Antimicrobial efficacy of Achillea ligustica All. (Asteraceae) essential oils against reference and isolated oral microorganisms

The aim of this study was to verify the effectiveness of Achillea ligustica essential oils against several oral microorganisms in comparison with a commercial essential oil-containing mouthrinse (Listerine(?)) and clove oil (containing 89% eugenol). The inhibition efficacy of A. ligustica essential oils alone and in combination with Listerine(?) was evaluated by the micro-dilution method. The most susceptible microorganisms were Bacillus cereus, Streptococcus pyogenes, and Candida albicans. The efficacy was similar to that of the clove oil. The antiseptic mouthwash Listerine(?) did not exert a strong inhibition on microbial strains tested, whereas its effectiveness increased significantly when essential oil was added. The study provides additional evidence for the in vitro inhibitory activity of A. ligustica essential oils on several pathogens, suggesting their usefulness in mouthrinse formulations as an adjunct to mechanical oral hygiene regimens. Essential oil-containing mouthrinses can be beneficial, safe components of daily oral health routines, representing an efficient and without side effect alternative to prevent and control oral infections.     

Occupational Injuries in Germany: Population-Wide National Survey Data Emphasize the Importance of Work-Related Factors

Unintentional injuries cause much of the global mortality burden, with the workplace being a common accident setting. Even in high-income economies, occupational injury figures remain remarkably high. Because risk factors for occupational injuries are prone to confounding, the present research takes a comprehensive approach. To better understand the occurrence of occupational injuries, sociodemographic factors and work- and health-related factors are tested simultaneously. Thus, the present analysis aims to develop a comprehensive epidemiological model that facilitates the explanation of varying injury rates in the workplace. The representative phone survey German Health Update 2010 provides information on medically treated occupational injuries sustained in the year prior to the interview. Data were collected on sociodemographics, occupation, working conditions, health-related behaviors, and chronic diseases. For the economically active population (18–70 years, n = 14,041), the 12-month prevalence of occupational injuries was calculated with a 95% confidence interval (CI). Blockwise multiple logistic regression was applied to successively include different groups of variables. Overall, 2.8% (95% CI 2.4–3.2) of the gainfully employed population report at least one occupational injury (women: 0.9%; 95% CI 0.7–1.2; men: 4.3%; 95% CI 3.7–5.0). In the fully adjusted model, male gender (OR 3.16) and age 18–29 (OR 1.54), as well as agricultural (OR 5.40), technical (OR 3.41), skilled service (OR 4.24) or manual (OR 5.12), and unskilled service (OR 3.13) or manual (OR 4.97) occupations are associated with higher chances of occupational injuries. The same holds for frequent stressors such as heavy carrying (OR 1.78), working in awkward postures (OR 1.46), environmental stress (OR 1.48), and working under pressure (OR 1.41). Among health-related variables, physical inactivity (OR 1.47) and obesity (OR 1.73) present a significantly higher chance of occupational injuries. While the odds for most work-related factors were as expected, the associations for health-related factors such as smoking, drinking, and chronic diseases were rather weak. In part, this may be due to context-specific factors such as safety and workplace regulations in high-income countries like Germany. This assumption could guide further research, taking a multi-level approach to international comparisons.     

Polynucleotide phosphorylase-based photometric assay for inorganic phosphate

Polynucleotide phosphorylase is a prokaryotic enzyme that catalyzes phosphorolysis of polynucleotides with release of nucleotide diphosphates. By taking advantage of this property, we developed a photometric assay for inorganic phosphate. In the presence of polyadenylic acid, phosphate is converted into adenosine 5'-diphosphate (ADP) by this enzyme. ADP then reacts with phosphoenolpyruvate in a pyruvate kinase-catalyzed reaction, thus giving rise to adenosine 5'-triphosphate and pyruvate. Finally, pyruvate oxidizes reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) through the action of L-lactate dehydrogenase, with concomitant decrease in absorbance at 340 nm. As expected, in this detection system 1 mol of NADH was oxidized per mole of phosphate. The assay showed an excellent reproducibility, as the standard deviations never exceeded 5%. It also was shown to be unaffected by several compounds that are regarded as major interferents of the traditional colorimetric assays. Absence of interference was also demonstrated when determining phosphate content in different biological samples, such as human serum and perchloric acid extracts from Escherichia coli, yeast, and bovine liver. An E. coli strain overexpressing His-tagged polynucleotide phosphorylase developed in our laboratories allowed quick and straightforward purification of enzyme, making the assay feasible and convenient. Since all other reagents required are inexpensive, the assay represents a cheaper alternative to commercially available phosphate assay kits.     

