Biotec (United Kingdom)

It has been estimated that up to a quarter of young to middle-aged adults have at least one tattoo. As more tattoos are being acquired, increasing numbers of people are also seeking their removal. The number of tattoo removal procedures is still growing. The motivation for tattoo removal includes new jobs or careers, the need to portray a certain image at work or in new social circles, and new, negative feelings towards old tattoos or sometimes tattoo went very bad. Unfortunately, laser tattoo removal is generally more costly, more painful, and takes more time and more patience to have it done. Tattoos are created by the introduction of exogenous pigment into the dermal skin layer and be divided into professional, amateur, cosmetic, traumatic, or medical tattoos. Professional tattoos are applied with a tattoo machine into the deeper layer of the dermis and are permanent in nature. Cosmetic tattoos are often referred to as permanent makeup, are becoming to be more popular...

Indoor environments contribute significantly to total human exposure to air pollutants, as people spend most of their time indoors. Household air pollution (HAP) resulting from cooking with polluting (“dirty”) fuels, which include coal, kerosene, and biomass (wood, charcoal, crop residues, and animal manure) is a global environmental health problem. Indoor pollutants are gases, particulates, toxins, and microorganisms among others, that can have an impact especially on the health of children and adults through a combination of different mechanisms on oxidative stress and gene activation, epigenetic, cellular, and immunological systems. Air pollution is a major risk factor and contributor to morbidity and mortality from major chronic diseases. Children are significantly affected by the impact of the environment due to biological immaturity, prenatal and postnatal lung development. Poor air quality has been related to an increased prevalence of clinical manifestations of allergic asthma and rhinitis. Health professionals should increase their role in managing the exposure of children and adults to air pollution with better methods of care, prevention, and collective action. Interventions to reduce household pollutants may promote health and can be achieved with education, community, and health professional involvement.

Considerando a importância patologica dos disturbios metabolicos em pacientes com sobrepeso e obesidade e na melhoria dos potenciais da Carcinina, metabolito da L-carnosina, que nao foram investigados em pacientes com parâmetros metabolicos alterados ate o momento, realizamos o presente estudo. Nos hipotetizamos que a Carcinina, melhoraria o controle glicemico, insulinico e o perfil lipidico em pacientes com sobrepeso e obesidade. Em um ensaio clinico randomizado, duplo-cego, controlado por placebo, 38 pacientes foram recrutados e designados para qualquer grupo de intervencao (n = 19, recebendo 1 capsula de 200 mg de carcinina cada) ou grupo controle (n = 19). Amostras de sangue, antropometria foram coletadas no inicio, apos 45 e 90 dias de intervencao. A suplementacao de carcinina resultou em diminuicao significativa da Glicemia em jejum (p=0,001) e Frutosamina (p= 0,05). Concluindo, a carcinina pode ser um suplemento utilizado para diminuir os parâmetros metabolicos em individuos com sobrepeso e obesidade.

Abstract Gymnophionan amphibians are characterized mainly by having elongated bodies and lack of limbs and are poorly known because of their secretive life habits. Most species are fossorial, although some are aquatic or semiaquatic. We describe a new species of semiaquatic caecilian, genus Chthonerpeton, from a transition area between the Caatinga and Cerrado biomes, along the coastal vegetation of the State of Piaui, northeastern Brazil. The new species is very similar to Chthonerpeton perissodus and Chthonerpeton noctinectes in annular counts but differs in number of cloacal denticles, color pattern, position of tentacle aperture, and number of teeth.

Keratins are intermediate filaments (IF) found in abundance in epithelial cells. Depolymerisation of these filaments causes the cell to collapse and become more plastic. We have previously shown that SCFC may trigger depolymerisation of keratins through altered protein acetylation (1,2) . The aim of this study was to develop a high-throughput method to quantify IF polymerisation and to apply as a screen for IF-perturbing nutrients and drugs. Three treatments were used in a proof-of-principle study: the anti-fungal drugs griseofulvin and cordycepin (the former a c-mitotic drug known to suppress microtubule growth (3) , the latter inducing abnormal mitosis by suppressing microtubule dynamics (4) ) and sodium butyrate, a histone deacetylase inhibitor that disrupts IF formation in cancer cells via post-translational modification of keratins (1) .

Author SummaryCell migration, like any event involving shape changes, is a mechanical process controlled by complex biochemical pathways. Here, we examine cell migration in developing embryos with a combination of cell biological tools and atomic force microscopy, so as to investigate how cellular mechanical properties control migration. A fundamental step during migration is the formation of a protrusion at the leading edge of the cell. In three-dimensional environments, and particularly in vivo, cells use different protrusion types: spike-like filopodia and flattened lamellipodia, whose growth is driven by actin polymerization, and spherical blebs, which grow because of intracellular pressure pushing on the membrane. It is important to understand how the formation of different protrusion types is mechanically and molecularly controlled, and how the different protrusions specifically contribute to migration. We have addressed this using the zebrafish embryo as a model system. We show that reducing the strength of the attachment between the plasma membrane and the underlying cortical network of actin filaments, or increasing intracellular pressure, increases the proportion of cellular blebs and reduces the directionality of cell migration. Our work reveals that blebs, lamellipodia, and filopodia are not interchangeable and that the relative proportion of each type of protrusion, under the control of mechanical parameters, determines migration directionality during zebrafish gastrulation.

Bacterial colonisation of wounds may delay wound healing. Modern silver-containing dressings are antimicrobial, yet cellular toxicity is a serious side-effect. We provide data for a newly formulated silver-containing oint ment dressing, Atrauman Ag, for antimicrobial activity and cytotoxicity. Atrauman Ag effectively killed a panel of commensal skin as well as pathogenic bacterial strains while cytotoxicity for HaCaT keratinocytes was only around 10%. With these favourable in vitro tests, Atrauman Ag was analysed in 86 patients with traumatic and non-healing wounds of different aetiologies. The wound state was evaluated for 3 subsequent dressing changes. The slough score was reduced from 59.2 to 35.8%, granulation tissue increased from 27 to 40% and epithelialisation went up from 12.1 to 24%. We conclude that Atrauman Ag has a superior profile of antimicrobial activity over cellular toxicity and the low silver ion release rate may prevent interference with wound-healing mechanisms.