Chronic exposure to ozone induces cardiac antioxidant response and overexpression of either mitochondrial fision protein DRP1 and hipertrophyc-related proteins

Journal of Bioenergetics and Biomembranes - Pollution is considered a risk factor for cardiovascular disease; however, the mechanisms to explain this relationship are not well understood; ozone is...     

Acral lentiginous melanoma: Basic facts,biological characteristics and research perspectives of an understudied disease

Acral lentiginous melanoma is a histological subtype of cutaneous melanoma that occurs in the glabrous skin of the palms, soles and the nail unit. Although in some countries, particularly in Latin America, Africa and Asia, it represents the most frequently diagnosed subtype of the disease, it only represents a small proportion of melanoma cases in European‐descent populations, which is partially why it has not been studied to the same extent as other forms of melanoma. As a result, its unique genomic drivers remain comparatively poorly explored, as well as its causes, with current evidence supporting a UV‐independent path to tumorigenesis. In this review, we discuss current knowledge of the aetiology and diagnostic criteria of acral lentiginous melanoma, as well as its epidemiological and histopathological characteristics. We also describe what is known about the genomic landscape of this disease and review the available biological models to explore potential therapeutic targets.     

Multidimensional adaptive P-splines with application to neurons' activity studies

The receptive field (RF) of a visual neuron is the region of the space that elicits neuronal responses. It can be mapped using different techniques that allow inferring its spatial and temporal properties. Raw RF maps (RFmaps) are usually noisy, making it difficult to obtain and study important features of the RF. A possible solution is to smooth them using P-splines. Yet, raw RFmaps are characterized by sharp transitions in both space and time. Their analysis thus asks for spatiotemporal adaptive P-spline models, where smoothness can be locally adapted to the data. However, the literature lacks proposals for adaptive P-splines in more than two dimensions. Furthermore, the extra flexibility afforded by adaptive P-spline models is obtained at the cost of a high computational burden, especially in a multidimensional setting. To fill these gaps, this work presents a novel anisotropic locally adaptive P-spline model in two (e.g., space) and three (space and time) dimensions. Estimation is based on the recently proposed SOP (Separation of Overlapping Precision matrices) method, which provides the speed we look for. Besides the spatiotemporal analysis of the neuronal activity data that motivated this work, the practical performance of the proposal is evaluated through simulations, and comparisons with alternative methods are reported.     

Superoxide dismutases: a physiopharmacological update

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are known participants in several cellular processes. Superoxide anion radical, one example of ROS, forms as a result of normal cellular respiration and is usually cleared successfully by superoxide dismutase (SOD) and other radical scavengers. However, when superoxide exceeds the clearance capacity of SOD and other ROS scavengers, superoxide initiates a number of pathologic processes. This review examines pathologies involving superoxide, including: cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, ischemia/reperfusion injury, and inflammation. We will also explore the basic science principles of superoxide and SOD, including: SOD evolution, SOD mutations, biochemistry, physiology, and pathophysiology. In reviewing the basic science, clinical pathology, and therapeutic research, we hope to clearly demonstrate plausible pharmacologic targets of action. We have revised data about basic science, clinical pathology and therapeutic research in an effort to propose plausible pharmacological targets of action. The understanding of these aspects is critical in the accomplishment of a successful clinical intervention.