08/31/2024


Despite the virulence and high fatality of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), no specific antiviral treatment exists until the current moment. Natural agents with immune-promoting potentials such as bee products are being explored as possible treatments. Bee honey and propolis are rich in bioactive compounds that express strong antimicrobial, bactericidal, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, and antioxidant activities. This review examined the literature for the anti-COVID-19 effects of bee honey and propolis, with the aim of optimizing the use of these handy products as prophylactic or adjuvant treatments for people infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). Molecular simulations show that flavonoids in propolis and honey (e.g., rutin, naringin, caffeic acid phenyl ester, luteolin, and artepillin C) may inhibit viral spike fusion in host cells, viral-host interactions that trigger the cytokine storm, and viral replication. Similar to the potent antiviral drug remdesivir, rutin, propolis ethanolic extract, and propolis liposomes inhibited non-structural proteins of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro, and these compounds along with naringin inhibited SARS-CoV-2 infection in Vero E6 cells. Propolis extracts delivered by nanocarriers exhibit better antiviral effects against SARS-CoV-2 than ethanolic extracts. In line, hospitalized COVID-19 patients receiving green Brazilian propolis or a combination of honey and Nigella sativa exhibited earlier viral clearance, symptom recovery, discharge from the hospital as well as less mortality than counterparts receiving standard care alone. Thus, the use of bee products as an adjuvant treatment for COVID-19 may produce beneficial effects. Implications for treatment outcomes and issues to be considered in future studies are discussed.Cytarabine is a pyrimidine nucleoside analog, commonly used in multiagent chemotherapy regimens for the treatment of leukemia and lymphoma, as well as for neoplastic meningitis. Ara-C-based chemotherapy regimens can induce a suboptimal clinical outcome in a fraction of patients. Several studies suggest that the individual variability in clinical response to Leukemia & Lymphoma treatments among patients, underlying either Ara-C mechanism resistance or toxicity, appears to be associated with the intracellular accumulation and retention of Ara-CTP due to genetic variants related to metabolic enzymes. Herein, we reported (a) the latest Pharmacogenomics biomarkers associated with the response to cytarabine and (b) the new drug formulations with optimized pharmacokinetics. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/unc0638.html The purpose of this review is to provide readers with detailed and comprehensive information on the effects of Ara-C-based therapies, from biological to clinical practice, maintaining high the interest of both researcher and clinical hematologist. This review could help clinicians in predicting the response to cytarabine-based treatments.Fibrinolytic factors like plasminogen, tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA), and urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA) dissolve clots. Though mere extracellular-matrix-degrading enzymes, fibrinolytic factors interfere with many processes during primary cancer growth and metastasis. Their many receptors give them access to cellular functions that tumor cells have widely exploited to promote tumor cell survival, growth, and metastatic abilities. They give cancer cells tools to ensure their own survival by interfering with the signaling pathways involved in senescence, anoikis, and autophagy. They can also directly promote primary tumor growth and metastasis, and endow tumor cells with mechanisms to evade myelosuppression, thus acquiring drug resistance. In this review, recent studies on the role fibrinolytic factors play in metastasis and controlling cell-death-associated processes are presented, along with studies that describe how cancer cells have exploited plasminogen receptors to escape myelosuppression.Application of LC-MS/MS-based molecular networking indicated the ethanol extract of octocoral Asterospicularia laurae is a potential source for the discovery of new xenicane derivatives. A natural product investigation of this soft coral resulted in the isolation of four new xenicane diterpenoids, asterolaurins O‒R (1‒4), together with six known compounds, xeniolide-A (5), isoxeniolide-A (6), xeniolide-B (7), 7,8-epoxyxeniolide-B (8), 7,8-oxido-isoxeniolide-A (9), and 9-hydroxyxeniolide-F (10). The structures of isolated compounds were characterized by employing spectroscopic analyses, including 2D-NMR (COSY, HMQC, HMBC, and NOESY) and high-resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HRESIMS). Asterolaurin O is the first case of brominated tricarbocyclic type floridicin in the family Xeniidae. Concerning bioactivity, the cytotoxic activity of those isolates was evaluated. As a result, compounds 1 and 2 demonstrated a selective cytotoxic effect against the MCF-7 cell line at IC50 of 14.7 and 25.1 μM, respectively.Urinary incontinence (UI) is a significant social problem. According to the World Health Organization, UI affects as much as 30% of premenopausal women and 60% of postmenopausal women. Urinary incontinence can lead to certain problems that negatively affect a woman's sex life. They result from the fact that certain processes take place in the body during intercourse. As a result of orgasm, the intra-abdominal pressure increases, which in women with urinary incontinence can cause an uncontrolled leakage of urine. The discomfort that this causes, in turn, lowers sexual attractiveness, as well as causes embarrassment. The study involved 50 patients hospitalized in the period from February to