Activity

Chronic intermittent hypoxia (IH) plays a pivotal role in the consequences of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). It has been demonstrated that IH impairs nasomaxillary complex growth to reduce nasal airway cavity size in rodent models. selleck products Although turbinate dysfunction with inflammatory mucosal hypertrophy is related to OSA, the role of IH in turbinate hypertrophy with inflammation-driven fibrosis is unknown. Here, we aimed to clarify the pathogenesis of inflammatory mucosal hypertrophy and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in the nasal turbinate under IH.

Seven-week-old male Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed to IH (4% O

to 21% O

with 0% CO

) at a rate of 20 cycles/h.

Hypertrophy of the turbinate mucosa occurred after 3 weeks, with the turbinate mucosa of the experimental group becoming significantly thicker than in the control group. Immunostaining showed that IH increased the expression of TGFβ and N-cadherin and decreased E-cadherin expression in the turbinate mucosa. Quantitative PCR analysis demonstrated that IH enhanced the expression of not only the inflammatory markers Tnf-a, Il-1b, and Nos2 but also the EMT markers Tgf-b1, Col1a1, and Postn.

Collectively, these results suggest that IH induced turbinate hypertrophy via upregulation of gene expression related to inflammation and EMT in the nasal mucosa.

Collectively, these results suggest that IH induced turbinate hypertrophy via upregulation of gene expression related to inflammation and EMT in the nasal mucosa.Observations of dead infant carrying have been reported for many primate species, and researchers have proposed several hypotheses to explain this behaviour. However, despite being a relatively well-studied species, reports of dead infant carrying in wild vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) remain scarce. Here we report 14 observations of dead infant carrying by female vervet monkeys in a population at Mawana Game Reserve, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Most of the females carried the dead infant for a day or less, but one female carried her infant for at least 14 days. In one case the maternal sister of a dead infant carried it after the death of their mother. We also report a case of mother-infant cannibalism a female consumed part of her deceased infant’s tail. Other post-mortem care-taking behaviours such as grooming, smelling and licking were also recorded. Of 97 recorded infant deaths in this study population since 2010, 14.4% are known to have elicited dead infant carrying, a proportion similar to that reported for other monkey species. We discuss our observations in relation to various hypotheses about this behaviour, including the post-parturition hormones hypothesis, learning to mother hypothesis, and unawareness of death hypothesis.Aspergillus ochraceus is a soil fungus known to produce ochratoxin A, a harmful secondary metabolite. Prevention and control of fungal pathogens mostly rely on chemical fungicides, which is one of the contributing factors in the emergence of the fungal resistance, hence novel methods for fungal eradication have been extensively researched. The cold atmospheric pressure (CAP) plasma generated in ambient air has been recently applied in microbial decontamination. Here we used the diffuse coplanar surface barrier discharge in inactivation of a toxigenic strain A. ochraceus. The plasma-treated conidia and mycelium exhibited morphological changes such as ruptures and desiccation. Mycelium dehydration and changes in the chemical composition of hyphal surface accompanied plasma treatment. The growth of 26 h old mycelia were significantly restricted after 30 s of plasma treatment. The conidial vitality declined 4 logs after 180 s of plasma exposure leading to almost complete decontamination. After shorter plasma treatment of conidia, the ochratoxin A (OTA) production increased at the early stage of cultivation, but the overall level was significantly reduced compared to untreated samples after longer cultivation. Our results indicated that the fungal growth and the OTA production were significantly changed by plasma treatment and underscored CAP plasma as a promising method in the decontamination of A. ochraceus without a risk to generate strains with increased OTA production.Brazil has a higher rate of dysphagia in stroke patients compared to developed countries, but does not have a fully validated method for early identification of dysphagia in this population. The aim of this study is to translate the TOR-BSST© into Brazilian Portuguese and assess the newly translated version for reliability and validity with Brazilian adult patients with stroke. The translation of the TOR-BSST© followed a multi-step process, according to the International Quality of Life Assessment project. For validation, we included patients with age ≥ 18 years and stroke diagnosis confirmed by neuroimaging and tolerance for videofluoroscopic swallowing assessment. The BR-PTfinal TOR-BSST© was administered by two trained screeners within two hours of videofluoroscopy. All assessors were independent and blinded. Estimates for reliability used the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and for accuracy both sensitivity (SN) and negative predictive (NP) values were used, along with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Sixty patients were enrolled and tested for a mean (SD) of 14.4 (6.9) days from last seen normal. Of all the patients, 41 (68.3%) failed the BR-PTfinal TOR-BSST© and 21 (35%) were scored to have dysphagia on videofluoroscopy, of which 11 (52.4%) had mild dysphagia. The overall reliability between screeners was satisfactory (ICC = 0.59; 95% CI 0.32 to 0.76). The SN and NP values for the BR-PTfinal TOR-BSST© were 85.7% (95% CI 0.62-0.96) and 84.2% (95% CI 0.72-0.95), respectively. The TOR-BSST© was successfully translated to Brazilian Portuguese with the BR-PTfinal TOR-BSST© proven to have high sensitivity and negative predictive values when compared to gold standard videofluoroscopy.Migration has evolved to tackle temporal changes in availability of resources. Climate change has been shown to affect the migration dates of species, which raises the question of whether the variation in the timing of migration is climate or resource dependent? The relative importance of temperature and availability of food as drivers of migration behaviour during both spring and autumn seasons has been poorly studied. Here, we investigated these patterns in frugivorous and granivorous birds (hereafter frugivorous) that are assumed to postpone their autumn migration when there is plenty of food available, which may also advance upcoming spring migration. On the other hand, especially spring migration dates have been negatively connected with increasing temperatures. We tested whether the autumn and spring migration dates of eleven common frugivorous birds depended on the crop size of trees or ambient temperatures using 29 years of data in Finland. The increased crop sizes of trees delayed autumn migration dates; whereas, autumn temperature did not show a significant connection.