Peripheral Biomarkers of Inflammation in Depression: Evidence from Animal Models and Clinical Studies

Depression is a highly prevalent psychiatric condition, with over 300 million sufferers, and is an important comorbidity for other conditions, like cardiovascular disorders or diabetes. Therapy is largely based on psychotherapy and/or pharmacological intervention, particularly aimed at altering neurotransmitter levels in the central nervous system, but inadequate response to treatment remains a significant clinical problem. Herein, evidence supporting a molecular link between inflammation and depression will be discussed, particularly the increased prevalence of depression in chronic inflammatory diseases and the evidence on the use of anti-inflammatory drugs to treat depression. Moreover, the potential for the levels of peripheral inflammatory molecules to act as depression biomarkers, in the diagnosis and monitoring of depression will be examined, considering clinical- and animal model-based evidence.

Hazing Violence: Practices of Domination and Coercion in Hazing in Portugal

The moment of entry into university marks an important transition for students in Portugal. Their new situation requires an update and a new personal, academic, and social contextualization and, in this new universe, hazing plays a significant role. This study aimed to understand the phenomenon of hazing in Portugal, analyzing, specifically, the violent behaviors that can occur in this context. To this effect, we have developed the Questionnaire for the Assessment of Experience in Hazing (QAVPA)-a questionnaire that allows the analysis of Portuguese students' hazing experiences and situations of violence. This questionnaire was applied to a sample consisting of 586 university students and ex-students who participated in hazing, 393 (67.1%) women and 193 (32.9%) men, with ages between 18 and 47 years ( M = 23.27, SD = 4.24). From the gathered data, 77.8% were victims of violence in hazing rituals, 86.9% witnessed violent practices, and 39.8% admitted having had violent behaviors toward new students. It was also found that variables such as having been a victim of this type of violence, sex, type of education, and hierarchy level are associated with the perpetration of violence in this context.

Plasma level of club-cell (CC-16) predicts outcome in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

OBJECTIVES

The club cell protein (CC-16) is a biomarker associated with respiratory distress and pulmonary inflammation. We evaluated CC-16 as a candidate biomarker for respiratory failure in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We studied 81 ALS patients and 30 matched controls. We used an ALS-related measure of functional capacity, and tested forced vital capacity (FVC) and the amplitude of the diaphragmatic response by phrenic nerve stimulation (PhrenAmpl). Plasma CC-16 levels were measured in venous blood. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were plotted to evaluate risk to non-invasive ventilation and death in patients with abnormal CC-16 levels.

RESULTS

CC-16 levels were significantly raised in ALS patients (10.56 ng/mL ± 6.84 vs 8.34 ng/mL ± 3.10, P = .02), and in 17% of them, CC-16 level was above the upper cutoff value (mean + 2.5SD). CC-16 levels did not correlate with age, onset region, disease duration, functional status, FVC, and PhrenAmpl. In patients with increased CC-16 level, the risk of non-invasive was greater in the following 6 months (P = .01) and tended to have higher mortality in the following 30 months (P = .07).

CONCLUSIONS

We propose that increased CC-16 levels is a marker of lung inflammatory response that associated with ventilatory insufficiency are related to impending respiratory failure, not fully predicted by conventional respiratory tests. The latter are limited by the moment of testing.

Gestural praxis in young adults with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities

BACKGROUND

Praxis functioning in the population with intellectual disabilities (ID) has been poorly studied. The goal of this research was to look for a starting point to study the praxic functioning in young adults with mild to moderate ID.

METHOD

Thirty young adults with ID and 30 young adults without ID, between the ages of 18 and 35 years, participated in this study. All participants completed tests that assessed gestural praxis.

RESULTS

It was possible to observe similar praxis behaviour in the group with ID in almost all domains studied, albeit showing statistical values lower than those of the group without ID.

DISCUSSIONS

Despite the high number of errors committed, the sample of participants with ID was able to reach the goal of praxic tasks performed; such errors may be associated with a deficit in the development of various brain functions and not only with praxis functioning, mainly related to a lower yield in terms of planning, monitoring and correcting intentional movement.

Pedigree studies and evaluation of risk factors of breast cancer in Goa

BACKGROUND

Incidence of breast cancer (BC) is increasing in most of the countries, including the areas which have had previously low rates.

AIM

The aim of this prospective study was to analyze the pedigrees of the patients for detecting hereditary factor prevalence and to investigate the possible risk factors associated with BC in a sample population from Goa.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A prospective analysis was performed for 95 BC patients between 2011 and 2012. For assessing the risk factors, a proforma was designed and the necessary data was collected by interview. The process of collecting family history for drawing the pedigree included interviewing the informant.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED

Online calculators of statistics were used for standard deviation at www.easycalculation.com and fishers test at www.graphpad.com.

RESULTS

High frequency of BC was revealed in the sample population from Goa. This could be attributed to the changes in reproductive patterns, physical inactivity and obesity, or general increase in BC awareness. Factors which did not influence the frequency of BC in the sample population include parity, oral contraceptives, alcohol consumption, occupation, exercise, and nutritional supplement. High incidence of family history of 168/1000 individuals was observed in the present study.

CONCLUSIONS

Proper management of BC is possible after assessment of cumulative risk of BC in females by a thorough study of both environmental and genetic factors. Cumulative risk can be greatly reduced by controlling the environmental risk.

Improving cell adhesion: development of a biosensor for cell behaviour monitoring by surface grafting of sulfonic groups onto a thermoplastic polyurethane

The surface properties of a material in combination with the mechanical properties are responsible for the material performance in a biological environment as well as the behaviour of the cells which contact with the material. Surface properties such as chemical, physical, biological play an important role in the biomaterials filed. In this work, the surface of a thermoplastic polyurethane film (Elastollan(®)1180A50) was tailored with sulfonic groups by grafting [2-(methacryloxyl)ethyl]-dimethyl-(3-sulfopropyl)-ammonium hydroxide (SB) after a previous surface activation either by Argon plasma or by ultra-violet irradiation. This surface modification had the purpose of improving cell adhesion in order to develop a biosensor able to monitor cell behaviour. The surfaces were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, by atomic force microscopy and by contact angle measurements in order to evaluate the efficiency of the modification. Additionally, blood compatibility studies and cell adhesion tests with human bone marrow cells were performed. These methods allowed the grafting of SB and the results indicate that a higher density of grafting was achieved with previous surface plasma treatment than with UV irradiation. However, for both techniques, the presence of SB functional groups led to a decrease of hydrophobicity and roughness of the surface, together with an improvement of the materials biological performance.

Exonic splicing signals impose constraints upon the evolution of enzymatic activity

Exon splicing enhancers (ESEs) overlap with amino acid coding sequences implying a dual evolutionary selective pressure. In this study, we map ESEs in the placental alkaline phosphatase gene (ALPP), absent in the corresponding exon of the ancestral tissue-non-specific alkaline phosphatase gene (ALPL). The ESEs are associated with amino acid differences between the transcripts in an area otherwise conserved. We switched out the ALPP ESEs sequences with the sequence from the related ALPL, introducing the associated amino acid changes. The resulting enzymes, produced by cDNA expression, showed different kinetic characteristics than ALPL and ALPP. In the organism, this enzyme will never be subjected to selection because gene splicing analysis shows exon skipping due to loss of the ESE. Our data prove that ESEs restrict the evolution of enzymatic activity. Thus, suboptimal proteins may exist in scenarios when coding nucleotide changes and consequent amino acid variation cannot be reconciled with the splicing function.