Responsiveness to pulmonary rehabilitation in COPD is associated with changes in microbiota.

BACKGROUND: Pulmonary Rehabilitation (PR) is one of the most cost-effective therapies for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) management. There are, however, people who do not respond to PR and reasons for non-response are mostly unknown. PR is likely to change the airway microbiota and this could play a role in its responsiveness. In this study we have explored the association between PR effectiveness and specific alterations in oral microbiota and inflammation. METHODS: A prospective longitudinal study was conducted. Data on exercise capacity, dyspnoea, impact of disease and 418 saliva samples were collected from 76 patients, half of whom participated in a 12-weeks PR programme. Responders and non-responders to PR (dyspnoea, exercise-capacity and impact of disease) were defined based on minimal clinically important differences. RESULTS: Changes in microbiota, including Prevotella melaninogenica and Streptococcus were observed upon PR. Prevotella, previously found to be depleted in severe COPD, increased during the first month of PR in responders. This increase was negatively correlated with Streptococcus and Lautropia, known to be enriched in severe cases of COPD. Simultaneously, an anti-inflammatory commensal of the respiratory tract, Rothia, correlated strongly and negatively with several pro-inflammatory markers, whose levels were generally boosted by PR. Conversely, in non-responders, the observed decline in Prevotella correlated negatively with Streptococcus and Lautropia whose fluctuations co-occurred with several pro-inflammatory markers. CONCLUSIONS: PR is associated with changes in oral microbiota. Specifically, PR increases salivary Prevotella melaninogenica and avoids the decline in Rothia and the increase in Streptococcus and Lautropia in responders, which may contribute to the benefits of PR.

In-line measurements of the physical and thermodynamic properties of single and multicomponent liquids.

Microfluidic devices are becoming increasingly important in various fields of pharmacy, flow chemistry and healthcare. In the embedded microchannel, the flow rates, the dynamic viscosity of the transported liquids and the fluid dynamic properties play an important role. Various functional auxiliary components of microfluidic devices such as flow restrictors, valves and flow meters need to be characterised with liquids used in several microfluidic applications. However, calibration with water does not always reflect the behaviour of the liquids used in the different applications. Therefore, several National Metrology Institutes (NMI) have developed micro-pipe viscometers for traceable inline measurement of the dynamic viscosity of liquids used in flow applications as part of the EMPIR 18HLT08 MeDDII project. These micro-pipe viscometers allow the calibration of any flow device at different flow rates and the calibration of the dynamic viscosity of the liquid or liquid mixture used under actual flow conditions. The validation of the micro-pipe viscometers has been performed either with traceable reference oils or with different liquids typically administered in hospitals, such as saline and/or glucose solutions or even glycerol-water mixtures for higher dynamic viscosities. Furthermore, measurement results of a commercially available device and a technology demonstrator for the inline measurement of dynamic viscosity and density are presented in this paper.

Analysis of HMF and furfural in hydrolyzed lignocellulosic biomass by HPLC-DAD-based method using FDCA as internal standard.

HMF (hydroxymethylfurfural), a compound that occurs naturally in food, is derived from the dehydration of monosaccharides (glucose and fructose) in products subjected to high-temperature treatments or to aging processes. HMF can be obtained by acid-catalyzed dehydration of lignocellulosic biomasses such as sugarcane bagasse and other agricultural residues. In this work, analytical quantification of HMF and furfural (the main co-product) was performed using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with diode array detection (HPLC-DAD). The official method employs isocratic elution with a mobile phase composed of water and acetonitrile at a ratio of 80:20 (v/v). The analytical method proposed here was developed using 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) as internal standard, for the first time, with 0.01 mol L-1 trisodium citrate and ultrapure water as the mobile phase, adjusted to pH 2.5. The acidity of the mobile phase was required to avoid FDCA deprotonation. Good peak resolution and selectivity were obtained, without differences in the retention times of the analytes present in the standard solutions used to obtain the analytical curve and in the aqueous and organic phases from the synthesis of HMF using lignocellulosic biomass hydrolysis. The method complies with the current recommendations of AOAC regarding validation parameters.•The proposed HPLC method improves peak selectivity and resolution.•The method is suitable for acid sample media, such as aqueous and organic hydrolysis phases.•2,5-Furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) was used as internal standard.