Acute haemodynamic effects of IL-6 treatment in vivo: involvement of vagus nerve in NO-mediated negative inotropism

Interleukin-6 (IL-6) reduces myocardial haemodynamics. However, the intrinsic mechanisms of IL-6 effects are not known. We hypothesized that nitric oxide (NO) synthesised by neuronal synthase (nNOS) can be the molecular mediator of IL-6-mediated cardiac effects. Thus, we investigated in vivo after IL-6 acute administration: (1) the role of NO pathway; (2) the importance of NO derived from nNOS located in intracardiac vagal ganglion in the anterior surface of the left ventricle. Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats (225-250 g) were anaesthetized (sodium pentobarbital 30 mg/kg intraperitoneally administered) and ventilated. The effects of a single IL-6 bolus (100 microg/kg intravenously administered) were studied in four experimental groups: (a) IL-6 (n=6), (b) IL-6 plus 30 mg/kg of L-NAME (an eNOS and nNOS inhibitor; n=6), (c) IL-6 plus 25mg/kg of 7-NI (a specific nNOS inhibitor; n=6), (d) IL-6 plus vagal resection (n=6). We evaluated the following parameters: mean aortic pressure (MAP), left ventricular end systolic pressure (LVESP), left ventricular positive peak dP/dt (PP dP/dt). Data are expressed as mean+/-sem. IL-6 caused a transient but significant reduction of MAP (-21.8% of basal: p<0.05), LVESP (from 130+/-4.2 to 1056.5 mmHg: p<0.05) and PP dP/dt (from 5390+/-158 to 4400+/-223 mmHg/s, p<0.02). Concomitant treatment with L-NAME or 7-NI totally abolished IL-6 effects. Vagal resection significantly reduced the haemodynamic effects (MAP: -10% of basal: p=ns; LVEDS: from 125+/-7.3 to 117+/-6.8 mmHg, p<0.05; PP dP/dt from 5500+/-150 to 5000+/-143 mmHg/s, p<0.05). We conclude that acute administration of IL-6 caused transient but significant cardiac negative inotropism. IL-6 haemodynamic effects are partly due to NO synthesised by nNOS located in vagal left ventricular ganglia.     

Synthesis of enantiopure 2-(aminoalkyl)phenol derivatives and their application as catalysts in stereoselective reactions

Enantiopure 2-(aminoalkyl)phenol derivatives are an interesting class of compounds widely used in homogeneous ligand accelerated catalysis. A series of practical and convenient methods available for their preparation are revised, together with the methodologies for the determination of their configuration. The uses of these compounds in metal catalysed asymmetric reactions in the addition of dialkyl zinc reagents to aldehydes and in the reduction of ketones with borane are described. Moreover 2-(aminoalkyl)phenol derivatives have found use also as chiral shift reagents for carboxylic acids.     

A federated approach to Android malware classification through Perm-Maps

In the last decades, mobile-based apps have been increasingly used in several application fields for many purposes involving a high number of human activities. Unfortunately, in addition to this, the number of cyber-attacks related to mobile platforms is increasing day-by-day. However, although advances in Artificial Intelligence science have allowed addressing many aspects of the problem, malware classification tasks are still challenging. For this reason, the following paper aims to propose new special features, called permission maps (Perm-Maps), which combine information related to the Android permissions and their corresponding severity levels. Such features have proven to be very effective in classifying different malware families through the usage of a convolutional neural network. Also, the advantages introduced by the Perm-Maps have been enhanced by a training process based on a federated logic. Experimental results show that the proposed approach achieves up to a 3% improvement in average accuracy with respect to J48 trees and Naive Bayes classifier, and up to 16% compared to multi-layer perceptron classifier. Furthermore, the combined use of Perm-Maps and federated logic allows dealing with unbalanced training datasets with low computational efforts.

