Effect of dental care on the oral health of Sjögren’s syndrome patients.

Sjögren’s syndrome (SS) is a chronic, systemic autoimmune disease affecting the exocrine glands, particularly the salivary and lacrimal glands. Xerostomia is a major feature of this syndrome and greatly affects patient quality of life. The most typical clinical signs associated with hyposalivation are dysgeusia and dysosmia, dental caries, candidiasis, periodontal disease, gland inflammation, mucositis and oral ulcers. The aims are to investigate on Plaque Index (PI) and Gingival Index (GI) before and after dental care of SS patients. Fifty-two consecutive patients (mean age 48.9±2 years) were analysed. At T0, (baseline) T1 (3 months after T0) and T2 (6 months after T0), a Plaque Index and a Gingival Index were calculated. The statistical analysis was performed using one-way ANOVA test. If distribution was not normal, Friedman test was chosen instead of ANOVA. Dunn’s multiple comparison procedure was performed as post-hoc (IBM SPSS Statistics 21 software). A statistically significant decrease was observed both in PI and in GI between T0 and T1, T1 and T2, T0 and T2 (P less than 0.05).

Detection of potato brown rot and ring rot by electronic nose: from laboratory to real scale.

A commercial electronic nose (e-nose) equipped with a metal oxide sensor array was trained to recognize volatile compounds emitted by potatoes experimentally infected with Ralstonia solanacearum or Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. sepedonicus, which are bacterial agents of potato brown and ring rot, respectively. Two sampling procedures for volatile compounds were tested on pooled tubers sealed in 0.5-1 L jars at room temperature (laboratory conditions): an enrichment unit containing different adsorbent materials (namely, Tenax(®) TA, Carbotrap, Tenax(®) GR, and Carboxen 569) directly coupled with the e-nose (active sampling) and a Radiello(™) cartridge (passive sampling) containing a generic Carbograph fiber. Tenax(®) TA resulted the most suitable adsorbent material for active sampling. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) correctly classified 57.4 and 81.3% total samples as healthy or diseased, when using active and passive sampling, respectively. These results suggested the use of passive sampling to discriminate healthy from diseased tubers under intermediate and real scale conditions. 80 and 90% total samples were correctly classified by LDA under intermediate (100 tubers stored at 4°C in net bag passively sampled) and real scale conditions (tubers stored at 4°C in 1.25 t bags passively sampled). Principal component analysis (PCA) of sensorial analysis data under laboratory conditions highlighted a strict relationship between the disease severity and the responses of the e-nose sensors, whose sensitivity threshold was linked to the presence of at least one tuber per sample showing medium disease symptoms. At intermediate and real scale conditions, data distribution agreed with disease incidence (percentage of diseased tubers), owing to the low storage temperature and volatile compounds unconfinement conditions adopted.

Comparison between capillary and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis for identification of Lolium species and cultivars.

In recent years variety discrimination has been achieved in a range of agricultural crops by means of sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). Previous works on genus Lolium have shown the effectiveness of this technique for the topic of cultivar identification. In the present research the potential of capillary gel electrophoresis (CGE) for identification of Italian (Lolium multiflorum Lam.), annual (Lolium rigidum Gaud.) and perennial (Lolium perenne L.) ryegrass cultivars in comparison with SDS-PAGE was investigated. Separation conditions of SDS-CGE were chosen in order to obtain electrophoretic data comparable with those of SDS-PAGE, at the expense of analysis speed. Both peak area and migration time of SDS-CGE electropherograms were reproducible. In the examined cultivars, a total of 27 (16.8-96.8 kDa) and 28 (13.2-111.5 kDa) protein subunits were detected by SDS-PAGE and SDS-CGE, respectively. The variability in seed storage protein composition was processed by numerical taxonomy. All cultivars were clearly identified by both electrophoresis systems. The orthogonality between SDS-PAGE and SDS-CGE was suggested by the lack of correlation among protein profiles obtained with the two separation systems. The nonredundant information from these analytical systems should provide a relevant benefit for identification of Lolium cultivars and wild biotypes that are extremely uniform phenotypically.

[The oral status in mentally retarded institutionalized patients]. / Lo stato orale in pazienti istituzionalizzati con ritardo mentale.

BACKGROUND AND METHODS: An epidemiological survey of dental and periodontal health status was conducted in a group of 263 institutionalized mentally retarded patients. RESULTS: The periodontal status in the study population was very poor. 66% of the subjects presented with a probing depth more than 3.5 mm (PSR = 3 or 4), 29% showed the presence of bleeding or calculus (PSR = 1 or 2) and only 5% showed a normal periodontal status (PSR = 0). No statistical relationship was found between periodontal status and age, sex, type or duration of psychiatric therapy. Concerning the dental status a total of 59 (26%) subjects was totally edentulous. A significant increase in the prevalence of edentulousness with increasing age was recorded. The incidence of edentulousness was higher among women than among men, while it was not significantly influenced by the type of psychiatric pathology, type or duration of psychiatric therapy. The mean number of remaining teeth in every subject was 12.9 +/- 9; the mean number of sound teeth was 10.8 +/- 8 and the mean number of decayed teeth was 2.1 +/- 3. The number of decayed teeth decreased with increasing age and it was influenced by the type of psychiatric pathology, but not by the type or duration of psychiatric pathology. CONCLUSIONS: Analysis of the results showed a very poor dental but especially periodontal status in mentally retarded subjects as compared to those found in studies performed in normal subjects.