Patients’ Knowledge,Attitudes, Behaviour and Health Care Experiences on the Prevention,Detection, Management and Control of Hypertension in Colombia: A Qualitative Study

Hypertension is a leading cause of premature death worldwide and the most important modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Effective screening programs, communication with patients, regular monitoring, and adherence to treatment are essential to successful management but may be challenging in health systems facing resource constraints. This qualitative study explored patients’ knowledge, attitudes, behaviour and health care seeking experiences in relation to detection, treatment and control of hypertension in Colombia. We conducted in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with 26 individuals with hypertension and 4 family members in two regions. Few participants were aware of ways to prevent high blood pressure. Once diagnosed, most reported taking medication but had little information about their condition and had a poor understanding of their treatment regime. The desire for good communication and a trusting relationship with the doctor emerged as key themes in promoting adherence to medication and regular attendance at medical appointments. Barriers to accessing treatment included co-payments for medication; costs of transport to health care facilities; unavailability of drugs; and poor access to specialist care. Some patients overcame these barriers with support from social networks, family members and neighbours. However, those who lacked such support, experienced loneliness and struggled to access health care services. The health insurance scheme was frequently described as administratively confusing and those accessing the state subsidized system believed that the treatment was inferior to that provided under the compulsory contributory system. Measures that should be addressed to improve hypertension management in Colombia include better communication between health care professionals and patients, measures to improve understanding of the importance of adherence to treatment, reduction of co-payments and transport costs, and easier access to care, especially in rural areas.     

The Effect of Inkjet Printing over Polymeric Films as Potential Buccal Biologics Delivery Systems

The buccal mucosa appears as a promissory route for biologic drug administration, and pharmaceutical films are flexible dosage forms that can be used in the buccal mucosa as drug delivery systems for either a local or systemic effect. Recently, thin films have been used as printing substrates to manufacture these dosage forms by inkjet printing. As such, it is necessary to investigate the effects of printing biologics on films as substrates in terms of their physical and mucoadhesive properties. Here, we explored solvent casting as a conventional method with two biocompatible polymers, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, and chitosan, and we used electrospinning process as an electrospun film fabrication of polycaprolactone fibers due to its potential to elicit mucoadhesion. Lysozyme was used as biologic drug model and was formulated as a solution for printing by thermal inkjet printing. Films were characterized before and after printing by mechanical and mucoadhesive properties, surface, and ultrastructure morphology through scanning electron microscopy and solid state properties by thermal analysis. Although minor differences were detected in micrographs and thermograms in all polymeric films tested, neither mechanical nor mucoadhesive properties were affected by these differences. Thus, biologic drug printing on films was successful without affecting their mechanical or mucoadhesive properties. These results open way to explore biologics loading on buccal films by inkjet printing, and future efforts will include further in vitro and in vivo evaluations.     

When introduced equals invasive: normative use of “invasive” with ascidians

This study aimed to understand the use of “invasive species” as a normative concept and discuss its implications in conservation science, using introduced ascidians worldwide as model species. A specific search in Web of Science was performed and articles suitable for analysis were selected. Each article was classified according to the type of environment, species under study, type of effects and spread that ascidians are linked to. Most of the 184 articles analysed did not consider dispersal or effects as study subject (82 and 71%, respectively). Most research was conducted in laboratory conditions (41%) or human-made environments (32%) or indicating few escapes to natural environments. Almost half of the articles (47%) were made with the six more conspicuous introduced ascidians and this raised to 70% while considering articles that worked with two or more (pooled) species. The normative use of “invasive” is widely used regarding introduced ascidians. Spread and effects, necessary conditions to consider a species as invasive, are notoriously understudied. Most research was not conducted in natural environments and over a few species, weakening the perception of introduced ascidians as a conservation problem. To discuss the extent of the normative use of invasion science is important to distinguish two phenomena: are some species intrinsically problematic for conservation (i.e. invasive) or is the movement of non-native species (i.e. biological invasion) the conservation problem? By using invasive as a normative concept, we risk ending with a weakened concept potentially hindering the progress of invasion science.     

Photomixotrophic cultures of blueberries (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Vaccinium corymbosum</Emphasis>) accumulate or release phenylpropanoids via inductive treatments

The in vitro production of phenylpropanoids has been studied in temporary immersion bioreactors (TIBs) cultures of blueberries (Vaccinum corymbosum) supplemented with 0.4 MPa CO₂, light intensity of 150 μM/m²/s, and induced with ABA (4 mM) and H₂O₂ (5 mM). Results demonstrated differences in the accumulation and/or the release of patterns of metabolites. In TIBs plus ABA, a reddish-maroon color was consistent with the accumulation of phenolics, where shoots formed clusters without internodal segments. While in TIBs plus H₂O₂, the phenylpropanoids were released into the culture medium. In both cases, experimental treatments with sucrose-reduced medium displayed the highest phenylpropanoids values, in contrast with the controls (conventional culture). Altogether, differential expressions of genes, linked to key pathways as photosynthesis, phenylpropanoids, and oxidative burst, could corroborate for the increase in the phenolics production in parallel with an improvement of photosynthesis in photomixotrophic culture.     

