Quality of Life amongst Older Brazilians: A Cross-Cultural Validation of the CASP-19 into Brazilian-Portuguese

Introduction

As population ageing becomes a global phenomenon the need to understand the quality of life of older people around the world has become increasingly salient. The CASP-19 is a well established measure of quality of later life. The scale is composed of 19 items which map onto the four domains of control (C), Autonomy (A), Self-Realisation (S) and Pleasure (P). It has already been translated to 12 languages and has been used in a number of national and international studies. However use of the scale outside of Europe has been very limited. The objective of this study was to translate and evaluate the use of the CASP-19 amongst older Brazilians.

Methods

The CASP-19 was translated from English to Portuguese, back-translated and submitted to an analysis of equivalence by a committee of judges. The scale was then administered to a sample of community dwelling older people in Recife, Brazil (n = 87), and tested for psychometric properties. The Control and Pleasure domains exhibited good internal consistency. By removing one item from each of the Autonomy and Self Realisation domains their internal consistency was improved.

Results

The mean age of the sample was 75.6±0.7 years, subjects were mainly female (52.9%), white (52.9%), who lived without a partner (54%), and had a monthly income varying from USD 340.00 to USD 850.00. Translation and cross-cultural adaptation permitted good understanding and applicability of final version. Psychometric analyses revealed that the removal of two items improved the internal consistency of the Autonomy and Pleasure domains. Confirmatory factor analyses suggest that a 16 item, four factor, model best fits the data.

Conclusion

In this small exploratory study the CASP-19 Brazil demonstrated good psychometric properties. It was easy to use for both participants and researchers. Hopefully future studies in Brazil will employ the scale so that more direct cross national comparisons can be made with older people in Europe and the US.     

Diagnostic performance of anti-Zika virus IgM,IgAM and IgG ELISAs during co-circulation of Zika,dengue, and chikungunya viruses in Brazil and Venezuela

BackgroundSerological diagnosis of Zika virus (ZIKV) infection is challenging because of the antibody cross-reactivity among flaviviruses. At the same time, the role of Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) is limited by the low proportion of symptomatic infections and the low average viral load. Here, we compared the diagnostic performance of commercially available IgM, IgAM, and IgG ELISAs in sequential samples during the ZIKV and chikungunya (CHIKV) epidemics and co-circulation of dengue virus (DENV) in Brazil and Venezuela.Methodology/Principal findingsAcute (day of illness 1–5) and follow-up (day of illness ≥ 6) blood samples were collected from nine hundred and seven symptomatic patients enrolled in a prospective multicenter study between June 2012 and August 2016. Acute samples were tested by RT-PCR for ZIKV, DENV, and CHIKV. Acute and follow-up samples were tested for IgM, IgAM, and IgG antibodies to ZIKV using commercially available ELISAs. Among follow-up samples with a RT-PCR confirmed ZIKV infection, anti-ZIKV IgAM sensitivity was 93.5% (43/46), while IgM and IgG exhibited sensitivities of 30.3% (10/33) and 72% (18/25), respectively. An additional 24% (26/109) of ZIKV infections were detected via IgAM seroconversion in ZIKV/DENV/CHIKV RT-PCR negative patients. The specificity of anti-ZIKV IgM was estimated at 93% and that of IgAM at 85%.Conclusions/SignificanceOur findings exemplify the challenges of the assessment of test performance for ZIKV serological tests in the real-world setting, during co-circulation of DENV, ZIKV, and CHIKV. However, we can also demonstrate that the IgAM immunoassay exhibits superior sensitivity to detect ZIKV RT-PCR confirmed infections compared to IgG and IgM immunoassays. The IgAM assay also proves to be promising for detection of anti-ZIKV seroconversions in sequential samples, both in ZIKV PCR-positive as well as PCR-negative patients, making this a candidate assay for serological monitoring of pregnant women in future ZIKV outbreaks.     

The effects of photoperiod and light intensity on the sporulation of Brazilian and Norwegian isolates of Neozygites floridana

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of light intensity and duration (photoperiod) on the sporulation (discharge of primary conidia) and conidia germination (from non-infective primary conidia to infective capilliconidia) of Neozygites floridana isolates from Tetranychus urticae originating from Norway and Brazil. Two light intensities (40 and 208 μmol m⁻² s⁻¹), three photoperiods (24 h of continuous light (24 h D), 12 h of darkness followed by 12 h of light (12 h D: 12 h L) and 24 h of continuous darkness (24 h D)) and two temperatures (18 °C and 23 °C) were tested. The fungus produced similar amounts of primary conidia and capilliconidia at 12 h D:12 h and 24 h D, indicating that the fungus discharges almost all of its conidia during the first 12 h of darkness. Light had less of an effect on the production of primary conidia than on capilliconidia formation. At 24 h L, capilliconidia formation was significantly lower for all tested light intensities, temperatures and isolates compared to 12 h D:12 h L and 24 h D. At both light intensities, 24 h L resulted in a significantly lower capilliconidia formation for the Norwegian isolate compared to the Brazilian isolate. Our data suggest that, even though 24 h L reduced sporulation, some capilliconidia formation may occur at the low light intensities found on the underside of strawberry leaves during parts of the day as well as the top of a non-shaded strawberry leaf during the dim evening and morning hours in the tropics and during the dim, long summer days in temperate regions.     

Higher frequency of septic shock in septic patients with the 47C allele (rs4880) of the SOD2 gene

Aim

To analyze the effect of the two different versions of the manganese superoxide dismutase gene (SOD2) on sepsis. The SOD2 gene presents the 47C > T single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP; ID: rs4880) which produces MnSOD with different activities. The − 9Val MnSOD (47T allele) is less efficient than the − 9Ala version (47C allele). During sepsis there are abundance of ROS, high SOD2 expression and excess of H₂O₂ synthesis. High concentrations of H₂O₂ could affect the sepsis scenario and/or the sepsis outcome.

