Seasonal changes in the prostatic complex of Artibeus planirostris (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae)

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Actions of oestradiol and progesterone on the prostate in female gerbils: reversal of the histological effects of castration

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Multi-scale lacunarity as an alternative to quantify and diagnose the behavior of prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is a serious public health problem accounting for up to 30% of clinical tumors in men. The diagnosis of this disease is made with clinical, laboratorial and radiological exams, which may indicate the need for transrectal biopsy. Prostate biopsies are discerningly evaluated by pathologists in an attempt to determine the most appropriate conduct. This paper presents a set of techniques for identifying and quantifying regions of interest in prostatic images. Analyses were performed using multi-scale lacunarity and distinct classification methods: decision tree, support vector machine and polynomial classifier. The performance evaluation measures were based on area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). The most appropriate region for distinguishing the different tissues (normal, hyperplastic and neoplasic) was defined: the corresponding lacunarity values and a rule's model were obtained considering combinations commonly explored by specialists in clinical practice. The best discriminative values (AUC) were 0.906, 0.891 and 0.859 between neoplasic versus normal, neoplasic versus hyperplastic and hyperplastic versus normal groups, respectively. The proposed protocol offers the advantage of making the findings comprehensible to pathologists. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Gestational protein restriction delays prostate morphogenesis in male rats

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Structure, histochemistry, ultrastructure and seasonal variations of the male prostatic complex in the black Myotis bat, Myotis nigricans (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae)

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Influence of Delivery Method on Neuroprotection by Bone Marrow Mononuclear Cell Therapy following Ventral Root Reimplantation with Fibrin Sealant

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Long-Term Spinal Ventral Root Reimplantation, but not Bone Marrow Mononuclear Cell Treatment, Positively Influences Ultrastructural Synapse Recovery and Motor Axonal Regrowth

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Efeito do diabetes sobre o crescimento puberal da próstata de rato: avaliação hormonal, imunocitoquímica e bioquímica

Adequate testosterone levels are necessary for the development, growth and maintenance of the male reproductive system. Testosterone deficiency is common in men with diabetes in whom it may contribute to impaired performance, with consequent reduction of the activity of the androgen regulated organs, such as the prostate. However, little attention has been given to the plasma dihydrotestosterone (DHT) level, the most potent androgen, nor to the expression of the androgen receptor (AR), insulin-like growth factor type I (IGF-1) and receptor (IGF-1R) in target tissues. Here, we investigated the effect of type I diabetes mellitus on DHT plasma levels and on prostate AR, IGF-1 and IGF-1R expression during rat pubertal growth. Diabetes was induced in prepubertal male rats through administration of streptozotocin (STZ; 40 mg/kg). Diabetic, diabetic treated with insulin, and age-matched control animals were killed by overdoses of pentobarbital. The ventral prostatic lobe (VP) was dissected, weighed and processed for immunohistochemistry for AR, IGF-1 e IGF-1R; plasma T and DHT levels were also determined. Hyperglycemia at puberty reduced VP weight gain to about 50% and plasma T level to about 80% of the control levels. In contrast there were no changes in plasma DHT levels. Insulin replacement restored the VP weight gain, but not the plasma T levels, which remained 90% below the ones of controls. Immunohistochemistry showed that AR, IGF-1 and IGF-1R expression in the prostate epithelial cells did not change with hyperglycemia or insulin replacement. Thus, the AR expression in the prostate epithelial cells appears to be regulated by DHT, and to a minor extent it also controls glandular growth

Automatic classification of prostate stromal tissue in histological images using Haralick descriptors and Local Binary Patterns

In this paper we presente a classification system that uses a combination of texture features from stromal regions: Haralick features and Local Binary Patterns (LBP) in wavelet domain. The system has five steps for classification of the tissues. First, the stromal regions were detected and extracted using segmentation techniques based on thresholding and RGB colour space. Second, the Wavelet decomposition was applied in the extracted regions to obtain the Wavelet coefficients. Third, the Haralick and LBP features were extracted from the coefficients. Fourth, relevant features were selected using the ANOVA statistical method. The classication (fifth step) was performed with Radial Basis Function (RBF) networks. The system was tested in 105 prostate images, which were divided into three groups of 35 images: normal, hyperplastic and cancerous. The system performance was evaluated using the area under the ROC curve and resulted in 0.98 for normal versus cancer, 0.95 for hyperplasia versus cancer and 0.96 for normal versus hyperplasia. Our results suggest that texture features can be used as discriminators for stromal tissues prostate images. Furthermore, the system was effective to classify prostate images, specially the hyperplastic class which is the most difficult type in diagnosis and prognosis.

