A type of anti-bacterial T cells, so-called MAIT cells, are strongly activated in people with moderate to severe COVID-19 disease, according to a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden that is published in the journal Science Immunology. The findings contribute to increased understanding about how our immune system responds against COVID-19 infection.

“To find potential treatments against COVID-19, it is important to understand in detail how our immune system reacts and, in some cases, perhaps contribute to worsening the disease,” says Johan Sandberg, professor at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge, at Karolinska Institutet and the study’s corresponding author.

T cells are a type of white blood cells that are specialized in recognizing infected cells, and are an essential part of the immune system. About 1 to 5 percent of T cells in the blood of healthy people consist of so-called MAIT cells (mucosa-associated invariant T cells), which are primarily important for controlling bacteria but can also be recruited by the immune system to fight some viral infections.

In this study, the researchers wanted to find out which role MAIT cells play in COVID-19 disease pathogenesis. They examined the presence and character of MAIT cells in blood samples from 24 patients admitted to Karolinska University Hospital with moderate to severe COVID-19 disease and compared these with blood samples from 14 healthy controls and 45 individuals who had recovered from COVID-19. Four of the patients died in the hospital.

Vincitori 8 progetti delle scuole che più hanno mostrato impegno per riportare la Natura in città

Nonostante l’emergenza Covid e le difficoltà nel lavorare a progetti educativi a distanza che questa ha provocato, gli Istituti scolastici di 10 regioni hanno partecipato alla IV edizione contest Urban Nature del WWF Italia, presentando diversi progetti per trasformare in aree verdi alcuni dei loro spazi, contribuire all’aumento della biodiversità in città o recuperare parchi e giardini pubblici.

Urban Nature è la campagna che da quattro anni vuole rinnovare il modo di pensare gli spazi urbani dando più valore alla natura e promuovere azioni virtuose da parte di amministratori, comunità, cittadini, imprese, università e scuole per proteggere e incrementare la biodiversità nei sistemi urbani. E proprio al tema della natura in città è stata dedicata anche la quarta edizione del Contest Urban Nature per le scuole, protagoniste della riqualificazione del proprio territorio.

Lo studio degli idrozoi, piccoli organismi marini, è valso a Davide Maggioni il premio internazionale “Mario Benazzi e Giuseppina Benazzi Lentati 2020” assegnato dall’Accademia dei Lincei, venerdì 25 settembre, nel corso della Cerimonia solenne per la chiusura dell’anno accademico 2019-2020, trasmessa in streaming.

Il giovane ricercatore, assegnista del dipartimento di Scienze dell’ambiente e della terra dell’Università di Milano-Bicocca, Ateneo in cui ha conseguito anche il titolo di Dottore di ricerca, ha focalizzato la sua ricerca su un gruppo particolare di idrozoi in grado di vivere in simbiosi con altri organismi, tra cui i coralli dei mari tropicali, ai quali possono fornire protezione da malattie e predatori.

«Il dottor Maggioni – si legge nella motivazione del premio - è stato in grado di studiare questi organismi combinando metodi originali ed innovativi quali quelli dell’ecologia molecolare e della tassonomia integrata, tramite cui gli organismi vengono caratterizzati sia mediante l'analisi morfologica che genetica».

Per un terzo sono peggiorate le condizioni di lavoro, dall’intensità della giornata lavorativa alla difficoltà di conciliarla con la vita famigliare, dallo stipendio ai rischi per la salute. Inoltre, le condizioni di salute fisica e mentale, le relazioni amicali, il tempo libero e la situazione finanziaria sono meno soddisfacenti di prima che scoppiasse la pandemia e venisse imposto il lockdown. Ma resta un segnale di speranza e ottimismo verso il futuro: per due italiani su tre, dal periodo di emergenza appena trascorso si può imparare qualcosa di positivo per il futuro.

È il quadro restituito dall’indagine “L’Italia ai tempi del Covid-19”, condotta dai ricercatori Iassc (Institute for advanced study of social change), l'osservatorio permanente sul mutamento sociale del dipartimento di Sociologia e ricerca socialedell’Università di Milano-Bicocca. Un focus condotto tra aprile e agosto scorsi attraverso interviste a 950 soggetti, un campione selezionato nell’ambito del progetto di ricerca “ITA.LI - Italian Lives”, l’indagine “longitudinale” e pluriennale sui corsi di vita in Italia, finanziata dal Ministero dell’Università mediante i fondi dei Dipartimenti di eccellenza, che l’istituto Iassc sta conducendo in collaborazione con l’Istituto nazionale di statistica (Istat) e la società di ricerca Ipsos.

