Search results for "AA"
showing 10 items of 16992 documents
Fungal community assemblage of different soil compartments in mangrove ecosystem
2017
AbstractThe fungal communities of different soil compartments in mangrove ecosystem are poorly studied. We sequenced the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions to characterize the fungal communities in Avicennia marina root-associated soils (rhizosphere and pneumatophore) and bulk soil compartments. The rhizosphere but not pneumatophore soil compartment had significantly lower fungal species richness than bulk soil. However, bulk soil fungal diversity (Shannon diversity index) was significantly higher than both pneumatophore and rhizosphere soil compartments. The different soil compartments significantly affected the fungal community composition. Pairwise sample analyses showed that bulk…
Antiviral therapy in the palliative setting of HCC (BCLC-B and -C)
2020
The potential impact of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) in patients with Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC)-B/C stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is understudied. Patients with HCC have been systematically excluded from randomised controlled trials evaluating the effectiveness of DAAs. Thus, the benefits of DAAs in patients with HCC are less well defined. The presence of active HCC before the initiation of DAA treatment is reported to be a predictor of DAA failure, and studies in patients without HCC have demonstrated that improvements in cirrhosis complications were lower or absent after DAA failure. Even if viral eradication is achieved using DAAs, reversal of liver function impairme…
Modulation of GABAA receptors by neurosteroids. A new concept to improve cognitive and motor alterations in hepatic encephalopathy
2016
Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a complex neuropsychiatric syndrome affecting patients with liver diseases, mainly those with liver cirrhosis. The mildest form of HE is minimal HE (MHE), with mild cognitive impairment, attention deficit, psychomotor slowing and impaired visuo-motor and bimanual coordination. MHE may progress to clinical HE with worsening of the neurological alterations which may lead to reduced consciousness and, in the worse cases, may progress to coma and death. HE affects several million people in the world and is a serious health, social and economic problem. There are no specific treatments for the neurological alterations in HE. The mechanisms underlying the cognitive …
Chronically elevated branched chain amino acid levels are pro-arrhythmic.
2022
Aim. Cardiac arrhythmias comprise a major health and economic burden and are associated with significant morbidity and mortality, including cardiac failure, stroke and sudden cardiac death (SCD). Development of efficient preventive and therapeutic strategies is hampered by incomplete knowledge of disease mechanisms and pathways. Our aim is to identify novel mechanisms underlying cardiac arrhythmia and SCD using an unbiased approach. Methods and Results. We employed a phenotype-driven N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea (ENU) mutagenesis screen and identified a mouse line with a high incidence of sudden death at young age (6-9 weeks) in the absence of prior symptoms. Affected mice were found to be homozyg…
Trend of Drug Abuse in 2011– 2014 in Italy
2017
Doping, although was born as a medication and not with the purpose of enhancing performance, is a widespread practice in all sports, between amateur and gym-goers. The Italian sports federations were in second place worldwide for positive doping-test, after Russia. This review focuses on the analysis of data collected by Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) in the 2012–2014 period, showing that the most commonly used substances were anabolic androgenic agents, glucocorticoids, diuretics and stimulants. Prevention in doping could be a key to limit the damage caused by this harmful practice both, for the physical health and the athlete’s moral integrity and anti-doping campai…
Higher glucose availability augments the metabolic responses of the C2C12 myotubes to exercise-like electrical pulse stimulation
2021
The application of exercise-like electrical pulse simulation (EL-EPS) has become a widely used exercise mimetic in vitro. EL-EPS produces similar physiological responses as in vivo exercise, while less is known about the detailed metabolic effects. Routinely, the C2C12 myotubes are cultured in high-glucose medium (4.5 g/L), which may alter EL-EPS responses. In this study, we evaluate the metabolic effects of EL-EPS under the high- and low-glucose (1.0 g/L) conditions to understand how substrate availability affects the myotube response to EL-EPS. The C2C12 myotube, media, and cell-free media metabolites were analyzed using untargeted nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabolomics. Furt…
Antiepileptogenic Effect of Subchronic Palmitoylethanolamide Treatment in a Mouse Model of Acute Epilepsy
2018
Research on the antiepileptic effects of (endo-)cannabinoids has remarkably progressed in the years following the discovery of fundamental role of the endocannabinoid (eCB) system in controlling neural excitability. Moreover, an increasing number of well-documented cases of epilepsy patients exhibiting multi-drug resistance report beneficial effects of cannabis use. Pre-clinical and clinical research has increasingly focused on the antiepileptic effectiveness of exogenous administration of cannabinoids and/or pharmacologically induced increase of eCBs such as anandamide (also known as arachidonoylethanolamide [AEA]). Concomitant research has uncovered the contribution of neuroinflammatory p…
Molecular Pathways Mediating Immunosuppression in Response to Prolonged Intensive Physical Training, Low-Energy Availability, and Intensive Weight Lo…
2019
Exercise and exercise-induced weight loss have a beneficial effect on overall health, including positive effects on molecular pathways associated with immune function, especially in overweight individuals. The main aim of our study was to assess how energy deprivation (i.e., "semi-starvation") leading to substantial fat mass loss affects the immune system and immunosuppression in previously normal weight individuals. Thus, to address this hypothesis, we applied a high-throughput systems biology approach to better characterize potential key pathways associated with immune system modulation during intensive weight loss and subsequent weight regain. We examined 42 healthy female physique athle…
Chromosomal distribution of interstitial telomeric sequences in nine neotropical primates (Platyrrhini): possible implications in evolution and phylo…
2016
To localize interstitial telomeric sequences (ITSs) and to test whether their pattern of distribution could be linked to chromosomal evolution, we hybridized telomeric sequence probes (peptide nucleic acid, PNA) on metaphases of New World monkeys: Callithrix argentata, Callithrix jacchus, Cebuella pygmaea, Saguinus oedipus, Saimiri sciureus, Aotus lemurinus griseimembra, Aotus nancymaae (Cebidae), Lagothrix lagotricha (Atelidae) and Callicebus moloch (Pithecidae), characterized by a rapid radiation and a high rate of chromosomal rearrangements. Our analysis of the probe signal localization allowed us to show in all the species analysed, as normally, the telomeric location at the terminal en…
Genotyping strategy of SMAD-3 rs3825977 gene variant for a differential management of ascending aorta aneurysm in women people: Gender oriented diagn…
2020
Abstract Background and objectives The research of opportune strategies for facilitating the management of complex pathologies, such as ascending aorta aneurysm (AAA), currently represents the principal object of clinicians, clinical pathologists included. Herein, we propose genotyping of gene variants related to TGF-β pathway as useful strategy to improve the complex AAA management, exclusively based on imaging evaluations. Precisely, we investigated four functional SNPs in SMAD and VEGF genes, encoding molecules able to modulate functions and cross-talks of TGF-β pathway. Populations and methods Our study included 92 individuals (70 men (76%) and 22 (24%) women; mean age: 71.4 ± 2.6 years…