-type rhodopsins and mutants, with the purpose of establishing trends in their photophysical and photochemical properties. Despite the success of ARM in accurately describing the visible light absorption maxima of many rhodopsins, for a few cases, called outliers, it might lead to large deviations with respect to experiments. Applying ARM to rhodopsin (GR), a microbial rhodopsin with important applications in optogenetics, we analyze the origin of such outliers in the absorption energies obtained for GR wild-type and mutants at neutral pH, with a total root-mean-square deviation (RMSD) of 0.

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  • The study utilized click chemistry, specifically CuAAC, to create crosslinked derivatives of hyaluronan-based graft copolymers under mild conditions using ferulic acid and novel azido-terminated crosslinking agents.
  • Characterization of the resulting materials was conducted through NMR, TGA, and DSC analyses to assess their structural properties, swelling behavior, and gel-like characteristics.
  • The crosslinked materials demonstrated superior swelling performance, shear-thinning behavior, and significantly higher enzymatic resistance compared to commercial viscosupplements, suggesting their potential use as innovative viscosupplements.
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The imidazo[1,5-a]quinoline scaffold of central benzodiazepine receptor (CBR) ligands was used as the pharmacophore in the design of bivalent ligands bearing spacers showing variable length and different physicochemical features. The newly designed compounds were synthesized along with the corresponding reference monovalent compounds bearing the corresponding spacers terminated with a tert-butoxycarbonyl group. The novel compounds were tested in binding assays with different CBR preparations such as the cerebral cortex from male CD-1 albino mice or the human recombinant α1β3γ2 and α2β3γ2 γ-aminobutyric acid type A receptors (GABARs) stably expressed in mouse L(tk-) cells.

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Describing functional diversity of communities from environmental DNA.

Trends Ecol Evol

November 2024

Department of Environmental Science and Policy, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy; Université Grenoble Alpes, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LECA, Grenoble, France.

Article Synopsis
  • Comprehensive assessments of functional diversity are crucial for understanding how ecosystems are impacted by global changes.
  • The 'Fun-eDNA' approach uses environmental DNA sampling to identify taxonomic units and assign them traits, offering a wide-ranging perspective on functional diversity across ecosystems.
  • To maximize the effectiveness of Fun-eDNA, it's important to enhance trait databases, improve taxonomic inventory annotation, encourage interdisciplinary collaboration, and achieve a consistent understanding of traits.
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The emergence of the () gene is a demonstrable threat contributing to the worldwide antibiotic resistance crisis. The gene is encoded on plasmids and can easily spread between different bacterial strains. encodes a phosphoethanolamine (pEtN) transferase, which catalyses the transfer of the pEtN moiety from phosphatidylethanolamine to lipid A, the head group of lipopolysaccharides (LPS).

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Unleashing the Power of Induced Pluripotent stem Cells in in vitro Modelling of Lesch-Nyhan Disease.

Stem Cell Rev Rep

November 2024

Dipartimento di Biotecnologie, Chimica e Farmacia, Università degli Studi di Siena, via Aldo Moro 2, Siena, 53100, Italy.

Article Synopsis
  • Lesch-Nyhan disease (LND) is a rare genetic disorder caused by a deficiency in the HPRT enzyme, leading to motor disabilities, cognitive deficits, and self-harm behaviors.
  • Recent advances in stem cell research, particularly with human pluripotent stem cells, provide new methods to study LND's underlying neurological mechanisms.
  • This review evaluates current stem cell models for LND, their potential for uncovering key pathological events, and discusses challenges and future directions for improving research using induced pluripotent stem cells.
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Multiconfigurational Excitonic Couplings in Homo- and Heterodimer Stacks of Azobenzene-Derived Dyes.

J Phys Chem A

October 2024

Dipartimento di Biotecnologie, Chimica e Farmacia, Università degli Studi di Siena, Via A. Moro 2, 53100 Siena, Italy.

Molecular excitons play a major role within dye aggregates and hold significant potential for (opto)electronic and photovoltaic applications. Numerous studies have documented alterations in the spectral properties of dye homoaggregates, but only limited work has been reported for heteroaggregates. In this article, dimeric dye stacks were constructed from azobenzene-like dyes with identical or distinct structures, and their excitonic features were computationally investigated.

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Article Synopsis
  • Antibiotic resistance is a growing global issue, affecting both systemic and topical treatments for infections, highlighting the need for alternatives like antiseptics.
  • Polyhexanide (PHMB) is noted for its effectiveness in controlling infections without promoting resistance, making it a viable option for treating various dermatological conditions.
  • The text suggests updated clinical practices for managing wounds and skin infections, advocating for the use of innovative treatments like PHMB and Rigenase® instead of traditional topical antibiotics.
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[Registers as central real world data source: the experience of the Italian Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders Register].