May 2019 at the Gynecology Department of the Independent Public Healthcare Center of the Ministry of the Interior and Administration in Wrocław. All patients underwent surgical treatment of stress urinary incontinence using the transobturator tape (TOT) method. To assess sexuality, the international standardized Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) questionnaire. Analysis of the results obtained from the FSFI questionnaire shows that the operation significantly affects the reduction in pain sensation during intercourse, a reduction in the sensation of sexual arousal, and a worsening vaginal wetness. Stress urinary incontinence significantly affects women's sex life.This article presents an empirical study on the institutional audiovisual mediatization of social sustainability made by the eighteen religious denominations officially recognized in Romania during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic onset. Research is undertaken based on the mediatization theories. Specifically, it highlights and discusses the conditions for producing the meaning of social sustainability as a result of religious mediatization during the months of March, April and May 2020, a period with strong religious connotations since it involved the dates of the major annual feasts celebrated by the three majority monotheistic religions, i.e., the Christian Easter, the Muslim Ramadan and the Jewish Passover. As a result, we noticed that the production of meaning in terms of social sustainability was simultaneously anchored in the accumulation of four contextual "social worlds" (a) that of social transformation induced by mediatization, (b) that of the COVID-19 pandemic, a crisis that is neither social, economic, or environmental, but with consequences on the three levels of reality mentioned above, (c) that of spirituality during the time of the great monotheistic religious feasts and (d) that of the national culture of Romania, statistically the most religious country of the European Union.Diabetic neuropathy is one of the most common complications of diabetes. This complication is peripheral neuropathy with predominant sensory impairment, and its symptoms begin with hyperesthesia and pain and gradually become hypoesthesia with the loss of nerve fibers. In some cases, lower limb amputation occurs when hypoalgesia makes it impossible to be aware of trauma or mechanical stimuli. On the other hand, up to 50% of these complications are asymptomatic and tend to delay early detection. Therefore, sensitive and reliable biomarkers for diabetic neuropathy are needed for an early diagnosis of this condition. This review focuses on systemic biomarkers that may be useful at this time. It also describes research on the relationship between target gene polymorphisms and pathological conditions. Finally, we also introduce current information on regenerative therapy, which is expected to be a therapeutic approach when the pathological condition has progressed and nerve degeneration has been completed.In this paper, ultraviolet (UV)-induced nanoparticle colloid jet machining is proposed to achieve ultrasmooth surface polishing by using the interaction between nanoparticles and the workpiece surface under the action of the ultraviolet field and the hydrodynamic pressure field. In the process of UV-induced nanoparticle colloid jet machining, the effects of photocatalysis on the interaction between nanoparticles and the workpiece surface need to be further studied in order to better understand the polishing process. This paper presents the interaction between TiO2 nanoparticles and a Si workpiece surface with and without ultraviolet irradiation. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were applied to investigate the differences in the interaction of TiO2 nanoparticles with Si workpieces. The SEM and XPS results indicate that the photocatalysis of UV light can promote the interaction between TiO2 nanoparticles and a Si surface by creating more interfacial reaction active centers between the TiO2 nanoparticles and the Si workpiece. The FT-IR and XPS spectra show that TiO2 nanoparticles are chemically bonded to the Si workpiece by oxygen-bridging atoms in Ti-O-Si bonds. Due to the effects of photocatalysis, UV-induced nanoparticle colloid jet machining has a higher polishing efficiency than nanoparticle colloid jet machining with the same polishing parameters.The phosphorylation of serine 10 in histone 3 (p-S10H3) has recently been demonstrated to participate in spinal nociceptive processing. However, superficial dorsal horn (SDH) neurons involved in p-S10H3-mediated nociception have not been fully characterized. In the present work, we combined immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization with the retrograde labeling of projection neurons to reveal the subset of dorsal horn neurons presenting an elevated level of p-S10H3 in response to noxious heat (60 °C), causing burn injury. Projection neurons only represented a small percentage (5%) of p-S10H3-positive cells, while the greater part of them belonged to excitatory SDH interneurons. The combined immunolabeling of p-S10H3 with markers of already established interneuronal classes of the SDH revealed that the largest subset of neurons with burn injury-induced p-S10H3 expression was dynorphin immunopositive in mice. Furthermore, the majority of p-S10H3-expressing dynorphinergic neurons proved to be excitatory, as they lacked Pax-2 and showed Lmx1b-immunopositivity. Thus, we showed that neurochemically heterogeneous SDH neurons exhibit the upregulation of p-S10H3 shortly after noxious heat-induced burn injury and consequential tissue damage, and that a dedicated subset of excitatory dynorphinergic neurons is likely a key player in the development of central sensitization via the p-S10H3 mediated pathway.