11-Oxoaerothionin isolated from the marine sponge Aplysina fistularis shows anti-inflammatory activity in LPS-stimulated macrophages

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

Investigation of the interaction between Tc85-11 protein and antibody anti-T cruzi by AFM and amperometric measurements

This present work reports on development of an amperometric immunosensor for the diagnosis of Chagas' disease using a specific glycoprotein of the trypomastigote surface, which belongs to the Tc85-11 protein family of Trypanosoma cruzi (T cruzi). An atomically flat gold surface on a silicon substrate and gold screen-printed electrodes were functionalized with cystatrine and later activated with glutaraldehyde (GA), which was used to form covalent bonds with the purified recombinant antigen (Tc85-11). The antigen reacts with the antibody from the serum, and the affinity reaction was monitored directly using atomic force microscopy or amperometry through a secondary antibody tagged to peroxidase (HRP). Surface imaging allowed to us to differentiate the modification steps and antigen-antibody interaction allowed to distinguish the affinity reactions. In the amperometric immunosensor, peroxidase catalyses the L-2 formation in the presence of hydrogen peroxide and potassium iodide, and the reduction current intensity was measured at a given potential with screen-printed electrodes. The immunosensor was applied to sera of chagasic patients and patients having different systemic diseases. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Spoligotypes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex isolates from patients residents of 11 states of Brazil

One of the high tuberculosis (TB) incidence countries in the world, Brazil is characterized by considerable differences in TB incidence on regional and state level. In the present study, we describe Brazilian spoligotypes of 1991 Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) clinical isolates from patients residents of 11 states from different regions of the country, diagnosed between 1996 and 2005. By performing spoligotyping on a large number of M. tuberculosis clinical isolates, one of the main objectives of this study was to determine the major genotype families causing TB in Brazil and to verify the region-associated genotype distribution. We observed a total of 577 distinct spoligopatterns, 12.6% of these corresponded to orphan patterns while 87.4% belonged to 326 shared-types (SITs). Among the latter, 86 SITs (isolated from 178 patients) had been observed for the first time in this study, the most frequent being SIT2517 which belonged to the T3-ETH lineage and was exclusively found among patients residents of Belem, the capital of the state of Para (n = 8 isolates). Irrespective of shared-type labeling, a total of 19.5% strains were unique (unclustered) in our study as opposed to 80.5% clustered isolates (189 clusters, size range from 2 to 205 isolates). The three largest clusters were SIT42 of the Latin-America & Mediterranean (LAM) 9 clade (10.3%), SIT53 of the T clade (7.6%), and SIT50 of the Haarlem clade (5.4%). The predominant MTC lineages in Brazil in decreasing order belonged to the LAM (46%); the ill-defined T (18.6%); the Haarlem (12.2%), the X (4.7%), the S (1.9%), and the East African Indian (EAI) (0.85%) families. The rest of clades grouped together as Mycobacterium africanum, Mycobacterium bovis, Beijing, Central Asian (CAS), and the Manu types, represented less than 1% of the strains. Finally, about 15% of the isolates showed spoligotype signatures that were not yet classified among well-defined lineages. In conclusion, we provide hereby a first insight into the population structure of MTC isolates in Brazil, showing the predominance of both LAM and T family and the existence of region-associated genotypes. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Otimização de ELISA empregando a proteína Tc85-11 e planejamento fatorial

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

Freqüência de hemolisinas anti-A e anti-B em doadores de sangue do Hemocentro de Botucatu

O Sistema ABO foi descoberto em 1900 e permanece até hoje como sendo o sistema mais importante dentro da prática transfusional. A transfusão ABO incorreta pode resultar na morte do paciente, com uma reação hemolítica intravascular, seguida de alterações imunológicas e bioquímicas. Os anticorpos ABO estão presentes nos soros dos indivíduos, dirigidos contra os antígenos A e/ou B ausentes nas hemácias. Embora as transfusões com pequenas quantias de plasmas incompatíveis sejam geralmente consideradas uma prática segura, alguns casos de reações hemolíticas por plasma incompatível são encontrados na literatura. Tendo em vista a pequena quantidade de estudos sobre as hemolisinas anti-A e anti-B e a importância desses anticorpos na prática transfusional, objetivamos neste trabalho verificar a freqüência dessas hemolisinas em doadores de sangue do Hemocentro da Unesp de Botucatu. Foram analisadas 600 amostras de soros de doadores do grupo O para presença ou ausência das hemolisinas anti-A e anti-B. Desses doadores, 77 (12,8%) foram classificados como perigosos por apresentarem em seu soro altos títulos de hemolisinas e 523 (87,2%) como não perigosos por apresentarem baixos títulos. No grupo dos doadores perigosos, 45 (58,4%) foram reativos para hemolisina anti-A, 11 (14,2%) reativos para hemolisina anti-B e 21 (27,2%) reativos para ambas. O título de aglutininas superior a 1/100 já considera o doador O como perigoso. Assim, o teste realizado em nossa rotina é suficiente para detecção de altos títulos fazendo com que os pacientes dos outros grupos sangüíneos não corram o risco de reação transfusional se necessitarem de transfusão sangüínea não-isogrupo.

