Antigenic and molecular characterization of wild type 1 poliovirus causing outbreaks of poliomyelitis in Albania and neighboring countries in 1996

Mass vaccination has led poliomyelitis to become a rare disease in a large part of the world, including Western Europe. However, in the past 20 years wild polioviruses imported from countries where polio is endemic have been responsible for outbreaks in otherwise polio-free European countries. We report on the characterization of poliovirus isolates from a large outbreak of poliomyelitis that occurred in Albania in 1996 and that also spread to the neighboring countries of Yugoslavia and Greece. The epidemics involved 145 subjects, mostly young adults, and caused persisting paralysis in 87 individuals and 16 deaths. The agent responsible for the outbreak was isolated from 74 patients and was identified as wild type 1 poliovirus by both immunological and molecular methods. Sequence analysis of the genome demonstrated the involvement of a single virus strain throughout the epidemics, and genotyping analysis showed 95% homology of the strain with a wild type 1 poliovirus strain isolated in Pakistan in 1995. Neutralization assays with both human sera and monoclonal antibodies were performed to analyze the antigenic structure of the epidemic strain, suggesting its peculiar antigenic characteristics. The presented data underline the current risks of outbreaks due to imported wild poliovirus and emphasize the need to improve vaccination efforts and also the need to implement surveillance in countries free of indigenous wild poliovirus.     

Inclinometer Monitoring of the Castelrotto Landslide in Italy

Over the last decades the real-time displacement monitoring systems have been increasingly used for assessing the risk conditions due to landslide movements and for managing the early-warning systems. Any decision about safety actions is therefore based upon the data provided by the instrumentation. The purpose of this work is to suggest how in-place inclinometers may be combined with periodical measurements by using a mobile probe in order to evaluate the current movement of a landslide and to assess the reliability of data. The monitoring system installed at the landslide of Castelrotto (northern Italy) is described, giving some details on the instrumentation and the data collected so far. A local quadratic trend model is developed to estimate the kinematic characteristics of the movement, and a statistical procedure for comparing real-time data with periodical measures is given to assess the reliability of data. This analysis shows how the direction of the displacement may be used as an indicator of reliability.     

Eruptive Behaviour of Forest Fires

A critical review of the mechanisms that are described in the literature to explain the onset and development of eruption or blow up in forest fires is presented, given their great relevance for fire safety, particularly in canyons. The various processes described in the literature that are considered as potential causes of fire eruption are discussed. Some of them seem more likely to cause the phenomenon and the others seem to have a complementary role in some conditions. The current review highlights that more research is required to create a classification of Fire Eruption types and to allow the development of specific Fire Safety procedures for fire fighters to minimize accidents.     

The Activity and Stability of p56Lck and TCR Signaling Do Not Depend on the Co-Chaperone Cdc37

Lymphocyte-specific protein tyrosine kinase (Lck) is a pivotal tyrosine kinase involved in T cell receptor (TCR) signaling. Because of its importance, the activity of Lck is regulated at different levels including phosphorylation of tyrosine residues, protein–protein interactions, and localization. It has been proposed that the co-chaperone Cdc37, which assists the chaperone heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) in the folding of client proteins, is also involved in the regulation of the activity/stability of Lck. Nevertheless, the available experimental data do not clearly support this conclusion. Thus, we assessed whether or not Cdc37 regulates Lck. We performed experiments in which the expression of Cdc37 was either augmented or suppressed in Jurkat T cells. The results of our experiments indicated that neither the overexpression nor the suppression of Cdc37 affected Lck stability and activity. Moreover, TCR signaling proceeded normally in T cells in which Cdc37 expression was either augmented or suppressed. Finally, we demonstrated that also under stress conditions Cdc37 was dispensable for the regulation of Lck activity/stability. In conclusion, our data do not support the idea that Lck is a Cdc37 client.     

Contribution of enterococci to the spread of antibiotic resistance in the production chain of swine meat commodities

Thirty-six samples, including fecal specimens, dry feedstuffs, raw and processed pork meat products, and dry fermented sausages, were collected from two production chains of swine meat commodities and analyzed for the presence of 11 antibiotic resistance (AR) genes. Specific PCR assays carried out on DNA extracted directly from the samples revealed a high incidence of the genes tet(K) (80.5%), ermB (66.7%), and tet(M) (66.7%). Feces and feedstuffs gave the largest number of positive amplifications. To elucidate the contribution of enterococci to the occurrence and spread of AR, 146 resistant enterococci were isolated, and their identity, genetic fingerprints, and AR gene profiles were determined by means of molecular techniques. Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium were the predominant isolated species (43.8 and 38.4%, respectively); Other Enterococcus species identified were E. durans (8.9%), E. hirae (2.7%), E. gallinarum (2.1%), E. mundtii (2.1%), and E. casseliflavus (2.1%). A number of isolates displayed a complex AR gene profile comprising up to four different resistance determinants. The genes tet(M) and ermB were highly diffused, being present in 86.9 and 84.9%, respectively, of the isolates. The application of amplified fragment length polymorphism fingerprinting was particularly valuable to monitor the resistant enterococcal isolates along the production chain and to individuate steps in which contamination might occur. In fact, isolates of E. faecalis and E. faecium showing the same amplified fragment length polymorphism profile and AR gene pattern were detected in samples taken at different steps of the food chain suggesting three cases of bacterial clonal spread.     

Design,Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Carboxy Analogues of Arginine Methyltransferase Inhibitor 1 (AMI‐1)

Here we report the synthesis of a number of compounds structurally related to arginine methyltransferase inhibitor 1 (AMI‐1). The structural alterations that we made included: 1) the substitution of the sulfonic groups with the bioisosteric carboxylic groups; 2) the replacement of the ureidic function with a bis‐amidic moiety; 3) the introduction of a N‐containing basic moiety; and 4) the positional isomerization of the aminohydroxynaphthoic moiety. We have assessed the biological activity of these compounds against a panel of arginine methyltransferases (fungal RmtA, hPRMT1, hCARM1, hPRMT3, hPRMT6) and a lysine methyltransferase (SET7/9) using histone and nonhistone proteins as substrates. Molecular modeling studies for a deep binding‐mode analysis of test compounds were also performed. The bis‐carboxylic acid derivatives 1 b and 7 b emerged as the most effective PRMT inhibitors, both in vitro and in vivo, being comparable or even better than the reference compound (AMI‐1) and practically inactive against the lysine methyltransferase SET7/9.     

Petri nets for modelling metabolic pathways: a survey

In the last 15 years, several research efforts have been directed towards the representation and the analysis of metabolic pathways by using Petri nets. The goal of this paper is twofold. First, we discuss how the knowledge about metabolic pathways can be represented with Petri nets. We point out the main problems that arise in the construction of a Petri net model of a metabolic pathway and we outline some solutions proposed in the literature. Second, we present a comprehensive review of recent research on this topic, in order to assess the maturity of the field and the availability of a methodology for modelling a metabolic pathway by a corresponding Petri net.