Selective Chronic Sodium or Chloride Depletion Specifically Modulates Subfornical Organ Atrial Natriuretic Peptide Receptor Number in Young Rats

1. We studied the effects of selective chronic sodium depletion of chloride depletion on atrial natriuretic peptide receptor number in the subfornical organ and paraventricular nucleus of young rats.2. Sodium or chloride depletion decreased plasma levels of atrial natriuretic peptide, increased plasma renin activity, and induced extracellular fluid volume contraction. Chloride depletion induced more significant changes in extracellular fluid volume contraction than sodium depletion.3. In the subfornical organ, atrial natriuretic peptide receptor number significantly decreased (30%) after sodium depletion, while chloride depletion induced a smaller, not statistically significant decrease. Conversely, atrial natriuretic peptide receptors located in the paraventricular nucleus of young rats were not significantly affected by sodium or chloride depletion.4. Water deprivation reversed the decrease in atrial natriuretic peptide receptors produced by sodium depletion. Water-deprived sodium-depleted rats actually had higher numbers of atrial natriuretic peptide receptors in the subfornical organ than control rats. These changes were associated with severe extracellular fluid volume contraction and up regulation of brain vasopressin mRNA steady-state levels. Thus, the direction of change in the number of subfornical organ atrial natriuretic peptide receptors was dependent on the degree of extracellular fluid volume contraction.5. Our results suggest that atrial natriuretic peptide receptors located in the subfornical organ, and not in the paraventricular nucleus, are selectively regulated by sodium depletion and extracellular fluid volume contraction.     

Early evolution of metazoan serine/threonine and tyrosine kinases: identification of selected kinases in marine sponges

The phylum Porifera (sponges) was the first to diverge from the common ancestor of the Metazoa. In this study, six cDNAs coding for protein- serine/threonine kinases (PS/TKs) are presented; they have been isolated from libraries obtained from the demosponges Geodia cydonium and Suberites domuncula and from the calcareous sponge Sycon raphanus. Sequence alignments of the catalytic domains revealed that two major families of PS/TK, the "conventional" (Ca(2+)-dependent) protein kinase C (PKC), the cPKC subfamily, as well as the "novel" (Ca(2+)- independent) PKC (nPKC), form two separate clusters. In each cluster, the sequence from S. raphanus diverges first. To approach the question about the origin of protein-tyrosine kinases (PTK), which are found only in Metazoa, we analyzed two additional PS/TKs which have been cloned from S. domuncula: the stress-responsive protein kinase (KRSvSD) and the protein-kinase-C-related kinase (PRKvSD). The construction of the phylogenetic tree, comprising the eight PS/TKs and the PTK cloned previously from G. cydonium, revealed that the PTK derived from the branch including the KRSvSD kinase. These data facilitate the first molecular approach to elucidate the origin of metazoan PTK within the PS/TK superfamily.      

Estimation of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Chlamydomonas reinhardtii</Emphasis> biomass concentration from chord length distribution data

A novel method to estimate the concentration of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii biomass was developed. The method employs the chord length distribution information gathered by means of a focused beam reflectance probe immersed in the culture sample and processes the data through a feedforward multilayer perceptron. The multilayer perceptron architecture was systematically optimised through the application of a simulated annealing algorithm. The method developed can predict the concentration of microalgae with acceptable accuracy and, with further development, it could be implemented online to monitor the aggregation status and biomass concentration of microalgal cultures.     

Calcium ion-dependent p-nitrophenyl phosphate phosphatase activity and calcium ion-dependent adenosine triphosphatase activity from human erythrocyte membranes

In the presence of ATP and of Mg(2+), human erythrocyte membranes show a phosphatase activity towards p-nitrophenyl phosphate which is activated by low concentrations of Ca(2+). The effect of Ca(2+) is strongly enhanced if either K(+) or Na(+) is also present. Activation of the p-nitrophenyl phosphate phosphatase by Ca(2+) reaches a half-maximum at about 8mum-Ca(2+) and is apparent only when the ion has access to the inner surface of the cell membrane. Ca(2+)-dependent phosphatase activity can only be observed if ATP is at the inner surface of the cell membrane, and the presence of ATP seems to be absolutely necessary, since either its removal or its replacement by other nucleoside triphosphates abolishes the activating effect of Ca(2+). The properties of the (ATP+Ca(2+))-dependent phosphatase are very similar to those of the Ca(2+)-dependent ATPase (adenosine triphosphatase), also present in erythrocyte membranes, which probably is involved in Ca(2+) transport in erythrocytes. The similarities suggest that both activities may be properties of the same molecular system. This view is further supported by the fact that p-nitrophenyl phosphate inhibits to a similar extent Ca(2+)-dependent ATPase activity and ATP-dependent Ca(2+) extrusion from erythrocytes.     

Molecular phylogeny and phenotypic variability of clinical and environmental strains of Aspergillus flavus

Aspergillus flavus is the second most common cause of aspergillosis infection in immunocompromised patients and is responsible for the production of aflatoxins. Little is known about the population structure of A. flavus, although recent molecular and phenotypic data seem to demonstrate that different genetic lineages exist within this species. The aim of this study was to carry out a morphological, physiological, and molecular analysis of a set of clinical and environmental isolates to determine whether this variability is due to species divergence or intraspecific diversity, and to assess whether the clinical isolates form a separate group. The amdS and omtA genes were more phylogenetically informative than the other tested genes and their combined analysis inferred three main clades, with no clear distinction between clinical and environmental isolates. No important morphological and physiological differences were found between the members of the different clades, with the exception of the assimilation of d-glucosamine, which differentiates the members of the clade II from the others.