Unraveling Brazilian bioethanol yeasts as novel starters for high-gravity brewing.

High-gravity (HG) brewing has broader application to succeed on beer differentiation and production optimization. However, such process imposes a handicap to yeasts, which must be able to deal with stressful conditions in fermentation. In this work, we assessed different physiological traits of 24 Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains isolated from Brazilian bioethanol distilleries for the selection of novel starters for HG brewing. Five yeast strains were selected with ability to overcome different stressors under HG beer fermentation, showing high fermentability rates, resilience to ethanol stress, low production of foam and hydrogen sulfide, as well as similar flocculation rates to brewer's yeasts. After five fermentation recycles, most strains sustained a viability rate higher than 90% and were able to efficiently accumulate trehalose and glycogen, besides presenting no detectable petite mutants at the final stage. In the sensory analysis, the beers obtained from the five selected strains showed greater aromatic complexity, with predominance of 'spicy', 'dried' and 'fresh fruits' descriptors. In conclusion, this study sheds light on the potential of yeast strains from Brazilian bioethanol process to produce distinctive specialty beers, aside from proposing an effective selection methodology based on relevant physiological attributes for HG brewing process.

Development of fluorescent thermoresponsive nanoparticles for temperature monitoring on membrane surfaces.

In this work, tris(phenantroline)ruthenium(II) chloride (Ru(phen)3) was immobilized in silica nanoparticles prepared according to the Stöber method. Efforts were devoted on the optimization of the nano-thermometer in terms of size, polydispersity, intensity of the emission and temperature sensitivity. In particular, the immobilization of the luminophore in an external thin shell made of silica grown in a second step on bare silica nanoparticles allowed producing fluorescent monodisperse silica nanoparticles (420±20nm). A systematic study was addressed to maximize the intensity of the emission of the fluorescent nanoparticles by adjusting the concentration of Ru(phen)32+ in the shell from 0.2 to 24wt.%, whereas the thickness of the shell is affected by the amount of silica precursor employed. The luminescent activity of the doped nanoparticles was found to be sensitive to the temperature. In fact, the intensity of the emission linearly decreased by increasing the temperature from 20°C to 65°C. The thermoresponsive nanoparticles were functionalized with long aliphatic chains in order to obtain hydrophobic nanoparticles. The developed nanoparticles were immobilized via dip-coating procedure on the surface of hydrophobic porous membranes, such as Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) prepared via Non-Solvent Induced Phase Separation (NIPS), providing local information about the membrane surface temperature.

The nitric oxide-cGKII system relays death and survival signals during embryonic retinal development via AKT-induced CREB1 activation.

During early neurogenesis, retinal neuronal cells display a conserved differentiation program in vertebrates. Previous studies established that nitric oxide (NO) and cGMP accumulation regulate essential events in retinal physiology. Here we used pharmacological and genetic loss-of-function to investigate the effects of NO and its downstream signaling pathway in the survival of developing avian retinal neurons in vitro and in vivo. Six-day-old (E6) chick retinal cells displayed increased calcium influx and produced higher amounts of NO when compared with E8 cells. L-arginine (substrate for NO biosynthesis) and S-nitroso-N-acetyl-D,L-penicillamine (SNAP; a nitrosothiol NO donor) promoted extensive cell death in E6 retinas, whereas in E8 both substances decreased apoptosis. The effect of NO at both periods was mediated by soluble guanylyl cyclase (sGC) and cGMP-dependent kinase (cGK) activation. In addition, shRNA-mediated cGKII knockdown prevented NO-induced cell death (E6) and cell survival (E8). This, NO-induced cell death or cell survival was not correlated with an early inhibition of retinal cell proliferation. E6 cells also responded differentially from E8 neurons regarding cyclic AMP-responsive element-binding protein (CREB) activation in the retina in vivo. NO strongly decreased nuclear phospho-CREB staining in E6 but it robustly enhanced CREB phosphorylation in the nuclei of E8 neurons, an effect that was completely abrogated by cGKII shRNAs at both embryonic stages. The ability of NO in regulating CREB differentially during retinal development relied on the capacity of cGKII in decreasing (E6) or increasing (E8) nuclear AKT (V-Akt murine thymoma viral oncogene) activation. Accordingly, inhibiting AKT prevented both cGKII shRNA-mediated CREB upregulation in E6 and SNAP-induced CREB activation in E8. Furthermore, shRNA-mediated in vivo cGKII or in vitro CREB1 knockdown confirmed that NO/cGKII dualistically regulated the downstream CREB1 pathway and caspase activation in the chick retina to modulate neuronal viability. These data demonstrate that NO-mediated cGKII signaling may function to control the viability of neuronal cells during early retinal development via AKT/CREB1 activity.

