Identification of HLA functional motifs associated with severe systemic sclerosis and sclerotic-graft versus host disease: The shared epitopes of fibrosis

Background: The aim of our study was to identify the HLA class II functional motifs (shared epitopes) associated with severe skin fibrosis in SSc and scl-GVHD. Methods: Seventy consecutive SSc patients (15 with diffuse (dSSc) and 55 with limited (lSSc) cutaneous subset) fulfilling 2013 ACR/EULAR classification criteria and 43 sclGVHD patients with skin fibrosis involving >50 % of body surface area recruited from National Cancer Institute observational clinical trial on chronic GVHD (04-C-...

The Supernumerary Robotic Fingers to Compensate and Augment the Human Manipulation Abilities

Besides, traditional prosthesis and exoskeletons, a very challenging research direction is to add robotic limbs to human, rather than substituting or enhancing them. This addition could let the human to augment their abilities and could give support in everyday tasks. These wearable robots are aimed to augment not only the strength and the precision of the human users, but also their range of skills and interactions with the environment. The guiding principles of the robotic design are safety...

LA BATAILLE LOQUIFER : EDIZIONE CRITICA

Biodiversity and ecology of Tuscan malacocoenoses with particular reference to the effects of human impact

For the most part, there is no doubt that human impact on biodiversity has been negative: habitat loss and degradation, pollution, overexploitation, and introduction of invasive species had played significant roles in biodiversity decline. However, human impact on Earth is not always so detrimental and its effects are not the same for all taxa. The aim of this thesis was to assess the anthropogenic impact on one of the most endangered and often unnoticed groups - terrestrial molluscs - firstl...

Functional characterization of the pneumococcal Integrative Conjugative Element Tn5253

Integrative conjugative elements (ICEs) are responsible for pneumococcal genome evolution and more particularly for virulence and drug resistance acquisition. During conjugation, ICEs transfer from a donor cell containing the genetic element to a recipient cell lacking it. ICEs insert into the bacterial genome, excise from it and form a covalently closed circular intermediate which can integrate in a different genomic site and/or can integrate in a new genome upon conjugative transfer. Tn52...

SOCIAL CONFLICTS AND MOVEMENTS: A NETWORK APPROACH

For a long time, the world experiences a permanent increase in wealth inequality. While the bottom half of the world's population shares less than 1 percent of the world's wealth, the top ten percent owns 89 percent of the total assets in the world (Suisse, 2016). Among many other things, widespread poverty and starvation are just two consequences of this fact. Unfortunately, the concentration of the wealth causes many other socioeconomic problems. For instance, as competition increases, prod...

Fighting HIV-1 and related diseases using rational medicinal chemistry approaches: from computational chemistry to biological evaluation

HIV-1 is undoubtedly one of the viruses that have characterized the last half century in human history. This virus, found to be the AIDS etiological cause, is still one of the biggest challenges for drug therapy, since there are still neither a vaccine nor a definitive cure. Therefore, despite more than 25 marketed drugs administered in several combinations in HAART (Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy), there is still the need of molecules active through new mechanisms, in order to overcom...

Improvement of pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidines pharmacokinetic properties in cancer therapy: nanosystem and prodrugs approaches

The protein kinases overexpression and iperactivation are presents in several kind of tumor. Pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidines represent a promising class of compounds capable of inhibiting several oncogenic tyrosine kinases, which represent an attractive target for the development of new therapeutic agents against cancer. The anticancer activity of pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidines was confirmed in several cancer cell lines, both from solid tumors (i.e. osteosarcoma SaOS-2, prostate PC3, neuroblastom...

Assessment of transsulfuration enzymes pattern in a human astrocytoma cell line

La via di transulfurazione è centrale nel metabolismo degli amminoacidi solforati, questa, attraverso l'azione di due enzimi, la cistationina-β-sintasi e la cistationine-γ-liasi permette la sintesi di cisteina a partire da serina e omocisteina. Entrambi gli enzimi catalizzano anche la produzione di acido solfidrico attraverso una serie di reazioni a partire da substrati non canonici. In questo lavoro è stato sviluppato un nuovo metodo colorimetrico accoppiato alla cistationine-γ-liasi come e...