Apical Chlorosis Disease of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) Caused by Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus in Brazil

A severe new disease was observed in field-grown chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) plants in Brasilia-DF, central Brazil. Symptoms were mainly general chlorosis accompanied by necrosis of the new growth and plant stunting, but pods were symptomless. Host range studies, serology, particle morphology, and cytopathology showed that tomato-spotted wilt tospovirus (TSWV) was the cause of the disease. This is apparently the first report of a chickpea disease caused by natural infection of a tospovirus.     

In vivo bromodeoxyuridine incorporation in human gastric cancer: A study on formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded sections

Summary Bromodeoxyuridine (BUDR) is a non-radioactive thymidine analogue which is incorporated into the DNA of proliferating cells. This allows evaluation of the size of the S-phase as the BUDR labelling index (BUDR-LI) not onlyin vitro but alsoin vivo, since BUDR is not toxic at the doses needed to label cells. To ascertain whetherin vivo BUDR incorporation can be detected on routine histological material we tested several different procedures prior to immunoperoxidase staining, on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded sections from five patients with gastric cancer, who received BUDR (250 mg m^–2, intravenous) 4 h before surgery. To determine the optimal conditions for detecting BUDR in formalin-fixed tissues, immunohistochemical testing for BUDR was performed simultaneously on duplicate sections fixed with 70% ethanol. It was found that hydrolysis with 3N HCl at 37° C for 30 min and digestion with 0.5% in at 37° C for 30 min were sufficient to detect BUDR immunoreactivity in formalin-fixed sections.The method presented extends the range of applications of thein vivo BUDR technique for cell kinetics studies in human neoplasms because it can be used on routinely fixed archival material, with the advantage of correlating the kinetic data with histopathological characters.     

High Prevalence of Prolonged QT Interval in Obese Hypogonadal Males

Obese subjects show several electrocardiographic alterations, including prolonged QT interval, a marker for fatal cardiac arrhythmias. Prolonged QT interval has recently been linked to low testosterone levels, a frequent occurrence in male obese patients but no study has yet assessed whether hypoandrogenism contributes to QT interval prolongation in this population. Aim of this study was to evaluate whether prolonged QT interval is linked to hypogonadism in male obese subjects. QT interval corrected for heart rate (QTc) was measured from standard electrocardiogram recordings in 136 obese men (BMI 30 >kg/m², range 30.1–75.4 kg/m²). Obese men were classified as eugonadal or hypogonadal according to serum total testosterone levels (i.e., greater or less than 9.9 nmol/l). Our study showed that QTc measurements corrected by either Bazett (419 ± 3.2 vs. 408 ± 3.4 ms, P < 0.05), Fridericia (406.3 ± 3.39 vs. 396.4 ± 3.03 ms, P < 0.05) or Hodges (407.0 ± 3.12 vs. 397.3 ± 2.84 ms, P < 0.05) were longer in hypogonadal compared with eugonadal obese men; further, prolonged QTc interval (i.e., >440 ms) was more frequent among hypogonadal compared with eugonadal obese men (23% vs. 10%, P < 0.05). The degree of weight excess, diabetes, sleep apnoea and potassium levels were not associated with prolonged QTc. In conclusion, obese hypogonadal men show a greater prevalence of prolonged QT interval compared with their eugonadal counterparts. It appears therefore that low levels of testosterone in obese men may contribute to the arrhythmogenic profile of these patients, a heretofore unknown link which warrants further clinical attention.     

SERS‐based biosensor for Alzheimer disease evaluation through the fast analysis of human serum

Alzheimer disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia in the elderly, progressively affecting the cognitive functions with a complex diagnostic procedure that limits the time for a prompt intervention. In this study we optimized a reliable protocol for the analysis of AD patients and healthy subjects' serum using the Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS), taking into consideration the effect of different variables on the final spectra, analyzed and compared through multivariate analysis and correlated with hippocampus volume. As results, we demonstrated a statistical difference between the spectra collected from the two investigated groups, with an accuracy, precision and specificity of respectively 83%, 86%, and 86%. The correlation of these data with those obtained from MRI, demonstrated a direct correlation between Raman spectra and hippocampus degeneration showing the Raman Spectroscopy (RS) as a potential tool for the monitoring of AD progression and rehabilitation treatments.     

Cu(II) ion interaction with teicoplanin-vancomycin’s analog

Teicoplanin, a member of the “last chance” antibiotic family has a similar structure and the same mechanism of action as parent drug vancomycin, which is proved to be an effective binder of Cu(II) ions. However, the potentiometric and spectroscopic studies (UV-visible, CD, NMR) have shown that the modification of the N-terminal structure of the peptide backbone in teicoplanin affects considerably the binding ability towards Cu(II) ions. While vancomycin forms almost instantly the stable 3 N complex species involving the N-terminal and two amide nitrogen donors, in case of teicoplanin only two nitrogen donors derived from the N-terminal amino group and adjacent peptide bond are coordinated to Cu(II) ion within the whole pH range studied. The major factor influencing the binding mode is most likely the structure of the N-terminus of the peptide unit in the antibiotic ligand.