Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) Reprograms Circulating Extracellular Vesicles from ACS Patients Impairing Their Cardio-Protective Properties

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are promising therapeutic tools in the treatment of cardiovascular disorders. We have recently shown that EVs from patients with Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) undergoing sham pre-conditioning, before percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) were cardio-protective, while EVs from patients experiencing remote ischemic pre-conditioning (RIPC) failed to induce protection against ischemia/reperfusion Injury (IRI). No data on EVs from ACS patients recovered after PCI are currently available. Therefore, we herein investigated the cardio-protective properties of EVs, collected after PCI from the same patients. EVs recovered from 30 patients randomly assigned (1:1) to RIPC (EV-RIPC) or sham procedures (EV-naive) ({"type":"clinical-trial","attrs":{"text":"NCT02195726","term_id":"NCT02195726"}}NCT02195726) were characterized by TEM, FACS and Western blot analysis and evaluated for their mRNA content. The impact of EVs on hypoxia/reoxygenation damage and IRI, as well as the cardio-protective signaling pathways, were investigated in vitro (HMEC-1 + H9c2 co-culture) and ex vivo (isolated rat heart). Both EV-naive and EV-RIPC failed to drive cardio-protection both in vitro and ex vivo. Consistently, EV treatment failed to activate the canonical cardio-protective pathways. Specifically, PCI reduced the EV-naive Dusp6 mRNA content, found to be crucial for their cardio-protective action, and upregulated some stress- and cell-cycle-related genes in EV-RIPC. We provide the first evidence that in ACS patients, PCI reprograms the EV cargo, impairing EV-naive cardio-protective properties without improving EV-RIPC functional capability.     

Theoretical and experimental study of nematic liquid crystaldisplay cells using the in-plane-switching mode

In this paper a two-dimensional (2-D) dynamic model, based on a tensor formulation and solved numerically by combining finite elements and finite differences, is proposed and used for analyzing nematic liquid crystal (LC) test cells with interdigital electrodes. We compare theoretical and experimental results concerning the switching behavior, response mechanism, and viewing angle characteristics of nematic LC pixel structures which use the in-plane-switching (IPS) mode. The good agreement observed between theory and experiment in terms of electro-optical properties validates our modeling and demonstrates its potential for design optimization. We show that the proposed LC test cells, using the in-plane-switching mode, ensure switching-ON and -OFF response times of 22 and 28 ms, respectively, and excellent viewing angle characteristics     

A new technique for calibration in frequency of piezoelectric transducers

The calibration in frequency of piezoelectric transducers can be obtained by sending an ultrashort laser pulse (30 ps), generated by a mode-locked Nd:YAG laser, directly on the detector surface. Thanks to its short duration, the mode-locked pulse behaves as an excitation source of wide spectral content, so that the spectral analysis of the recorded electric signal gives direct information about the frequency response of the probe. In particular, we report a series of measurements on various transducers of several nominal frequencies and we show the different response of the probe to a focused laser beam to that of an unfocused one.     

Monitoring of perfluorinated compounds in edible fish from the Mediterranean Sea

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulphonate (PFOS) are environmental contaminants belonging to a chemical group known as perfluorinated compounds (PCFs). The United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) considers both compounds to be carcinogenic. The goal of the present study was to evaluate the contamination levels of PFOS and PFOA in edible fish of the Mediterranean Sea. Twenty six fish muscles, 17 fish livers, five series of cephalopods (each composed of ten specimens) and thirteen series of bivalves (each composed of about 50 specimens) were used for the investigation. A fast sample treatment, followed by an LC–ESI–MS/MS method is described for the identification, and quantification of PFOA and PFOS in fish. The method was in-house-validated through the determination of precision, accuracy, specificity, calibration curve, decision limit (CCα), and detection capability (CCβ). The results showed PFOA and PFOS levels in fishes and molluscs lower than those reported for analogue matrices in different geographic areas. Therefore, our biomonitoring results did not show that the Mediterranean Sea had any particularly alarming pollution by PFCs, although it is located in a semi-closed basin with scarce water change. Nonetheless, a worrying element is that a few fish showed extremely high contamination by PFOA and PFOS. This finding needs further clarification in order to assess whether such unusual contamination is linked to “dot-like” pollutant release, which could explain the anomaly.     