Assessment of drug delivery devices.

For critical drug delivery, it is important to have a constant and well-known infusion rate delivered by the complete infusion set-up (pump, tubing, and accessories). Therefore, various drug delivery devices and accessories were tested in this article in terms of their infusion accuracy, start-up delay, response time, and dependency on the viscosity. These measurements were performed as part of the European funded research project MeDD. The obtained results show that the infusion accuracy of the devices is flow rate and accessory depended, especially for low flow rates. Viscosity does not have a significant impact on the flow rate accuracy.

Hesperidinase encapsulation towards hesperitin production targeting improved bioavailability.

Hesperidin (hesperitin-7-O-rutinoside) and hesperitin (hesperitin-7-O-glucoside) show anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antioxidant, and anticarcinogenic effects and prevent bone loss. However, hesperidin has a low bioavailability compared to hesperitin due to the rutinoside moiety attached to the flavonoid. The removal of the rhamnose group to yield the corresponding flavonoid glucoside (hesperetin-7-glucoside) improved the bioavailability of the aglycone, hesperetin, in humans. In line with these assumptions, the aim of this work was the enzymatic production of hesperitin from hesperidin with hesperidinase. Despite the low hesperidin solubility in the reaction medium, the enzymatic bioconversion was carried with hesperidin soluble at lower concentrations (≤0.05 mg ml(-1)) and insoluble for high concentrations (>0.1-50 mg ml(-1)). A twofold increase in maximum reaction rates overtook the expected values, pointing to the enzyme ability to degrade insoluble hesperidin. To improve the bioprocess, hesperidinase was tested soluble and immobilized in calcium alginate (2%), k-carrageenan (2%), and chitosan (2%) beads. The immobilization was carried out by adsorption and encapsulation. Chitosan was cross-linked with glutaraldehyde (1% and 2%) and sodium sulfate (13.5% and 15%) in acetate buffer (0.02 M, pH 4.0). The relation between bioprocessing conditions and hesperidinase stability was studied. A residual activity of 193% was obtained with immobilized hesperidinase compared to the soluble form. A half-life of 770 min was attained with hesperidinase encapsulated in calcium alginate beads. The results presented in this work highlight the potential of hesperidinase encapsulation towards hesperitin production with insoluble substrate. To our knowledge, this work presents for the first time the potential of hesperidinase encapsulation on hydrogels for hesperitin production. This is an important achievement for pharmaceutical and nutraceutical applications of hesperitin because this compound presents a higher bioavailability compared to hesperidin.

An alternative approach to detect Trypanosoma in Glossina (Diptera, Glossinidae) without dissection.

BACKGROUND: Determining if a tsetse fly is infected by trypanosomes and thus potentially able to transmit trypanosome-related human and animal diseases is an extremely laborious and time-consuming task to perform, especially under field conditions. In this study we tested a possible alternative approach that uses the entire insect vector for DNA extraction and PCR analysis to detect and identify Trypanosoma spp. in field collected tsetse flies. METHODOLOGY: DNA extraction was performed using a method originally developed for tick DNA extraction followed by PCR detection and identification of Trypanosoma spp. RESULTS: Two out of 62 flies captured in Equatorial Guinea carried DNA of T. brucei s.l. and Trypanosoma vivax. T. congolense forest, T. congolense savannah and T. congolense Kilifi were not detected. CONCLUSIONS: The approach we employed allowed the molecular detection and species identification of trypanosomes using the whole vector body for DNA extraction. Although the approach does not give direct information on tsetse infectivity, it provides valuable information about trypanosome species circulating in a tsetse fly vector population. The method allows an effective processing of a large number of field captured tsetse in a central laboratory.