Search results for "Lupu"
showing 10 items of 216 documents
Howl variation across Himalayan, North African, Indian, and Holarctic wolf clades: tracing divergence in the world’s oldest wolf lineages using acous…
2017
Abstract Vocal divergence within species often corresponds to morphological, environmental, and genetic differences between populations. Wolf howls are long-range signals that encode individual, group, and subspecies differences, yet the factors that may drive this variation are poorly understood. Furthermore, the taxonomic division within the Canis genus remains contended and additional data are required to clarify the position of the Himalayan, North African, and Indian wolves within Canis lupus. We recorded 451 howls from the 3 most basal wolf lineages—Himalayan C. lupus chanco—Himalayan haplotype, North African C. lupus lupaster, and Indian C. lupus pallipes wolves—and present a howl ac…
Urinary levels of sirtuin-1 associated with disease activity in lupus nephritis.
2017
Identifying new markers of disease flares in lupus nephritis (LN) that facilitate patient stratification and prognosis is important. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to analyze whether urinary SIRT1 expression was altered in LN and whether SIRT1 values in urine could be valuable biomarker of disease activity. In a cohort study, urinary pellets from 40 patients diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) were analyzed. Clinical measures of lupus activity were assessed. The expression of SIRT1 was quantified by quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR) and immunoblot, then compared between patients with active lupus nephritis, in remission and healthy controls. Association with lupus activi…
Spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) is a potential target for the treatment of cutaneous lupus erythematosus patients
2016
Spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) is a protein kinase involved in cell proliferation and the regulation of inflammatory pathways. Due to the increasing evidence that kinase inhibitors have potential as specific anti-inflammatory drugs, we have investigated the potential for SYK inhibition as a therapeutic target in autoimmune diseases, particularly cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE). Skin samples of patients with different CLE subtypes and appropriate controls were analysed for the expression of SYK and SYK-associated pro-inflammatory mediators via gene expression analysis and immunohistochemistry. The functional role of SYK in keratinocytes was investigated in vitro, using LE-typical pro-infla…
Advances in the treatment of cutaneous lupus erythematosus.
2016
Lupus erythematosus (LE) is a multifactorial autoimmune disease with clinical manifestations of differing severity which may present with skin manifestations as primary sign of the disease (cutaneous lupus erythematosus, CLE) or as part of a disease spectrum (systemic lupus erythematosus, SLE). To date, no drugs are approved specifically for the treatment of CLE and only single agents have been applied in randomized controlled trials. Therefore, topical and systemic agents are used “off-label”, primarily based on open-label studies, case series, retrospective analyses, and expert opinions. In contrast, several agents, such as hydroxychloroquine, chloroquine, cyclophosphamide, azathioprine,…
Towards patient stratification and treatment in the autoimmune disease lupus erythematosus using a systems pharmacology approach
2015
Drug development in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) has been hindered by poor translation from successful preclinical experiments to clinical efficacy. This lack of success has been attributed to the high heterogeneity of SLE patients and to the lack of understanding of disease physiopathology. Modelling approaches could be useful for supporting the identification of targets, biomarkers and patient subpopulations with differential response to drugs. However, the use of traditional quantitative models based on differential equations is not justifiable in a sparse data situation. Boolean networks models are less demanding on the required data to be implemented and can provide insights into…
Guidelines for biomarkers in autoimmune rheumatic diseases - evidence based analysis
2018
Autoimmune rheumatic diseases are characterised by an abnormal immune system response, complement activation, cytokines dysregulation and inflammation. In last years, despite many progresses in managing these patients, it has been shown that clinical remission is reached in less than 50% of patients and a personalised and tailored therapeutic approach is still lacking resulting in a significant gap between guidelines and real-world practice. In this context, the need for biomarkers facilitating early diagnosis and profiling those individuals at the highest risk for a poor outcome has become of crucial interest. A biomarker generally refers to a measured characteristic which may be used as a…
Immunomodulatory activity of Humulus lupulus bitter acids fraction: Enhancement of natural killer cells function by NKp44 activating receptor stimula…
2019
Abstract Humulus lupulus (Hop) contains numerous metabolites with anticancer potential. Despite this, their immunomodulatory activity, and in particular of bitter acids, is unknown. In this study, we demonstrated that a Hop pellet extract fraction containing bitter acids possesses immunomodulatory activity by enhancing Natural Killer (NK) cells function. After fractionation by semi-preparative Liquid Chromatography, three different fractions were obtained. The phytocomplex and the fractions were tested to verify the ability to modulate the NK compartment. Cytofluorimetric analysis revealed that a fraction containing bitter acids was able to up-regulate of NKG2D and NKp44 activating receptor…
Cultivation trials of hop (Humulus lupulus L.) in semi-arid environments
2020
Abstract The recent developments in the market and craft beer industry in Italy have led to an increasing demand for local raw materials, such as barley malt and hops. Few works have been addressed to evaluate suitability and productivity of hop in semi-arid Italian environments. With this purpose, two experiments were carried out in 2018 and 2019, testing the suitability to cultivation of three commonly used hop varieties (Cascade, Chinook and Nuggett) in two typical semi-arid environments in Sicily. Phenological stages were also evaluated, and GDDs accumulated in vegetative and reproductive stages were calculated according to 9 different methods, dealing with three Tbase temperatures (0 °…
Screening of herbal extracts for TLR2- and TLR4-dependent anti-inflammatory effects.
2018
Herbal extracts represent an ample source of natural compounds, with potential to be used in improving human health. There is a growing interest in using natural extracts as possible new treatment strategies for inflammatory diseases. We therefore aimed at identifying herbal extracts that affect inflammatory signaling pathways through toll-like receptors (TLRs), TLR2 and TLR4. Ninety-nine ethanolic extracts were screened in THP-1 monocytes and HeLa-TLR4 transfected reporter cells for their effects on stimulated TLR2 and TLR4 signaling pathways. The 28 identified anti-inflammatory extracts were tested in comparative assays of stimulated HEK-TLR2 and HEK-TLR4 transfected reporter cells to dif…
Plasmacytoid dendritic cells promote systemic sclerosis with a key role for TLR8
2018
Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a multisystem life-threatening fibrosing disorder that lacks effective treatment. The link between the inflammation observed in organs such as the skin and profibrotic mechanisms is not well understood. The plasmacytoid dendritic cell (pDC) is a key cell type mediating Toll-like receptor (TLR)-induced inflammation in autoimmune disease patients, including lupus and skin diseases with interface dermatitis. However, the role of pDCs in fibrosis is less clear. We show that pDCs infiltrate the skin of SSc patients and are chronically activated, leading to secretion of interferon-α (IFN-α) and CXCL4, which are both hallmarks of the disease. We demonstrate that the s…