Uno studio europeo coordinato dall’Istituto di biofisica del Cnr di Trento, con la partecipazione delle Università di Trento, Edimburgo e Utrecht, l’Istituto Sloveno di Chimica e Immagina Biotechnology, ha individuato un meccanismo che “blocca” il normale processo di formazione delle proteine in individui affetti da SMA. Il risultato, pubblicato su Nature Cell Biology, rappresenta un punto di svolta nello sviluppo di terapie di nuova generazione

Nuovi orizzonti nella comprensione dell’atrofia muscolare spinale (SMA), devastante malattia genetica che colpisce un neonato ogni 6.000-10.000 nati, ad oggi la principale causa di mortalità infantile associata ad una malattia genetica. La SMA è causata dalla perdita o dalla mutazione del gene Smn1, che riduce i livelli di una proteina nota come Survival Motor Neuron (SMN) e provoca, fin dai primi mesi di vita, difetti nei motoneuroni e debolezza muscolare.

È successo al Policlinico di Milano il 23 settembre: una corsa contro il tempo con tamponi rapidi anti-Covid, un paziente che arrivava da fuori Regione e sale operatorie da sincronizzare

I trapianti sono sempre interventi straordinari, capaci di cambiare radicalmente la qualità di vita di una persona. Ma non sono tutti uguali: ci sono quelli che si possono programmare e quindi si organizzano per tempo; e quelli che arrivano all'improvviso, e vanno gestiti con grandi capacità organizzative. Al Policlinico di Milano lo scorso 23 settembre è successo tutto questo in contemporanea: un trapianto di rene da donatore vivente (il marito che dona alla moglie in dialisi) e due trapianti più urgenti e soprattutto 'rari': per questo si è dovuta organizzare una 'maratona chirurgica' durata quasi 16 ore, durante cui si sono sovrapposti ben 4 interventi in sala operatoria.

Ordinary smartphone cameras are capable of accurately determining the hydration severity of dengue patients to determine care and management by analysing the colour of their urine samples, says a new study.

Lucy Lum, an author of the study and professor of paediatrics at the University of Malaya, says that maintaining the right fluid balance is a major issue in dengue cases and it would be helpful if patients can just send pictures of their urine samples for diagnosis.

Annually, the world sees some 400 million dengue infections, of which a small proportion develops severe symptoms on day four or five of illness. Suspected dengue cases are followed up for daily assessment with the passage of dark-coloured urine regarded as an indicator of dehydration.

In the study, published this month in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, images of urine samples from 97 patients aged 13—60 years, taken with a standard mobile phone but in a customised booth to eliminate ambient light and other factors, were processed using Adobe Photoshop to index urine colour into the red, green, and blue (RGB) colour bands. The RGB values were found to correlate with patients’ clinical and laboratory hydration indices.

Both nasopharyngeal swab (NPS) and saliva testing showed high sensitivity and specificity to the SARS-CoV-2 (Isao Yokota et al., Clinical Infectious Diseases, September 25, 2020).

Testing self-collected saliva samples could offer an easy and effective mass testing approach for detecting asymptomatic COVID-19.

Scientists at Hokkaido University and colleagues in Japan have demonstrated a quick and effective mass testing approach using saliva samples to detect individuals who have been infected with COVID-19 but are still not showing symptoms. Their findings were published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

“Rapid detection of asymptomatic infected individuals will be critical for preventing COVID-19 outbreaks within communities and hospitals,” says Hokkaido University researcher Takanori Teshima, who led the study. Many of the world’s governments are showing reluctance to re-institute full national lockdowns as second waves of COVID-19 infections loom on the horizon. Testing and tracing systems will need to be ramped up in order to detect and isolate people who have the virus as early as possible.