A tellurium-based cathepsin B inhibitor: Molecular structure, modelling, molecular docking and biological evaluation

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

BSmart: desenvolvimento rigoroso de aplicações Java Card com base no método formal B

Java Card technology allows the development and execution of small applications embedded in smart cards. A Java Card application is composed of an external card client and of an application in the card that implements the services available to the client by means of an Application Programming Interface (API). Usually, these applications manipulate and store important information, such as cash and confidential data of their owners. Thus, it is necessary to adopt rigor on developing a smart card application to improve its quality and trustworthiness. The use of formal methods on the development of these applications is a way to reach these quality requirements. The B method is one of the many formal methods for system specification. The development in B starts with the functional specification of the system, continues with the application of some optional refinements to the specification and, from the last level of refinement, it is possible to generate code for some programming language. The B formalism has a good tool support and its application to Java Card is adequate since the specification and development of APIs is one of the major applications of B. The BSmart method proposed here aims to promote the rigorous development of Java Card applications up to the generation of its code, based on the refinement of its formal specification described in the B notation. This development is supported by the BSmart tool, that is composed of some programs that automate each stage of the method; and by a library of B modules and Java Card classes that model primitive types, essential Java Card API classes and reusable data structures

Formal verification of PLC programs using the B Method

PLCs (acronym for Programmable Logic Controllers) perform control operations, receiving information from the environment, processing it and modifying this same environment according to the results produced. They are commonly used in industry in several applications, from mass transport to petroleum industry. As the complexity of these applications increase, and as various are safety critical, a necessity for ensuring that they are reliable arouses. Testing and simulation are the de-facto methods used in the industry to do so, but they can leave flaws undiscovered. Formal methods can provide more confidence in an application s safety, once they permit their mathematical verification. We make use of the B Method, which has been successfully applied in the formal verification of industrial systems, is supported by several tools and can handle decomposition, refinement, and verification of correctness according to the specification. The method we developed and present in this work automatically generates B models from PLC programs and verify them in terms of safety constraints, manually derived from the system requirements. The scope of our method is the PLC programming languages presented in the IEC 61131-3 standard, although we are also able to verify programs not fully compliant with the standard. Our approach aims to ease the integration of formal methods in the industry through the abbreviation of the effort to perform formal verification in PLCs

Group B streptococci colonization in pregnant women: risk factors and evaluation of the vaginal flora

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

Tétano em pequenos ruminantes: estudo retrospectivo dos principais achados clínico-epidemiológicos em 11 casos

A retrospective study of major clinical and epidemiological findings was performed in 11 cases of tetanus observed in eight sheep and three goats from 1998 to 2008. The cases occurred predominantly in animals aging from five days to two years, in winter season, with history of recent wounds or surgical procedures. Muscle rigidity and muscular tremors (72.0%), tachycardia/dyspnea (54.5%), change of placement of ears (45.4%), protusion of the third eyelid (27.2%), hypersensitivity to external stimulus (18.1%), and elevation of ears (18.1%) were the most common clinical signs.

Regeneration of class III furcation defects with basic fibroblast growth factor (b-FGF) associated with GTR. A descriptive and histometric study in dogs

Background: the poor predictability of periodontal regenerative treatment of Class III furcation defects stimulates the study of alternatives to improve its results, such as the use of polypeptide growth factors. The objective of this study was to evaluate, both histologically and histometrically, the effects of topical application of basic fibroblast growth factor (b-FGF) associated with guided tissue regeneration (GTR) in the treatment of Class III defects surgically induced in dogs.Methods: All second and fourth premolars of 5 mongrel dogs were used and randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: group 1 (control), treated with scaling and root planing, tetracycline hydrochloride (125 mg/ml) conditioning, and GTR with a collagen membrane; group 2, same treatment as group 1 plus 0.5 mg of b-FGF; group 3, same treatment as group 1 plus 1.0 mg of b-FGF. After a 90-day healing period, routine histologic processing and staining with hematoxylin and eosin and Masson trichrome were performed.Results: the descriptive analysis indicated better regenerative results in both groups treated with b-FGF while the histometric data, analyzed by means of analysis of variance (ANOVA), showed greater filling of the defects in group 2 in comparison to the defects in groups 3 and 1, respectively, which was represented by a smaller area of plaque-occupied space (P = 0.004) as well as a greater amount of newly formed cementum (P = 0.002).Conclusions: These results indicate that b-FGF, especially in smaller doses, may enhance the regenerative results in Class III furcation lesions, leading to greater filling of these defects with both mineralized and non-mineralized tissues.

Abnormal cell-cycle expression of the proteins p27, mdm2 and cathepsin B in oral squamous-cell carcinoma infected with human papillomavirus

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Interleukin-4 and interleukin-13 inhibit the expression of leukemia inhibitory factor and interleukin-11 in fibroblasts

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

CIE L*a*b*: comparison of digital images obtained photographically by manual and automatic modes

The aim of this study was to analyze the color alterations performed by the CIE L*a*b* system in the digital imaging of shade guide tabs, which were obtained photographically according to the automatic and manual modes. This study also sought to examine the observers' agreement in quantifying the coordinates. Four Vita Lumin Vaccum shade guide tabs were used: A3.5, B1, B3 and C4. An EOS Canon digital camera was used to record the digital images of the shade tabs, and the images were processed using Adobe Photoshop software. A total of 80 observations (five replicates of each shade according to two observers in two modes, specifically, automatic and manual) were obtained, leading to color values of L*, a* and b*. The color difference (AE) between the modes was calculated and classified as either clinically acceptable or unacceptable. The results indicated that there was agreement between the two observers in obtaining the L*, a* and b* values related to all guides. However, the B1, B3, and C4 shade tabs had AE values classified as clinically acceptable (Delta E = 0.44, Delta E = 2.04 and Delta E = 2.69, respectively). The A3.5 shade tab had a AE value classified as clinically unacceptable (Delta E = 4.17), as it presented higher values for luminosity in the automatic mode (L* = 54.0) than in the manual mode (L* = 50.6). It was concluded that the B1, B3 and C4 shade tabs can be used at any of the modes in digital camera (manual or automatic), which was a different finding from that observed for the A3.5 shade tab.