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Infection with Strongyloides sp. induces a host immune response, predominantly the Th2 type, that is able to eliminate the parasite. However, little is known about the role of the nitric oxide (NO) mediator, induced by the enzyme nitric oxide synthase (NOS), in strongyloidiasis. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the immune response of mice genetically deficient in the enzyme inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS -/- ), infected with Strongyloides venezuelensis. C57BL/6 wild-type (WT) and iNOS -/- mice were individually inoculated by subcutaneous injection of 3000 S. venezuelensis L3 larvae. In the absence of iNOS, mice were more susceptible to the infection than WT animals, in which the parasite was completely eliminated. The overall production of cytokines and specific IgG, IgG1 or IgE antibodies against the parasite was significantly lowered in infected iNOS -/- mice. The expression of iNOS was observed in the intestine of WT hosts but mainly in the wall of the parasite, despite the presence of iNOS in mice. Altogether, we concluded that iNOS expression may play an important role in the control of S. venezuelensis infection., (© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Objectives: We propose a right lateral (90-120° RAO) with 30° cranial angiographic view to expose the bifurcation of the left main coronary artery (LMCA) when previously used routine projections were inefficient at clearly showing this region., Background: Little has been published in the medical literature regarding angiographic projections dedicated to special anatomies., Methods: A total of 84 patients were subjected to the proposed projections. A reproducibility study, conducted with the participation of 2 independent observers, judged the effectiveness of the proposed projection. The Prevalence and Bias Adjusted Kappa (PABAK) index, with a 95% confidence interval (CI), was used to demonstrate the intensity of intra/inter-observer agreement., Results: The proposed projection was efficient in 79% of the angiograms, with agreement of 0.76 (0.6-0.9; P ≤ 0.001). The origins and the proximal segments of: the anterior descending coronary artery were exposed in 89% of the angiograms, agreement of 0.86 (0.7-1.0; P ≤ 0.001); the circumflex artery were exposed in 83% of the angiograms, with agreement of 0.72 (0.5-1.0; P ≤ 0.001); and the intermediate branch, when present, were exposed in 89% of the angiograms, agreement of 0.79 (0.6-1.0; P ≤ 0.001)., Conclusion: The right lateral (90-120° RAO) with 30° cranial projection is effective, safe, and reproducible. In special situations where routine projections fail, this proposed projection can reveal important details of the anatomy of the bifurcation of the LMCA during conventional coronary angiography or be the working projection during coronary angioplasty. (J Interven Cardiol 2016;29:293-299)., (© 2016, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Background: The Control of Allergic Rhinitis and Asthma Test (CARAT10) has been proposed as the first tool to implement the Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma initiative guidelines in clinical practice. To serve this purpose, it must have adequate properties to assess the control of an individual over time. This study aimed to prospectively assess the test-retest reliability, responsiveness and longitudinal validity of CARAT10., Methods: Adults with asthma and allergic rhinitis were enrolled at 4 outpatient clinics of Portuguese central hospitals. At each of the two visits, 4 to 6 weeks apart, patients filled out CARAT10 and additional questionnaires, followed by a medical evaluation blinded to the questionnaires' answers., Results: From the 62 patients included, 51 patients completely filled out CARAT10 at both visits. The test-retest reliability, computed as an intra-class correlation coefficient, was 0.82. Regarding responsiveness, a significant change (p = 0.002) of CARAT10 score in clinically unstable patients was observed (95%CI -5.08; -1.31) and the Guyatt's responsiveness index was 1.54. As for the longitudinal validity assessment, the correlation coefficients of the changes of CARAT10 scores with those of ACQ5 and symptoms VAS ranged from 0.49 to 0.65, while with the physician assessment of control they ranged from 0.31 to 0.41., Conclusion: CARAT10 has good test-retest reliability, responsiveness and longitudinal validity. It can be used to assess control of allergic rhinitis and asthma, both to compare groups in clinical studies and to evaluate individual patients in clinical practice.

Advances in systems biology are increasingly dependent upon the integration of various types of data and different methodologies to reconstruct how cells work at the systemic level. Thus, teams with a varied array of expertise and people with interdisciplinary training are needed. So far this training was thought to be more productive if aimed at the Masters or PhD level. At this level, multiple specialised and in-depth courses on the different subject matters of systems biology are taught to already well-prepared students. This approach is mostly based on the recognition that systems biology requires a wide background that is hard to find in undergraduate students. Nevertheless, and given the importance of the field, the authors argue that exposition of undergraduate students to the methods and paradigms of systems biology would be advantageous. Here they present and discuss a successful experiment in teaching systems biology to third year undergraduate biotechnology students at the University of Lleida in Spain. The authors' experience, together with that from others, argues for the adequateness of teaching systems biology at the undergraduate level. [Includes supplementary material].

Cooperative and saturable systems are common in molecular biology. Nevertheless, common canonical formalisms for kinetic modeling that are theoretically well justified do not have a saturable form. Modeling and fitting data from saturable systems are widely done using Hill-like equations. In practice, there is no theoretical justification for the generalized use of these equations, other than their ability to fit experimental data. Thus it is important to find a canonical formalism that is (a) theoretically well supported, (b) has a saturable functional form, and (c) can be justifiably applicable to any biochemical network. Here we derive such a formalism using Taylor approximations in a special transformation space defined by power-inverses and logarithms of power-inverses. This formalism is generalized for processes with n-variables, leading to a useful mathematical representation for molecular biology: the Saturable and Cooperative Formalism (SC formalism). This formalism provides an appropriate representation that can be used for modeling processes with cooperativity and saturation. We also show that the Hill equation can be seen as a special case within this formalism. Parameter estimation for the SC formalism requires information that is also necessary to build Power-Law models, Metabolic Control Analysis descriptions or (log)linear and Lin-log models. In addition, the saturation fraction of the relevant processes at the operating point needs to be considered. The practical use of the SC formalism for modeling is illustrated with a few examples. Similar models are built using different formalisms and compared to emphasize advantages and limitations of the different approaches., ((c) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

To stuck the effect of chemotherapy on parasite-macrophage interaction we used the wild-type Y strain (drug-susceptible) of Trypanosoma cruzi and a drug-resistant parasite population derived from the same strain. Trypomastigotes isolated from untreated infected mice, as well as, 3 h after treatment with BZ were incubated with inflammatory macrophages and used to study phagocytosis, parasite destruction, cytokine release and reactive nitrogen intermediates (RN!) synthesis. Phagocytosis and destruction of the drug-susceptible parasites were significant/v enhanced by drug treatment. These enhancements were accompanied by an increase in cytokines [interleukin (IL)-12 and tumour necrosis factor (TNF)alpha] and RNI release by murine inflammatory macrophages primed with IFN-gamma. In contrast, BZ treatment of mice infected with drug-resistant T. cruzi population showed no effect whatsoever. The synthesis of IFN-gamma and RNI by splenocytes of mice infected with either susceptible and drug-resistant parasite populations, before and after treatment with BZ were also studied. On/v the splenocytes from mice infected with the drug-susceptible parasites treated with BZ produced high levels of IFN-gamma and RNI. Our findings indicate that BZ acts on the drug-susceptible T. cruzi parasites by enhancing the phagocytosis and the production of cytokines and RN!, thus, favouring the destruction of the intracellular parasites by the cellular compartment of the immune system.