Search results for "Minireviews"
showing 10 items of 22 documents
New Vocabulary for Bacterial Communication
2019
Abstract Quorum sensing (QS) is widely accepted as a procedure that bacteria use to converse. However, prevailing thinking places acyl homoserine lactones (AHLs) at the forefront of this communication pathway in Gram‐negative bacteria. With the advent of high‐throughput genomics and the subsequent influx of bacterial genomes, bioinformatics analysis has determined that the genes encoding AHL biosynthesis, originally discovered to be indispensable for QS (LuxI‐like proteins and homologues), are often absent in QS‐capable bacteria. Instead, the sensing protein (LuxR‐like proteins) is present with an apparent inability to produce any outgoing AHL signal. Recently, several signals for these Lux…
Eltrombopag in chronic hepatitis C
2014
Chronic hepatitis C is a public health problem worldwide. Unfortunately, not all patients may benefit from antiviral therapy due to thrombocytopenia. Its causes are represented by portal hypertension and platelet sequestration in the spleen, decreased serum levels or activity of thrombopoietin, the bone marrow suppression induced by hepatitis C virus and a possible adverse effect of interferon. Thrombopoietin receptor analogs may contribute to increase platelet counts in these patients. Eltrombopag binds to another region of the thrombopoietin receptor compared to endogenous thrombopoietin and stimulates the proliferation and maturation of megakaryocytes and the platelet production in a dos…
Reproducibility in Electroorganic Synthesis—Myths and Misunderstandings
2021
Abstract The use of electric current as a traceless activator and reagent is experiencing a renaissance. This sustainable synthetic method is evolving into a hot topic in contemporary organic chemistry. Since researchers with various scientific backgrounds are entering this interdisciplinary field, different parameters and methods are reported to describe the experiments. The variation in the reported parameters can lead to problems with the reproducibility of the reported electroorganic syntheses. As an example, parameters such as current density or electrode distance are in some cases more significant than often anticipated. This Minireview provides guidelines on reporting electrosyntheti…
Direct antiviral agents in hepatitis C virus related liver disease: Don’t count the chickens before they’re hatched
2021
Since molecules with direct-acting antiviral (DAA) became available, the landscape of the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has completely changed. The new drugs are extremely effective in eradicating infection, and treatment is very well tolerated with a duration of 8-12 wk. This review aims to report the outstanding clinical benefits of DAA and to highlight their critical disadvantages, identifying some clinically relevant hot topics. First, do the rates of virological response remain as high when patients with more advanced cirrhosis are considered? Large studies have shown slightly lower but still satisfactory rates of response in these patients. Nevertheless, modified sche…
Imaging appearance of treated hepatocellular carcinoma
2013
Surgical resection and imaging guided treatments play a crucial role in the management of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Although the primary end point of treatment of HCC is survival, radiological response could be a surrogate end point of survival, and has a key role in HCC decision-making process. However, radiological assessment of HCC treatment efficacy is often controversial. There are few doubts on the evaluation of surgical resection; in fact, all known tumor sites should be removed. However, an unenhancing partial linear peripheral halo, in most cases, surrounding a fluid collection reducing in size during follow-up is demonstrated in successfully resected tumor with bipolar radio…
Type 2 diabetes mellitus and Alzheimer’s disease
2014
Epidemiological and biological evidences support a link between type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Persons with diabetes have a higher incidence of cognitive decline and an increased risk of developing all types of dementia. Cognitive deficits in persons with diabetes mainly affect the areas of psychomotor efficiency, attention, learning and memory, mental flexibility and speed, and executive function. The strong epidemiological association has suggested the existence of a physiopathological link. The determinants of the accelerated cognitive decline in DM2, however, are less clear. Increased cortical and subcortical atrophy have been evidenced after controlling fo…
Robotic transanal total mesorectal excision: Is the future now?
2021
Total mesorectal excision (TME) is the standard surgical treatment for the curative radical resection of rectal cancers. Minimally invasive TME has been gaining ground favored by the continuous technological advancements. New procedures, such as transanal TME (TaTME), have been introduced to overcome some technical limitations, especially in low rectal tumors, obese patients, and/or narrow pelvis. The earliest TaTME reports showed promising results when compared with the conventional laparoscopic TME. However, recent publications raised concerns regarding the high rates of anastomotic leaks or local recurrences observed in national series. Robotic TaTME (R-TaTME) has been proposed as a nove…
Asthma and metabolic syndrome: Current knowledge and future perspectives
2014
Asthma and obesity are epidemiologically linked; however, similar relationships are also observed with other markers of the metabolic syndrome, such as insulin resistance and dyslipidemia, which cannot be accounted for by increased body mass alone. Obesity appears to be a predisposing factor for the asthma onset, both in adults and in children. In addition, obesity could make asthma more difficult to control and to treat. Although obesity may predispose to increased Th2 inflammation or tendency to atopy, other mechanisms need to be considered, such as those mediated by hyperglycaemia, hyperinsulinemia and dyslipidemia in the context of metabolic syndrome. The mechanisms underlying the associ…
Art‐omics: multi‐omics meet archaeology and art conservation
2020
Summary Multi‐omics can informally be described as the combined use of high‐throughput techniques allowing the characterization of complete microbial communities by the sequencing/identification of total pools of biomolecules including DNA, proteins or metabolites. These techniques have allowed an unprecedented level of knowledge on complex microbial ecosystems, which is having key implications in land and marine ecology, industrial biotechnology or biomedicine. Multi‐omics have recently been applied to artistic or archaeological objects, with the goal of either contributing to shedding light on the original context of the pieces and/or to inform conservation approaches. In this minireview,…
Genotyping of Campylobacter spp.
2000
method. The major disadvantages of both of these techniques are the high number of untypeable strains and the time-consuming and technically demanding requirements of the techniques. Production and quality control of antiserum reagents for serotyping schemes are costly; consequently, these reagents are not widely available. A recently developed scheme (23) based on HS antigens in which modified antibody production and antigen detection techniques are used may be an improvement for routine use, but this scheme does not solve the problem of restricted reagent availability or the problem of the high level of nontypeability. Because of such problems, the value of serotyping techniques for natio…