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ObjectiveTo determine the frequency of chronic joint pain and stiffness 3 years after infection with chikungunya virus (CHIKV) in a Latin American cohort.MethodsA cross-sectional followup of 120 patients from an initial cohort of 500 patients who reported joint pain 2 years after infection from the Atlántico Department, Colombia. Patients were clinically diagnosed as having CHIKV during the 2014-2015 epidemic, and baseline and followup symptoms at 40 months were evaluated in serologically confirmed cases.ResultsOf the initial 500 patients enrolled in the study, 482 had serologically confirmed chikungunya infection. From this group, 123 patients reported joint pain 20 months after infection, and 54% of those patients reported continued joint pain 40 months after infection. Therefore, 1 out of every 8 people who tested serologically positive for CHIKV infection had persistent joint pain 3 years after infection. Participants who followed up in person were predominantly adult (mean ± SD age 51 ± 14 yrs) and female (86%). The most common type of pain reported in these patients at 40 months post-infection was pain with periods of relief and subsequent reoccurrence, and over 75% reported stiffness after immobility, with 39% experiencing morning stiffness.ConclusionTo our knowledge, this is the first report to describe persistent joint pain and stiffness 40 months after viral infection. The high frequency of chronic disease highlights the need to develop prevention and treatment methods. Further studies should be conducted to understand the similarities between post-chikungunya joint pain and rheumatoid arthritis.

Infections in confined environments can spread by direct contact, contaminated surfaces, and airborne transmission. This is critical in prison facilities, where cleaning and sanitary conditions are inadequate. An alternative is the development of antimicrobial surfaces. A new antimicrobial coating was developed by incorporating copper microparticles into a standard commercial paint, aiming to reduce the concentration of bacteria on surfaces by granting antimicrobial properties to surfaces. The copper additive comprised Cu2Cl(OH)3 deposited on polyhedral zeolite. The efficacy of this coating was evaluated in detention cells in a police station, which are temporary prisons and inherently dirty environments. The experiment compared a cell painted with the copper additive coating and a control cell with the standard paint. Viable coliforms were measured on different surfaces and in the air for five months under normal usage. Bacterial load was reduced by ca. 68% by the copper-amended paint on cement surfaces. Surprisingly, airborne viable coliforms were reduced by ca. 87% in the detention cell treated with the copper coating. This research highlights the potential of antimicrobial coatings in controlling the spread of infections through contact with contaminated surfaces and emphasizes the significant reduction in airborne bacterial load. It is especially relevant for controlling infections where sanitization is limited but can be extended to other built environments, such as healthcare facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cytokine profile during acute chikungunya infection that predicts future chronic arthritis has not yet been investigated. We conducted a nested case-control study comparing serum cytokine concentrations during acute chikungunya infection in cases (n = 121) that reported the presence of chronic joint pain versus age- and gender-matched controls (n = 121) who reported recovery at 20 months post infection. We observed that a robust cytokine response during acute infection was correlated with a decreased incidence of chronic joint pain and that low TNFα, IL-13, IL-2, and IL-4 during acute infection was predictive of chronic joint pain. These data suggest that a robust cytokine response is necessary for viral clearance and cytokines that are related to immune tolerance during acute infection may be protective for chronic arthritis pathogenesis.

Both non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and alcoholic hepatitis (AH) can lead to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. However, the rate of progression to cirrhosis and tumorigenesis in AH is greater than that in NASH. We asked whether there are differences between the two conditions in the expression levels of proteins involved in the pathogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma. The proteins tested were presented at the 2017 American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) Liver Meeting as overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma: KLF4, SCL19A1, FANCG, HRH-1, DNMT1, DNMT3B, TNFR2, DUSP4, EGFR, Integrin α6, HDACII, PDE3A, BCL-XL, and MTCO2. The expression of these proteins was measured in liver biopsy sections from NASH and AH patients using immunohistochemical staining with fluorescent antibodies and then quantifying the fluorescence intensity morphometrically. In AH patients, levels of all tested proteins except HRH-1 were elevated compared to normal patients. In NASH patients, KLF4, SCL19A1, FANCG, HDACII, BCL-XL levels were increased compared to normal controls while HRH-1, DNMT1 and PDE3A levels were decreased. The relative expression of all proteins studied except BCL-XL was significantly higher in AH compared to NASH. In conclusion, proteins involved in hepatocellular cancer development are more highly expressed in AH compared to NASH and normal liver, which corresponds with the higher rate of tumorigenesis in AH patients compared to NASH patients.

ObjectiveTo estimate the frequency of chronic joint pain after infection with chikungunya virus in a Latin American cohort.MethodsA cross-sectional follow-up of a prospective cohort of 500 patients from the Atlántico Department, Colombia who were clinically diagnosed as having chikungunya virus during the 2014-2015 epidemic was conducted. Baseline symptoms and follow-up symptoms at 20 months were evaluated in serologically confirmed cases.ResultsAmong the 500 patients enrolled, 485 had serologically confirmed chikungunya virus and reported joint pain status. Patients were predominantly adults (mean ± SD age 49 ± 16 years) and female, had an education level of high school or less, and were of Mestizo ethnicity. The most commonly affected joints were the small joints, including the wrists, ankles, and fingers. The initial virus symptoms lasted a median of 4 days (interquartile range [IQR] 3-8 days). Sixteen percent of the participants reported missing school or work (median 4 days [IQR 2-7 days]). After 20 months, one-fourth of the participants had persistent joint pain. A multivariable analysis indicated that significant predictors of persistent joint pain included college graduate status, initial symptoms of headache or knee pain, missed work, normal activities affected, ≥4 days of initial symptoms, and ≥4 weeks of initial joint pain.ConclusionThis is the first report to describe the frequency of chikungunya virus-related arthritis in the Americas after a 20-month follow-up. The high frequency of chronic disease highlights the need for the development of prevention and treatment methods.

