Oral Health Literacy and Retention of Health Information Among Pregnant Women: A Randomised Controlled Trial.

PURPOSE: This study evaluated the effect of oral health literacy (OHL) on the retention of health information in pregnant women. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 175 pregnant women were randomly assigned to standard oral (spoken), written and control intervention groups. With the exception of the control group, the interventions investigated the eating habits and oral hygiene among children under 2 years of age. The participants' answers before the interventions (pre-test), 15 min after the interventions (post-test) and 4 weeks after the interventions (follow-up test) were used to estimate the knowledge score (KS). Information acquisition was determined by comparing pre-test and post-test results, while retention of information was based comparing pre-test and follow-up test results. OHL was analysed by BREALD-30. The data were assessed by nonparametric tests and Poisson regression models with robust variance (α = 0.05). RESULTS: By the end of the follow-up period, 162 pregnant women had been assessed. The BREALD-30 mean was 22.3 (SD = 4.80). Regardless of the type of intervention, pregnant women with low OHL had lower knowledge scores in the three assessments. Participants with low OHL showed higher acquisition and retention of information in the standard oral health intervention. Multiple regression models demonstrated that OHL was independently associated with KS, age, socioeconomic status and type of intervention. CONCLUSION: The results suggest a negative effect of low OHL on retention of information. Only the standard, spoken oral health intervention could address the differences in literacy levels.

Salivary detection of periodontopathic bacteria in Fanconi's anemia patients.

Fanconi's anemia (FA) is characterized by bone marrow failure and can lead to infections such as periodontal disease. The aim of this study was to compare the prevalence of four periodontopathic bacteria including Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, Porphyromonas gingivalis, Fusobacterium nucleatum and Treponema denticola in saliva samples from children with and without FA. Paraffin-stimulated saliva samples were collected from 71 children and adolescents, aged 6-18 years old. The samples were divided in three groups: FA without HSCT (n = 25), FA with HSCT (n = 23) and Non-FA (n = 24). The test bacteria were identified using a 16S rRNA-based PCR analysis. P. gingivalis was the most frequent species in all groups and T. denticola the less frequent. P. gingivalis was also common species in combinations in all groups. No statistically difference was observed between the groups for single bacteria, pair or triple combination. The combination of the four species was detected in one saliva sample of the FA without HSCT group and in five samples of the Non-FA group, with statistical difference between them (p < 0.05, Fisher exact test). Systemic alterations found in FA subjects did not affect the salivary distribution of the four bacteria analyzed.

Use of Protein Thin Film Organized by External Electric Field as a Template for Protein Crystallization.

The well-known difficulty to obtain high-quality protein crystals has motivated researchers to come up with new methods or modifications of established crystallization methods to stimulate the growth of good diffracting crystals. In the present work, a new approach, using a protein thin film organized by external electric field (EEF) as a template for protein crystal growth, is introduced. This method increased nucleation of hen egg white lysozyme (HEWL) in comparison with the classical vapor diffusion method, besides improving crystal morphology and size. X-ray diffraction analyses indicated improvements in crystal quality. When HEWL was crystallized at pH 6.2, in which this protein presents biological activity, the control crystal presented a poorly ordered crystalline structure and a low resolution cutoff at 3.42 Å, whereas the crystal grown with the EEF protein film revealed a high-resolution limit at 1.67 Å. These results suggest that protein films organized by EEF may improve protein crystals and their data quality.

Purification and characterisation of Azospirillum brasilense N-truncated NtrX protein.

The NtrX protein has been identified as a transcriptional activator of genes involved in the metabolic control of alternative nitrogen sources, acting as a member of a two-component regulatory system. The in silico analysis of the NtrX amino acid sequence shows that this protein contains an N-terminal receiver domain, a central AAA+ superfamily domain and a C-terminal DNA binding domain. To over-express and purify this protein, the ntrX gene of Azospirillum brasilense lacking the first eight codons was cloned into the vector pET29a+. The NtrX protein was over-expressed as an S.Tag fusion protein induced by l-arabinose in the Escherichia coli strain BL21AI and purified by ion exchange and affinity chromatography. The ATPase activity of NtrX was measured by coupling the ATP conversion to ADP with NADH oxidation. The ATPase activity of NtrX was stimulated in the presence of A. brasilense sigma(54)/NtrC-dependent promoter of the glnBA gene. Phosphorylation by carbamyl-phosphate also stimulated ATPase, in a manner similar to the NtrC protein. Together our results suggest that NtrX is active in the phosphorylated form and that there may be a cross-talk between the NtrYX and NtrBC regulatory systems in A. brasilense.