Detection and sequencing of Zika virus in normocephalic newborns with congenital Zika infection.

Fourteen asymptomatic normocephalic newborns with confirmed congenital Zika infection were investigated. All newborns presented Zika virus (ZIKV) positivity on reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. Following ZIKV-specific NS5 gene fragment sequencing in one child, phylogenetic analysis revealed that this isolate belonged to the Asian genotype, and clustered closely with other sequences previously isolated in north-east and northern regions of Brazil.

Safety evaluation of long-term temperature controlled whole-body thermal treatment in female Aachen minipig.

Objective: Thermal treatment (TT), defined as treatment using supra-physiological body temperatures (39-45 C), somewhat resembles fever in terms of temperature range, one of the first natural barriers for the body to fight exposure to external pathogens. Methods: Whole-body thermal treatment (WBTT) consists of heating up the complete body to a temperature range of 39 to 45 C. Despite the recognized therapeutic potential of hyperthermia, the broad clinical use of WBTT has been limited by safety issues related to medical devices and procedures used to achieve WBTT, in particular adequate control of the body temperature. To circumvent this, a sophisticated medical device was developed, allowing long-term temperature controlled WBTT (41.5 C for up to 8 h). Technical feasibility and tolerability of the WBTT procedure (including complete anesthesia) were tested using female Aachen minipig. Optical fiber temperature sensors inserted in multiple organs were used and demonstrated consistent monitoring and control of different organs temperature over an extended period of time. Results: Clinical evaluation of the animals before, during and after treatment revealed minor clinical parameter changes, but all of them were clinically acceptable. These changes were limited and reversible, and the animals remained healthy throughout the whole procedure and follow-up. In addition, histopathological analysis of selected key organs showed no thermal treatment-related changes. Conclusion: It was concluded that WBTT (41.5 C for up to 8 h) was well tolerated and safe in female Aachen minipigs. Altogether, data supports the safe clinical use of the WBTT medical device and protocol, enabling its implementation into human patients suffering from life-threatening diseases.

FindTargetsWEB: A User-Friendly Tool for Identification of Potential Therapeutic Targets in Metabolic Networks of Bacteria.

Background: Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are a serious public health problem. They can be associated with morbidity and mortality and are responsible for the increase in patient hospitalization. Antimicrobial resistance among pathogens causing HAI has increased at alarming levels. In this paper, a robust method for analyzing genome-scale metabolic networks of bacteria is proposed in order to identify potential therapeutic targets, along with its corresponding web implementation, dubbed FindTargetsWEB. The proposed method assumes that every metabolic network presents fragile genes whose blockade will impair one or more metabolic functions, such as biomass accumulation. FindTargetsWEB automates the process of identification of such fragile genes using flux balance analysis (FBA), flux variability analysis (FVA), extended Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML) file parsing, and queries to three public repositories, i.e., KEGG, UniProt, and DrugBank. The web application was developed in Python using COBRApy and Django. Results: The proposed method was demonstrated to be robust enough to process even non-curated, incomplete, or imprecise metabolic networks, in addition to integrated host-pathogen models. A list of potential therapeutic targets and their putative inhibitors was generated as a result of the analysis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa metabolic networks available in the literature and a curated version of the metabolic network of a multidrug-resistant P. aeruginosa strain belonging to a clone endemic in Brazil (P. aeruginosa ST277). Genome-scale metabolic networks of other gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, such as Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Haemophilus influenzae, were also analyzed using FindTargetsWEB. Multiple potential targets have been found using the proposed method in all metabolic networks, including some overlapping between two or more pathogens. Among the potential targets, several have been previously reported in the literature as targets for antimicrobial development, and many targets have approved drugs. Despite similarities in the metabolic network structure for closely related bacteria, we show that the method is able to selectively identify targets in pathogenic versus non-pathogenic organisms. Conclusions: This new computational system can give insights into the identification of new candidate therapeutic targets for pathogenic bacteria and discovery of new antimicrobial drugs through genome-scale metabolic network analysis and heterogeneous data integration, even for non-curated or incomplete networks.

Expressão gênica associada à produção de IFNG na resposta inicial à Leishmania braziliensis / Gene expression associated to IFNG production at initial response to infection with Leishmania braziliensis

Células de voluntários saudáveis, expostas in vitro a Leishmania, podem produzir altos níveis de IFNG na primeira exposição ao parasita, caracterizando os indivíduos como alto respondedores (AR), ou baixos níveis de IFNG, caracterizando os indivíduos baixo respondedores (BR). O objetivo deste estudo foi estudar o perfil de expressão gênica associado ao padrão de produção de IFNG de indivíduos AR e BR. Também avaliamos se as assinaturas gênicas identificadas nos indivíduos AR e BR se associam com o padrão de resposta imune observado em indivíduos de área endêmica identificada como subclínicos (SC) ou portadores de Leishmaniose Cutânea Localizada (LC). Inicialmente, Células Mononucleares do Sangue Periférico (CMSP) de voluntários saudáveis foram estimuladas in vitro com Leishmania braziliensis e identificamos indivíduos AR (com produção de IFNG acima de 330 pg/ml)...

Naïve volunteers exposed to Leishmania in vitro can be high IFNG producers, characterizing a high-responder (HR), or low IFNG producers, characterizing a low-responder (LR). The purpose of this work is to characterize the gene expression profile associated to IFNG production in HR and LR individuals. Formerly, we analyzed if the gene signature identified could be associated with the pattern of immune response in individuals from endemic areas identified as subclinical (SC), or patients with Localized Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (LC). Initially, we stimulated Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMCs) from healthy volunteers in vitro with Leishmania braziliensis where we identified HR (IFNG production above 330 pg/ml)...