Female paraurethral prostate gland in Bitches

Even though the presence of the female prostate has been reported in many species, including humans, bats and several rodents, it has many anatomical and histological variations. There is still plentiful discussion on the biological function of this organ. Many authors state that paraurethral ducts and glands are functional and homologous to the male prostate. The use of experimental models and a better knowledge of the female prostate gland in other species, can be useful to veterinary medicine as well as human medicine. Therefore the aim of this study is to check for the presence of this gland in female dogs of various breeds and age. For that purpose 25 urethras, from the bladder to the vulva, were collected, fixed in 10% neutral buffered formalin, routinely processed and sectioned into 4 slides of 4 µm, each with 40 µm gap between each set of 4 slides, using an automatic microtome and stained with Hematoxylin and Eosine (HE). The HE sections were evaluated for the presence of prostatic gland in the sample. Unstained tissue sections cut from paraffin blocks were marked with a polyclonal anti-PSA primary antibody. The prevalence of the gland was 32% (8/25). The structure of the paraurethral PSA-positive gland was acinar, organized in buds, with secretory epithelium varying from cubic to columnar; eccentric nuclei, with lose chromatin and a layer of basal cells, very similar to the male prostate were observed. In view of these characteristics, for the first time in the literature, was demonstrate that those glands. may be considered as female prostate in dogs, as they are in other vertebrates

Prenatal exposure to testosterone masculinises the female gerbil and promotes the development of lesions in the prostate (Skene

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Structure, histochemistry and seasonal variations of the male reproductive accessory glands in the Pallas

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Key participants of the tumor microenvironment of the prostate: An approach of the structural dynamic of cellular elements and extracellular matrix components during epithelial-stromal transition

Cancer is a multistep process that begins with the transformation of normal epithelial cells and continues with tumor growth, stromal invasion and metastasis. The remodeling of the peritumoral environment is decisive for the onset of tumor invasiveness. This event is dependent on epithelial–stromal interactions, degradation of extracellular matrix components and reorganization of fibrillar components. Our research group has studied in a new proposed rodent model the participation of cellular and molecular components in the prostate microenvironment that contributes to cancer progression. Our group adopted the gerbil Meriones unguiculatus as an alternative experimental model for prostate cancer study. This model has presented significant responses to hormonal treatments and to development of spontaneous and induced neoplasias. The data obtained indicate reorganization of type I collagen fibers and reticular fibers, synthesis of new components such as tenascin and proteoglycans, degradation of basement membrane components and elastic fibers and increased expression of metalloproteinases. Fibroblasts that border the region, apparently participate in the stromal reaction. The roles of each of these events, as well as some signaling molecules, participants of neoplastic progression and factors that promote genetic reprogramming during epithelial–stromal transition are also discussed.

Segmentation of Cell Nuclei Regions in Epithelium of Prostate Glands

This paper proposes a method for segmentation of cell nuclei regions in epithelium of prostate glands. This structure provides information to diagnosis and prognosis of prostate cancer. In the initial step, the contrast stretching technique was applied in image in order to improve the contrast between regions of interest and other regions. After, the global thresholding technique was applied and the value of threshold was defined empirically. Finally, the false positive regions were removed using the connected components technique. The performance of the proposed method was compared with the Otsu technique and statistical measures of accuracy were calculated based on reference images (gold standard). The result of the mean value of accuracy of proposed method was 93% ± 0.07.

Análises histopatológicas, bioquímicas e moleculares sobre os efeitos da interação entre o uso de altas doses de decanoato de nadrolona e o exercício resistido durante a fase pós-púbere sobre a próstata de ratos em processo de envelhecimento

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)