Tuberculosis diagnosis after bleach processing for early stage tuberculosis laboratory capacity building.

The diagnosis of tuberculosis is seriously hampered in the absence of standard biosafety laboratory facilities for specimen concentration and Mycobacterium tuberculosis culture. Within a laboratory twinning arrangement, heat-fixed direct smear and sediment from 74 bleach-processed and 20 non-processed specimens from Cumura Hospital, Guinea-Bissau, were sent to Lisbon for molecular evaluation of rifampicin resistance. Sequence analysis of a 369 base-pair rpoB locus detected 3.2% (3/94) resistant specimens. To our knowledge, this represents the first report on the molecular analysis of M. tuberculosis from bleach-processed sputum, an alternative to current diagnostic practice in low-resource settings.

Real-time monitoring of membrane bioreactors with 2D-fluorescence data and statistically based models.

The application of membrane bioreactors (MBR) for wastewater treatment is growing worldwide due to their compactness and high effluent quality. However, membrane fouling, mostly associated to biological products, can reduce MBR performance. Therefore, it is important to monitor MBRs as close to real-time as possible to accelerate control actions for maximal biological and membrane performance. 2D-fluorescence spectroscopy is a promising on-line tool to simultaneously monitor wastewater treatment efficiency and the formation of potential biological fouling agents. In this study, 2D-fluorescence data obtained from the wastewater and the permeate of a MBR was successfully modelled using projection to latent structures (PLS) to monitor variations in the influent and effluent total chemical oxygen demand (COD). Analysis of the results also indicated that humic acids and proteins highly contributed to the measured COD in both streams. Nevertheless, this approach was not valid for other performance parameters of the MBR system (such as influent and effluent ammonia and phosphorus), which is usually characterised through a high number of analytical and operating parameters. Principal component analysis (PCA) was thus used to find possible correlations between these parameters, in an attempt to reduce the analytical effort required for full MBR characterisation and to reduce the time frame necessary to obtain monitoring results. The 3 first principal components, capturing 57% of the variance, indicated and confirmed expected relationships between the assessed parameters. However, this approach alone could not provide robust enough correlations to enable the elimination of parameters for process description (PCA loadings ≤ 0.5). Nevertheless, it is possible that the information captured by 2D-fluorescence spectroscopy could replace some of the analytical and operating parameters, since this technique was able to successfully describe influent and effluent total COD. It is thus proposed that combined modelling of 2D-fluorescence data and selected performance/operating parameters should be further explored for efficient MBR monitoring aiming at rapid process control.

Karyotype of the cricket, Zucchiella atlantica, with an overview of the chromosomes of the subfamily Nemobiinae.

Few reports have been published on cytogenetics in crickets of the subfamily Nemobiinae. Within the Neotropical region the karyotypes of only two species are known, both of them belonging to the genus Phoremia. In the present paper, chromosomes of a third Neotropical species, Zucchiella atlantica Mello 1990 (Orthoptera: Trigonidiidae), have been studied and a cytological review of other species of that subfamily is presented. Zucchiella atlantica shows 2n male symbol = 22 + XO and 2n female symbol = 22 + XX which suggests an ancestral condition within the subfamily as the diploid number in all the species previously studied ranges from 2n male symbol = 7 to 2n female symbol = 21. In Orthoptera those species with high chromosome numbers tend to show reduction in their chromosomal numbers by means of centric fusions rather than to increase chromosomal numbers, due to difficulties in the availability of new centromeres. A structural polymorphism in one chromosome of pair 5 was observed as an intra-individual variation, suggesting differential activity of the genome from cell to cell.

Efecto inmunomodulardor de ampicilina, cefazolina y ciprofloxacina en pacientes con infeccion bacteriana internados en el hospital de clínicas de La Paz / Inmodulator effect of ampicilin, cefazoline and ciprofloxacine in patients whit bacterial infection at the hospital de clinicas of La Paz