Teshima and colleagues tested and compared the nasopharyngeal swabs and saliva samples of almost 2,000 people in Japan who did not have COVID-19 symptoms. Two different virus amplification tests were performed on most of the samples: the PCR test, which is now well-known and widely available around the world, and the less commonly used but faster and more portable RT-LAMP test.

Women receiving fertility-sparing surgery for treatment of borderline ovarian tumours were able to have children, a study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in Fertility & Sterility shows. Natural fertility was preserved in most of them and only a small proportion required assisted reproductive treatment such as in vitro fertilization. Survival in the group was also as high as in women who had undergone radical surgical for treatment of similar tumours.

“The ability to become pregnant seems to be preserved with fertility-sparing surgery, a knowledge that is absolutely critical for the advice and treatment given to young women with ovarian borderline tumours,” says the study’s first author Gry Johansen, doctoral student at the Department of Oncology-Pathology, Karolinska Institutet.

Earlier studies of fertility-sparing surgery (FSS) for borderline ovarian tumours (BOT) have primarily focused on the oncological therapeutic outcome, and knowledge about pregnancy and childbirth after FSS has been scant. In this study, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have also examined the effects of FSS on fertility in women of a fertile age treated for early-stage BOT.

Radical or fertility-sparing surgery

Every year, some 700 women in Sweden develop ovarian cancer. Up to 20 percent of ovarian tumours are BOTs, and of these a third are diagnosed in young women of fertile age. FSS – which preserves the uterus and at least parts of the ovaries – is the most common option for women wishing to preserve fertility.

The relapse risk after FSS is larger than after radical cancer treatment, in which the uterus and both ovaries are removed, but the advantages make it an accepted course of action for young women.

Data from several registries

The study is based on data from Sweden’s healthcare registers. The selection included all women between the ages of 18 and 40 who received FSS for early-stage BOT between 2008 and 2015, according to the Swedish Quality Registry for Gynaecologic Cancer (SQRGC). The control group were peers with similar tumours treated with radical surgery.

The women who had given birth after FSS were identified using the National Board of Health and Welfare’s Medical Birth Register and the National Quality Registry for Assisted Reproduction (Q-IVF).
In Sweden, assisted reproduction (IVF) is offered by the public health services and is free of charge for women under 40.

No difference in survival

Of the 213 women who underwent FSS between 2008 and 2015 in Sweden, 23 percent had given birth to 62 babies after treatment. A minority – 20 women or 9 percent of the cohort – had undergone IVF. The women who had given birth after FSS were followed for 76 months, while the women who had not given birth were followed for 58 months.

The survival rate for the entire cohort of 277 women was an excellent 99 percent, and there was no difference between those who had received FSS and those who had undergone radical surgical cancer treatment.

“In the choice of treatment for borderline ovarian tumours, safety and the effectiveness for future childbearing must be taken into account,” says the study’s last author Kenny Rodriguez-Wallberg, researcher at the Department of Oncology-Pathology, Karolinska Institutet.

The study was supported by grants from the Swedish Cancer Society, the Cancer Research Funds of Radiumhemmet, Region Stockholm and Karolinska Institutet. There are no declared conflicts of interest.

https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(20)30696-8/fulltext

Spines with astrocyte GLT1.jpg: Single fragment of a neuron in green and the astrocyte processes mentioned in the communication in yellow. (c) Michel Herde

Study by the University of Bonn: The signal transmission in the brain is more or less exclusive depending on the situation.

How many "listeners" a nerve cell has in the brain is strictly regulated.
This is shown by an international study led by the University College London and the universities of Bonn, Bordeaux and Milton Keynes (England). In the environment of learning neurons, certain processes are set in motion that make signal transmission less exclusive. The results have now been published in the journal Neuron.

If you want to share a secret with a friend in a busy environment, you may try to find a quiet spot, close the doors and shield the conversation from possible eavesdroppers. Nerve cells in the brain also communicate with each other behind closed doors. But the extent of this protection could be strictly regulated depending on the situation. The findings now presented by the international research team point in this direction.

The information transfer between neurons is mostly done chemically: In response to an electrical signal, the "transmitting cell" releases a so-called neurotransmitter at a synapse; this may often be glutamate molecules. These migrate through the synaptic cleft to the recipient cell.
There, they dock to certain receptors and generate an electrical reaction in the receiving neuron.