Influence of ethanol on the rennet-induced coagulation of milk

The influence of ethanol on the rennet-induced coagulation of milk was studied to investigate potential synergistic effects of these two mechanisms of destabilisation on the casein micelles. Addition of 5% (v/v) ethanol reduced the rennet coagulation time (RCT) of milk, whereas higher levels of ethanol (10-20%, v/v) progressively increased RCT. The temperature at which milk was coagulable by rennet decreased with increasing ethanol content of the milk. The primary stage of rennet coagulation, i.e., the enzymatic hydrolysis of kappa-casein, was progressively slowed with increasing ethanol content (5-20%, v/v), possibly due to ethanol-induced conformational changes in the enzyme molecule. The secondary stage of rennet coagulation, i.e., the aggregation of kappa-casein-depleted micelles, was enhanced in the presence of 5-15% ethanol, the effect being largest at 5% ethanol. Enhanced aggregation of micelles is probably due to an ethanol-induced decrease in inter-micellar steric repulsion. These results indicate an interrelationship between the effects of ethanol and chymosin on the casein micelles in milk, which may have interesting implications for properties of dairy products.     

Assessing the Potential Content of Ethyl Carbamate in White,Red, and Rosé Wines as a Key Factor for Pursuing Urea Degradation by Purified Acid Urease

The ethyl carbamate (EC) content of a wine after a given temperature‐time storage was theoretically predicted from the potential concentration of ethyl carbamate (PEC), as determined via an accelerated EC formation test. Such information was used to decide whether an enzymatic treatment was needed to reduce the wine urea level before bottling/aging. To this end, 6 white, red, and rosé wines, manufactured in Italy as such or enriched with urea, were tested for their PEC content either before or after enzymatic treatment using a purified acid urease preparation derived from Lactobacillus fermentum. The treatment was severely affected by the total phenolic content (TP) of the wine, the estimated pseudo‐first‐order kinetic rate constant for NH₃ formation reducing by a factor of approximately 2000 as the TP increased from 0 to 1.64 g L^‐1. Such a sensitivity to TP was by far greater than that pertaining to a killed cell‐based enzyme preparation used previously. Urea hydrolysis was successful at reducing EC concentration in wines with low levels of TP and other EC precursors.     

Modeling the flexural fatigue behavior of glass-fiber-reinforced thermoplastic matrices

A two-parameter model explicitly accounting for the cyclic as well as the mean stress was proposed and tested on the basis of static and fatigue data obtained in four-point bending on a random continuous glass-fiber-reinforced polypropylene. The model is based on residual strength degradation and captures the effect of stress ratio (i.e. the ratio between the minimal and the maximal stress). The experimental data were in excellent agreement with the theoretical predictions, indicating that a fatigue characterization can be achieved with a minimum of experimental tests. Further, the reasonable agreement between the static strength data and the theoretical predictions highlighted the potential and reliability of the model in view of its statistical implementation     

Spectrograph based on a single diffractive element for real-time measurement of circular dichroism

In this study, a novel and simple diffractive spectrographic method for real-time measurements of circular dichroism (CD) is considered from a theoretical and experimental approach. A demonstrator prototype of the CD spectrograph has been developed and its performance has been compared with a commercial phase-modulation CD spectrometer. The main element of the device is a polarization holographic grating, recorded in a thin photosensitive organic film, by two interfering opposite circularly polarized beams. A peculiarity of this grating is that the amplitude of the +1 (-1) order of diffraction is proportional to the right (left) circular polarization component of the incoming beam. Here we demonstrate that the CD spectrum of a specimen can be easily evaluated from the intensities of the diffracted beams. A white light beam passing through the specimen is diffracted from the grating and the intensities of the +/-1 orders of diffraction are measured. Due to the spectral selectivity of the grating, the CD at each wavelength can be evaluated at the same time using two linear array detectors.