Pregunta de investigación.-¿La ampicilina, cefazolina y ciprofloxacina tiene afecto inmunomodulador sobre la fagocitosis en pacientes con infección bacteriana? Diseño.- Estudio prospectivo, de tipo ensayo clínico con autocontrol. Lugar.- Laboratorio de Inmunologia dependiente del Instituto de Genética- Facultad de Medicina, UMSA y hospital de Clínicas, La Paz-Bolivia. Obejtivos.- Determinar si la ampicilina, cefazolina y ciprofloxacina tienen efecto inmunomodulador sobre la fagocitosis de PMSs (porcentaje, indice y actividad del radical subperóxido) en pacientes con infección bacteriana. Población de estudio.- 90 pacientes con infección bacteriana, internados en el Hospital General de la ciudad de La Paz, tanto en la Unidad de Cirugía varones- mujeres, como en el Instituto de Cirugia Plástica y quemados. Tamaño de muestra.- La determinación del número de muestra se la estableció sobre la base del grado de confianza y presición del experimento, donde el número adecuado fue de 30 repeticiones para cada antibiótico.Procedieminto.- Los pacientes recibieron esquema de tratameinto antibiótico correspondiente (ampicilina o ciproxacina) a dosis y tiempos terapéuticos. En todas las muestras obtenidas se determinó el porcentaje e indice de fagocitosis mediante la preuba de capacidad de fagocitosis y el orcentaje actividad del radical subperóxido mediante la prueba de Nitroazul de Tetrazolium. Resultados.- La ampicilina mostró efecto estimlador sobre le porcentaje de fagocitosis al terminar el tratameinto (p

Intrinsic resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to clarithromycin is effectively reversed by subinhibitory concentrations of cell wall inhibitors.

Subinhibitory concentrations of bacitracin, vancomycin and other inhibitors of cell wall synthesis reversed to varying extents the intrinsic resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to clarithromycin. Ethambutol reversed clarithromycin resistance in all of the M. tuberculosis strains studied regardless of their susceptibility to this drug.

Severe haemolytic disease in an infant born to an Rh(null) proposita.

A 35-year-old Brazilian woman (gravida 4, para 2) was delivered of a severely anaemic child whose cord red blood cells had a strongly positive direct antiglobulin test and who required two exchange transfusions within 24 h of birth. Because of the emergency of the situation and the lack of a local immunohaematology reference laboratory, the phenotype of the mother and the specificity of the relevant antibody could not be determined. Hence, compatible blood was not immediately available and the infant had to be given repeated exchange transfusions with incompatible group 0 Rh-negative blood. The infant is now healthy and thriving. The mother's red cells were subsequently found to lack all the antigens of the Rh system, and her serum reacted with all red cell samples except those of two unrelated Rh(null) individuals. Her serum gave high titres (i.e. 1,024-4,096) by the indirect antiglobulin test against red cells of normal Rh phenotype, as well as against cells with partially deleted Rh phenotypes (titres = 128-512 with -D-/-D- and .D./.D. samples, respectively), and was extremely active in antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity and monocyte monolayer assays against red cells of normal Rh phenotypes.

[Detection of orofacial cancer through systematic head and neck examination]. / Detecção do cancro oro-facial através do exame sistemático da cabeça e pescoço.

The authors present a systematic and practical approach in oro-facial cancer early diagnosis. Inspection and palpation of head and neck regions are emphasized.

[Dentists and the prevention of oral cancer]. / Os dentistas e a prevenção do cacro oral.

The authors, after participating on the European Conference on Dentists and Cancer Prevention, part of the program Europe Against Cancer, describe the main conclusions of the working groups, namelly on epidemiology and etiology of oral cancer, participation of dentists on community based programs for primary and secondary prevention of pré-cancer and cancer, as well as the curriculum changes proposed for Dental degree and the role of continuous education and of dental societies in this field.

Reticulosis medular histiocitica. / Histiocytic medullary reticulosis

Los autores presentan 3 casos de Reticulosis Medular histiocitica o histiocitosis maligna, con evolucion desfavorable, no obstante haberse instituido la terapeutica adecuada. Los organos mas afectados eran piel, medula osea, higado, estomago y ganglios linfaticos. No se hicieron estudios post-mortem en ninguno de ellos. La infiltracion tumoral se encontro en todos los tejidos estudiados y estaba constituida principalmente por histiocitos atipicos, con eritrofagia, celulas gigantes con eritrofagia, leucofagia, trombocitofagia, celulas gigantes tipo Touton, acumulos de eosinofilos, plasmocitos e hiperplasia de celulas de Kupffer

Reticulosis medular histiocitica. / Histiocytic medullary reticulosis

Los autores presentan 3 casos de Reticulosis Medular histiocitica o histiocitosis maligna, con evolucion desfavorable, no obstante haberse instituido la terapeutica adecuada. Los organos mas afectados eran piel, medula osea, higado, estomago y ganglios linfaticos. No se hicieron estudios post-mortem en ninguno de ellos. La infiltracion tumoral se encontro en todos los tejidos estudiados y estaba constituida principalmente por histiocitos atipicos, con eritrofagia, celulas gigantes con eritrofagia, leucofagia, trombocitofagia, celulas gigantes tipo Touton, acumulos de eosinofilos, plasmocitos e hiperplasia de celulas de Kupffer