ObjectiveTo determine if chikungunya virus persists in synovial fluid after infection, potentially acting as a causative mechanism of persistent arthritis.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study of 38 Colombian participants with clinical chikungunya virus infection during the 2014-2015 epidemic who reported chronic arthritis and 10 location-matched controls without chikungunya virus or arthritis. Prior chikungunya virus infection status was serologically confirmed, and the presence of synovial fluid chikungunya virus, viral RNA, and viral proteins was determined by viral culture, quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), and mass spectrometry, respectively. Biomarkers were assessed by multiplex analysis.ResultsPatients with serologically confirmed chikungunya arthritis (33 of 38 [87%]) were predominantly female (82%) and African Colombian (55%) or white Colombian (33%), with moderate disease activity (mean ± SD Disease Activity Score in 28 joints 4.52 ± 0.77) a median of 22 months after infection (interquartile range 21-23 months). Initial symptoms of chikungunya virus infection included joint pain (97%), swelling (97%), stiffness (91%), and fever (91%). The most commonly affected joints were the knees (87%), elbows (76%), wrists (75%), ankles (56%), fingers (56%), and toes (56%). Synovial fluid samples from all patients with chikungunya arthritis were negative for chikungunya virus on qRT-PCR, showed no viral proteins on mass spectrometry, and cultures were negative. Case and control plasma cytokine and chemokine concentrations did not differ significantly.ConclusionThis is one of the largest observational studies involving analysis of the synovial fluid of chikungunya arthritis patients. Synovial fluid analysis revealed no detectable chikungunya virus. This finding suggests that chikungunya virus may cause arthritis through induction of potential host autoimmunity, suggesting a role for immunomodulating agents in the treatment of chikungunya arthritis, or that low-level viral persistence exists in synovial tissue only and is undetectable in synovial fluid.

Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is commonly associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, and/or hypertriglyceridemia, while alcoholic steatohepatitis (ASH) is associated with alcohol abuse. Both NASH and ASH patients can develop cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) if left untreated. However, the rate of tumorigenesis in NASH and ASH appears to be different. Individuals with NASH progress to HCC at a rate of 0.5% annually (Lindenmeyer and McCullough, 2018), when individuals with ASH progress to HCC at a rate of 3-10% annually (Schwartz and Reinus, 2012). Thus, the objective of our study is to determine if there are differences in NASH versus ASH in the levels of different proteins expressed involved in cancer development. The method used was measuring the proteins expressed in liver biopsied sections from NASH and ASH patients using immunohistochemical staining with fluorescent antibodies and then quantitating the fluorescence intensity morphometrically. The 20 proteins tested are parts of the Ingenuity Canonical Pathway of Molecular Mechanisms of Cancer and include: RAP2B, NAIP, FYN, PAK6, SUV39H1, GNAI1, BAX, E2F3, CKDN2B, BAK1, BCL2, DIABLO, RASGRF2, GNA15, PIK3CB, BRCA1, MAP2K1, BIRC3, CDK2, and ATM. In ASH, the proteins that showed upregulated levels of expression were SUV39H1, E2F3, BCL2, BAK1, BIRC3, and GNAI1. In NASH, the proteins that showed upregulated levels of expression were BAK1 and GNAI1 and the protein that showed downregulated level of expression was BCL2. Additionally, levels of expression for SUV39H1, E2F3, BCL2, BAK1, BIRC3, and GNAI1 were significant upregulated in ASH compared to NASH. These results showed significant differences in ASH compared to normal liver, and significant differences in ASH compared to NASH. Thus, we conclude that there are more proteins involved in tumorigenesis in ASH compared to NASH and in ASH compared to normal liver, which is consistent with the known tumor development rate in ASH and NASH.

This work describes research that seeks to establish what gender students assign to six university courses. The work was divided into two phases, in the first one, the statistical data, from 2010 to 2022, of the number of students new to careers differentiated by gender was analyzed. In the second part, we sought to know the students opinions on the difference found in the number of male and female students admitted to each degree program. For this phase, ten students from each major were chosen to conduct a structured interview with open questions. A theoretical-deductive methodology with a quantitative approach was used for the statistical analysis and an analytical-synthetic methodology with a qualitative approach for the interviews. Among the results, it was obtained that, statistically, the university majors considered in the study have been assigned a gender; and that furthermore, when students are asked if the courses have gender, they answer no. But in the interview, their answers and comments allow us to affirm that they do assign a gender to the university major and that it coincides with the one found in the statistical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present article, I propose some initial topics for the typological-comparative study of semantic parallelism, which also serve as an analytical axis to study semantic parallelism in traditional kakataibo chants. These basic topics are the structure of the cotext, lexical and grammatical type of parallel units, type of semantic relations between parallel units, number of parallel units per pair of lines, and associated phenomena such as recurrent or fixed pairing and diphrasism. Following this initial proposal, I postulate that the cotext in Kakataibo semantic parallelism is a repeated morphosyntactic structure that does not exhibit ellipsis or increasing, the number of parallel units can be one to three slots and one pair is more productive, parallel units are related by semantic fields such as kinship terms and colors. Furthermore, I analyze the interaction of semantic parallelism in the continuous creation of lines with two other poetic forms, enjambment and repetition, and I postulate that semantic parallelism is a compositional strategy due to its high productivity for line composing.