Search results for "-n"

Chronic Stress Modulates Interneuronal Plasticity: Effects on PSA-NCAM and Perineuronal Nets in Cortical and Extracortical Regions.

2018

Chronic stress has an important impact on the adult brain. However, most of the knowledge on its effects is focused on principal neurons and less on inhibitory neurons. Consequently, recent reports have begun to describe stress-induced alterations in the structure, connectivity and neurochemistry of interneurons. Some of these changes appear to be mediated by certain molecules particularly associated to interneurons, such as the polysialylated form of the neural cell adhesion molecule (PSA-NCAM) and components of the perineuronal nets (PNN), specialized regions of the extracellular matrix. These plasticity-related molecules modulate interneuronal structure and connectivity, particularly of …

Global Assessment of the Activity of Tigecycline against Multidrug-Resistant Gram-Negative Pathogens between 2004 and 2014 as Part of the Tigecycline…

2017

Multidrug resistance among bacterial pathogens is an ongoing global problem and renders antimicrobial agents ineffective at treating bacterial infections. In the health care setting, infections caused by multidrug-resistant (MDR) Gram-negative bacteria can cause increased mortality, longer hospital stays, and higher treatments costs. The aim of the Tigecycline Evaluation and Surveillance Trial (TEST) is to assess the in vitro antimicrobial activities of tigecycline and other contemporary agents against clinically relevant pathogens. This paper presents antimicrobial activity data from the TEST study between 2004 and 2014 and examines global rates of MDR Gram-negative isolates, including Aci…

PSPU-Net for Automatic Short Axis Cine MRI Segmentation of Left and Right Ventricles

2020

[EN] Characterization of the heart anatomy and function is mostly done with magnetic resonance image cine series. To achieve a correct characterization, the volume of the right and left ventricle need to be segmented, which is a timeconsuming task. We propose a new convolutional neural network architecture that combines U-net with PSP modules (PSPU-net) for the segmentation of left and right ventricle cavities and left ventricle myocardium in the diastolic frame of short-axis cine MRI images and compare its results against a classic 3D U-net architecture. We used a dataset containing 399 cases in total. The results showed higher quality results in both segmentation and final volume estimati…

The first high-density sequence characterized SNP-based linkage map of olive (Olea europaea L. subsp. europaea) developed using genotyping by sequenc…

2016

A number of linkage maps have been previously developed in olive; however, these are mostly composed of markers that have not been characterized at the sequence level, supplemented with smaller numbers of microsatellite markers. In this investigation, we sought to develop a saturated linkage mapping resource for olive composed entirely of sequence characterized markers. We employed genotyping by sequencing to develop a map of a F2 population derived from the selfing of the cultivar Koroneiki. The linkage map contained a total of 23 linkage groups comprised of 1,597 tagged SNP markers in 636 mapping bins spanning a genetic distance of 1189.7 cM. An additional 6,658 segregating SNPs were asso…

2018

Genome-Wide-Association-Studies have become a powerful method to link point mutations (e.g. single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)) to a certain phenotype or a disease. However, their power to detect SNPs associated to polygenic diseases such as Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is limited, since they can only infer the pairwise relation of single SNPs to the phenotype and ignore possible effects of various SNP combinations. The common method to probe these possible complex genetic patterns is to compute a measure called linkage disequilibrium (LD). Despite the fact that several predictive patterns found with LD could successfully be applied to medical diagnosis, this measure still holds several dra…

Host-based lipid inflammation drives pathogenesis in Francisella infection

2017

Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) was used to elucidate host lipids involved in the inflammatory signaling pathway generated at the host-pathogen interface during a septic bacterial infection. Using Francisella novicida as a model organism, a bacterial lipid virulence factor (endotoxin) was imaged and identified along with host phospholipids involved in the splenic response in murine tissues. Here, we demonstrate detection and distribution of endotoxin in a lethal murine F. novicida infection model, in addition to determining the temporally and spatially resolved innate lipid inflammatory response in both 2D and 3D renderings using MSI. Further, we show that the cyclooxygenase-2-dependent lip…

The rs11187533 C>T Variant of the <b><i>FFAR4</i></b> Gene Is Associated with Lower Levels of Fasting Glucose and De…

2020

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> Genetic factors can modulate the development of associated comorbidities in obesity. It has been shown that loss-of-function variants of the <i>free fatty acid receptor 4 (FFAR4)</i> gene negatively affect obesity comorbidities such as insulin resistance and fatty liver disease. <b><i>Objective:</i></b> To test the relationships of metabolic factors in children with obesity with variants of the <i>FFAR4</i> gene. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> We performed an association study of 3 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of <i>FFAR4</i> (rs10882273 T>C, rs1…

Neurochemical Phenotype of Reelin Immunoreactive Cells in the Piriform Cortex Layer II

2016

Reelin, a glycoprotein expressed by Cajal-Retzius neurons throughout the marginal layer of developing neocortex, has been extensively shown to play an important role during brain development, guiding neuronal migration and detachment from radial glia. During the adult life, however, many studies have associated Reelin expression to enhanced neuronal plasticity. Although its mechanism of action in the adult brain remains mostly unknown, Reelin is expressed mainly by a subset of mature interneurons. Here, we confirm the described phenotype of this subpopulation in the adult neocortex. We show that these mature interneurons, although being in close proximity, lack polysialylated neural cell ad…

Uncovering the Signaling Pathway behind Extracellular Guanine-Induced Activation of NO System: New Perspectives in Memory-Related Disorders

2018

Mounting evidence suggests that the guanine-based purines stand out as key player in cell metabolism and in several models of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. Guanosine (GUO) and guanine (GUA) are extracellular signaling molecules derived from the breakdown of the correspondent nucleotide, GTP, and their intracellular and extracellular levels are regulated by the fine-tuned activity of two major enzymes, purine nucleoside phosphorylase (PNP) and guanine deaminase (GDA). Noteworthy, GUO and GUA, seem to play opposite roles in the modulation of cognitive functions, such as learning and memory. Indeed GUO, despite exerting neuroprotective, anti-apoptot…

Unusual roles of caspase-8 in triple-negative breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231

2015

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a clinically aggressive form of breast cancer that is unresponsive to endocrine agents or trastuzumab. TNBC accounts for ~10-20% of all breast cancer cases and represents the form with the poorest prognosis. Patients with TNBC are at higher risk of early recurrence, mainly in the lungs, brain and soft tissue, therefore, there is an urgent need for new therapies. The present study was carried out in MDA-MB-231 cells, where we assessed the role of caspase-8 (casp-8), a critical effector of death receptors, also involved in non‑apoptotic functions. Analysis of casp-8 mRNA and protein levels indicated that they were up-regulated with respect to the normal…