Epidemiol Prev

September 2024

Struttura Tecnico Operativa, Laboratorio di Ricerca per il Coinvolgimento dei Cittadini in Sanità, Dipartimento di Epidemiologia Medica, Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri IRCCS, Milano.

Registers collecting data from clinical practice (real world data) have gained increasing interest in recent years in the scientific, administrative, and regulatory fields. The value of longitudinal data collection in deepening knowledge about a specific pathology and its healthcare complexity is increasingly recognized. This article describes the development, organizational structure, and technical characteristics of the Italian Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders Register (RISM).

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Purpose: This study aimed to present real-life data on the use, effectiveness, and safety of administering Ceftolozane/Tazobactam (C/T) through elastomeric pumps (EP) in the outpatient setting.

Methods: This case series study was conducted from January 2022 to July 2023 in a large University Hospital in Rome, Italy. Patients receiving continuous infusion of C/T EP were included up to a follow-up period of 90 days after the end of antibiotic therapy.

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The process by which Palaeolithic Europe was transformed from a Neanderthal-dominated region to one occupied exclusively by Homo sapiens has proven challenging to diagnose. A blurred chronology has made it difficult to determine when Neanderthals disappeared and whether modern humans overlapped with them. Italy is a crucial region because here we can identify not only Late Mousterian industries, assumed to be associated with Neanderthals, but also early Upper Palaeolithic industries linked with the appearance of early H.

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Ecological interactions in glacier environments: a review of studies on a model Alpine glacier.

Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc

February 2025

Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of Milan, via Celoria 26, Milan, 20133, Italy.

Glaciers host a variety of cold-adapted taxa, many of which have not yet been described. Interactions among glacier organisms are even less clear. Understanding ecological interactions is crucial to unravelling the functioning of glacier ecosystems, particularly in light of current glacier retreat.

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Riluzole, the first clinically approved treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), represents a successful example of a drug endowed with a multimodal mechanism of action. In recent years, different series of riluzole-based compounds have been reported, including several agents acting as Multi-Target-Directed Ligands (MTLDs) endowed with neuroprotective effects. Aiming at identical twin structures inspired by riluzole (2a-c), a synthetic procedure was planned, but the reactivity of the system took a different path, leading to the serendipitous isolation of benzo[b][1,4]thiazepines 3a-c and expanded intermediates N-cyano-benzo[b][1,4]thiazepines 4a-c, which were fully characterized.

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The reactivity of Morita-Baylis-Hillman Adduct (MBHA) derivative 7 was studied with different primary amine derivatives such as n-butylamine, Nα-acetyl-L-lysine methyl ester, and a poly-(L-lysine) derivative as lysine models to obtain information about the possible reactions in complex protein environments. MBHA derivative 7 reacted with n-butylamine or Nα-acetyl-L-lysine methyl ester producing monoadducts 9a or 9c, which showed bright emission features in the green region at 526-535 nm with photoluminescence quantum yield values in solutions of 73 % and 51 %, respectively. Based on these results, MBHA derivative 7 can be considered an interesting new fluorogenic probe potentially useful in the labelling of basic amino acid residues.

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Objective: The main aim of the study was to evaluate the performance of 2 proposed criteria for difficult-to-treat (D2T) psoriatic arthritis (PsA) in a group of patients and to evaluate the agreement between the 2 sets of criteria.

Methods: We performed a cross-sectional analysis of 2 longitudinal cohorts of patients with PsA fulfilling the Classification Criteria for Psoriatic Arthritis (CASPAR), with at least 1 year of follow-up. A detailed medical history was collected and a physical examination was performed for all recruited patients.

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Oxidative stress is a widespread causative agent of disease. Together with its general relevance for biomedicine, such a dynamic is recognizably detrimental to space exploration. Among other solutions, cerium oxide nanoparticles (or , NC) display a long-lasting, self-renewable antioxidant activity.

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Aims: Heterogeneity in the rate of β-cell loss in newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes patients is poorly understood and creates a barrier to designing and interpreting disease-modifying clinical trials. Integrative analyses of baseline multi-omics data obtained after the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes may provide mechanistic insight into the diverse rates of disease progression after type 1 diabetes diagnosis.

Methods: We collected samples in a pan-European consortium that enabled the concerted analysis of five different omics modalities in data from 97 newly diagnosed patients.

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