Implementation of Sample Pooling Procedure Using a Rapid SARS-CoV-2 Diagnostic Real-Time PCR Test Performed Prior to Hospital Admission of People with Intellectual Disabilities
Reliability, accuracy, and timeliness of diagnostic testing for SARS-CoV-2 infection have allowed adequate public health management of the disease, thus notably helping the timely mapping of viral spread within the community. Furthermore, the most vulnerable populations, such as people with intellectual disability and dementia, represent a high-risk group across multiple dimensions, including a higher prevalence of pre-existing conditions, lower health maintenance, and a propensity for rapid community spread. This led to an urgent need for reliable in-house rapid testing to be performed prior to hospital admission. In the present study, we describe a pooling procedure in which oropharyngeal…
Small Extracellular Vesicles Secreted by Region-specific Astrocytes Ameliorate the Mitochondrial Function in a Cellular Model of Parkinson’s Disease
AbstractExtracellular vesicles (EVs) are emerging as powerful players in cell-to-cell communication both in health and diseased brain. In Parkinson’s disease (PD) – characterized by selective dopaminergic (DAergic) neuron death in ventral midbrain (VMB) and degeneration of DAergic terminals in striatum (STR) – astrocytes (AS) exert dual harmful/protective functions. When activated by chemokine CCL3, AS promote a robust DAergic neuroprotection both in cellular and pre-clinical models of PD, with mechanisms not fully elucidated. Here we used a combination of techniques to characterize AS-EVs derived from VMB and STR, and investigated their potential to exert neuroprotection. First, we show th…