     

Functional differences in visceral and subcutaneous fat pads originate from differences in the adipose stem cell

Metabolic pathologies mainly originate from adipose tissue (AT) dysfunctions. AT differences are associated with fat-depot anatomic distribution in subcutaneous (SAT) and visceral omental (VAT) pads. We address the question whether the functional differences between the two compartments may be present early in the adipose stem cell (ASC) instead of being restricted to the mature adipocytes. Using a specific human ASC model, we evaluated proliferation/differentiation of ASC from abdominal SAT-(S-ASC) and VAT-(V-ASC) paired biopsies in parallel as well as the electrophysiological properties and functional activity of ASC and their in vitro-derived adipocytes. A dramatic difference in proliferation and adipogenic potential was observed between the two ASC populations, S-ASC having a growth rate and adipogenic potential significantly higher than V-ASC and giving rise to more functional and better organized adipocytes. To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive electrophysiological analysis of ASC and derived-adipocytes, showing electrophysiological properties, such as membrane potential, capacitance and K(+)-current parameters which confirm the better functionality of S-ASC and their derived adipocytes. We document the greater ability of S-ASC-derived adipocytes to secrete adiponectin and their reduced susceptibility to lipolysis. These features may account for the metabolic differences observed between the SAT and VAT. Our findings suggest that VAT and SAT functional differences originate at the level of the adult ASC which maintains a memory of its fat pad of origin. Such stem cell differences may account for differential adipose depot susceptibility to the development of metabolic dysfunction and may represent a suitable target for specific therapeutic approaches.     

Glycosylation of human recombinant gonadotrophins: characterization and batch-to-batch consistency

The glycan moiety of human recombinant gonadotrophins (r-hFSH, r-hLH, and r-hCG) produced in CHO cell lines has been characterized by a combination of chromatographic and mass spectrometric techniques, including both matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization and electrospray. Two glycan mapping methods have been developed for the three gonadotrophins that allow separation of the glycans according to either their charge or sialylation level or their antennarity. A method was also developed for r-hCG that permits the complete resolution of the N-glycan from the O-glycan species. Whereas the structure found for the N-glycans of the gonadotrophins was in agreement with the complex type model, the structure for an O-glycan of r-hCG, not yet described, has been unambiguously determined using nanoelectrospray ion trap mass spectrometry. Using these two glycan mapping methods, the high level of batch-to-batch consistency achieved for the glycosylation of the three recombinant gonadotrophins in commercial production has been shown. These data demonstrate the tight control that can be achieved in the manufacturing of complex recombinant therapeutic glycoproteins, which is a prerequisite to the delivering of a guaranteed dose of drug from vial to vial, and in turn to ensuring the clinical efficacy of the product.     

Antiviral properties and cytotoxic activity of platinum(II) complexes with 1,10-phenanthrolines and acyclovir or penciclovir

Platinum compounds containing an aromatic diimine (1,10-phenanthroline or 2,9-dimethyl-1,10-phenanthroline; phen and Me(2)phen, respectively) and antiviral guanosine-type ligands (acyclovir or penciclovir; acy and pen, respectively) have been synthesised. These compounds maintain the antiviral activity against Herpes Symplex Virus (HSV) and have greater efficacy than free acyclovir or penciclovir against Cytomegalovirus (CMV); in both cases the species with Me(2)phen are more active. The same complexes are effective against tumor cell proliferation which also results to be dependent upon the nature of the diimine ligand: all compounds containing Me(2)phen being more active than those containing phen. Although in vivo some complexes significantly reduce tumor cell proliferation, nevertheless, they do not appear to significantly affect the life time expectancy of the treated mice. The greater cytotoxicity of compounds with Me(2)phen may result from a higher reactivity towards cellular components, such as glutathione, which could cause release of the diimine, known to be highly cytotoxic.