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Cognitive deficits occur in most stroke patients and cognitive impairment is an important predictor of adverse long term outcome. However, current screening measures, such as the Mini Mental State Examination or the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, do not provide information tuned for evaluating the impact of cognitive impairment in the early phase after stroke. The Oxford Cognitive Screen (OCS) represents an important new development in this regard. The OCS is now available for assessment of Italian individuals and the aim of this study is to standardize the OCS on a large sample of healthy Italian participants stratified for age, gender and education level. Results confirmed the influence of these factors in several of the OCS tasks. Age-, education- and gender-adjusted norms are provided for the ten sub-tests of the test. The availability of normative data represents an important prerequite for the reliable use of OCS with stroke patients.

The viral main protease is one of the most attractive targets among all key enzymes involved in the SARS-CoV-2 life cycle. Covalent inhibition of the cysteine145 of SARS-CoV-2 MPRO with selective antiviral drugs will arrest the replication process of the virus without affecting human catalytic pathways. In this Perspective, we analyzed the in silico, in vitro, and in vivo data of the most representative examples of covalent SARS-CoV-2 MPRO inhibitors reported in the literature to date. In particular, the studied molecules were classified into eight different categories according to their reactive electrophilic warheads, highlighting the differences between their reversible/irreversible mechanism of inhibition. Furthermore, the analyses of the most recurrent pharmacophoric moieties and stereochemistry of chiral carbons were reported. The analyses of noncovalent and covalent in silico protocols, provided in this Perspective, would be useful for the scientific community to discover new and more efficient covalent SARS-CoV-2 MPRO inhibitors.

Background: G-quadruplex (G4) forming sequences are recurrent in telomeres and promoter regions of several protooncogenes. In normal cells, the transient arrangements of DNA in G-tetrads may regulate replication, transcription, and translation processes. Tumors are characterized by uncontrolled cell growth and tissue invasiveness and some of them are possibly mediated by gene expression involving G-quadruplexes. The stabilization of G-quadruplex sequences with small molecules is considered a promising strategy in anticancer targeted therapy. Methods: Molecular virtual screening allowed us identifying novel symmetric bifunctionalized naphtho[1,2-b:8,7-b’]dithiophene ligands as interesting candidates targeting h-Telo and c-MYC G-quadruplexes. A set of unexplored naphtho-dithiophene derivatives has been synthesized and biologically tested through in vitro antiproliferative assays and spectroscopic experiments in solution. Results: The analysis of biological and spectroscopic data highlighted noteworthy cytotoxic effects on HeLa cancer cell line (GI50 in the low μM range), but weak interactions with G-quadruplex c-MYC promoter. Conclusions: The new series of naphtho[1,2-b:8,7-b’]dithiophene derivatives, bearing the pharmacophoric assumptions necessary to stabilize G-quadruplexes, have been designed and successfully synthesized. The interesting antiproliferative results supported by computer aided rational approaches suggest that these studies are a significant starting point for a lead optimization process and the isolation of a more efficacious set of G-quadruplexes stabilizers.

Chromic acid anodizing is important for the corrosion protection of aerospace aluminium alloys. Previous study has demonstrated that SO42 − impurity in the chromic acid affects the film growth on aluminium at a voltage of 100 V. The present work further investigates aluminium and extends the study to industrial anodizing conditions (Bengough-Stuart (B-S) process) and to the AA 2024-T3 alloy. It is shown that SO42 − concentrations between ~ 38–300 ppm reduce the film growth rate for aluminium anodized at 100 V in comparison with an electrolyte than contains ≤ 1.5 ppm SO42 −, whereas ~ 1500–3000 ppm SO42 have an opposite effect and lead to an unstable pore diameter. Under the B-S process, the film growth depends on the substrate composition, the SO42 − content of the film, the film morphology and, for the alloy, oxygen generation. Corrosion tests of the alloy in 3.5% NaCl solution revealed better protection with films formed in chromic acid containing 38 ppm SO42 − compared with ≤ 1.5 ppm SO42 −, which are within the specified limits for sulphate impurity for chromic acid anodizing. The difference in corrosion protection is proposed to be related to the observed differences in the film morphologies; it is speculated that this may influence the retention of residues of chromate ions in the films.