Methods

We determined the 47C > T single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) frequencies in 529 critically ill patients with or without sepsis, facing outcome. To collect information on population frequencies, we obtained a pilot 47C > T genotypic and allelic frequencies in a random group of 139 healthy subjects.

Results

We compared the 47C allele carriers (47CC + 47CT genotypes) with 47TT homozygotes and noticed a significant association between 47C allele carriers and septic shock in septic patients (P = 0.025). With an adjusted binary multivariate logistic regression, incorporating 47C > T SNP and the main clinical predictors, we showed high SOFA scores [P < 0.001, OR = 9.107 (95% CI = 5.319–15.592)] and 47C allele [P = 0.011, OR = 2.125 (95% CI = 1.190–3.794)] were significantly associated with septic shock outcome. With this information we presented a hypothesis suggesting that this negative outcome from sepsis is possibly explained by effects on cellular stress caused by 47C allele.

Conclusion

In our population there was a significant higher frequency of septic shock in septic patients with the 47C allele of the SOD2 gene. This higher 47C allele frequency in septic patients with negative outcome could be explained by effects of higher activity MnSOD on cellular stress during the sepsis.     

Family Film: From Family Registers to Historical Artifacts

This article ¹ Thanks to Fabiana Rocha and Silvia Aguião, both social science students, who participated in the researching of public archives and Internet sites and in the editing of the film. focuses on the making of a family film and its transformation into a historical artifact. The conversations with my grandmother about her participation in the Gaucho Revolution (south of Brazil, 1923), which were recorded to be transmitted later on to our family, led me to research these historical facts in the public archives, sifting out documents from those days (newspapers, reports, and photographs) that could objectify her stories and her subjective images and especially allow the discovery of all possible relations between an individual memory and a collective memory. That implied building a speech and telling a story from only one family member's point of view, the grandmother's. More than that, it involved breaking with the family's inner-circle projections and presenting the film to a wider public, thus turning private images into public ones.     

Collagen matrix deposition is dramatically enhanced in vitro when crowded with charged macromolecules: the biological relevance of the excluded volume effect

The excluded volume effect (EVE) rules all life processes. It is created by macromolecules that occupy a given volume thereby confining other molecules to the remaining space with large consequences on reaction kinetics and molecular assembly. Implementing EVE in fibroblast culture accelerated conversion of procollagen to collagen by procollagen C-proteinase (PCP/BMP-1) and proteolytic modification of its allosteric regulator, PCOLCE1. This led to a 20-30- and 3-6-fold increased collagen deposition in two- and three-dimensional cultures, respectively, and creation of crosslinked collagen footprints beneath cells. Important parameters correlating with accelerated deposition were hydrodynamic radius of macromolecules and their negative charge density.     

Tri-allelic pattern at the TPOX locus: A familial study

Alleles at the TPOX STR locus have 6–14 different numbers of a four-nucleotide (AATG) repeat motif arranged in tandem. Although tri-allelic genotypes are generally rare, the TPOX tri-allelic pattern has a higher frequency, varying widely among populations. Despite this, there are few accurate reports to disclose the nature of the TPOX third allele. In this work we present data obtained from 45 individuals belonging to the same pedigree, in which there are cases of tri-allelic TPOX genotypes. The subjects were apparently healthy with a normal biological development. We noticed six tri-allelic cases in this family, and all of them were women. Karyotype analysis showed no occurrence of partial 2p trisomy. All the tri-allelic cases had the genotype 8–10–11, probably due to three copies of the TPOX STR sequence in all cells (Type 2 tri-allelic pattern). Based on previous data we assumed the allele 10 as the TPOX third allele. The pedigree analyses show evidences that the TPOX extra-allele was the allele10, it is placed far from the main TPOX locus, and that there is a potential linkage of the TPOX extra-allele-10 with Xq. This was the first study that included a large pedigree analysis in order to understand the nature TPOX tri-allelic pattern.     

Nucleolar Integrity Is Required for the Maintenance of Long-Term Synaptic Plasticity

Long-term memory (LTM) formation requires new protein synthesis and new gene expression. Based on our work in Aplysia, we hypothesized that the rRNA genes, stimulation-dependent targets of the enzyme Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1), are primary effectors of the activity-dependent changes in synaptic function that maintain synaptic plasticity and memory. Using electrophysiology, immunohistochemistry, pharmacology and molecular biology techniques, we show here, for the first time, that the maintenance of forskolin-induced late-phase long-term potentiation (L-LTP) in mouse hippocampal slices requires nucleolar integrity and the expression of new rRNAs. The activity-dependent upregulation of rRNA, as well as L-LTP expression, are poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation (PAR) dependent and accompanied by an increase in nuclear PARP-1 and Poly(ADP) ribose molecules (pADPr) after forskolin stimulation. The upregulation of PARP-1 and pADPr is regulated by Protein kinase A (PKA) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)—two kinases strongly associated with long-term plasticity and learning and memory. Selective inhibition of RNA Polymerase I (Pol I), responsible for the synthesis of precursor rRNA, results in the segmentation of nucleoli, the exclusion of PARP-1 from functional nucleolar compartments and disrupted L-LTP maintenance. Taken as a whole, these results suggest that new rRNAs (28S, 18S, and 5.8S ribosomal components)—hence, new ribosomes and nucleoli integrity—are required for the maintenance of long-term synaptic plasticity. This provides a mechanistic link between stimulation-dependent gene expression and the new protein synthesis known to be required for memory consolidation.