Search

Background and Purpose: Guillain-Barré-Syndrome (GBS) can follow COVID-19 vaccination, with clinical and paraclinical features still to be precisely assessed. We describe a cohort of patients who developed GBS after vaccination with different types of COVID-19 vaccines., Methods: Patients with post-COVID-19 vaccination GBS, admitted to the six hospitals that cover the whole Liguria Region, Northwestern Italy, from February 1st to October 30th 2021, were included. Clinical, demographic, and paraclinical data were retrospectively collected., Results: Among the 13 patients with post-COVID-19 vaccination GBS (9 males; mean age, 64 year), 5 were vaccinated with Oxford-AstraZeneca, 7 with Pfizer-BioNTech, and one with Moderna. Mean time between vaccination and GBS onset was 11.5 days. Ten patients developed GBS after the first vaccination dose, 3 after the second dose. Acute inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (AIDP) was the predominant GBS variant, mainly characterized by sensory involvement. Bilateral seventh cranial nerve involvement followed AstraZeneca vaccination in two cases. Three patients presented treatment-related fluctuations, and 4 mild symptoms that delayed treatments and negatively affected prognosis. Prognosis was poor (GBS-disability score, ≥3) in 5/13 patients, with a disability rate of 3/13., Conclusions: Our findings confirm that most post-COVID-19 vaccination GBS belong to the AIDP subtype, and occur after the first vaccine dose. Treatment-related fluctuations, and diagnosis-delaying, mild symptoms at onset are clinical features that affect prognosis and deserve particular consideration., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The development of plant-based protein polymers to employ in biofilm production represents the promising intersection between material science and sustainability, and allows to obtain biodegradable materials that also possess excellent physicochemical properties. A possible candidate for protein biopolymer production is phaseolin, a storage protein highly abundant in P Vulgaris beans. We previously showed that transformed tobacco chloroplasts could be employed to express a mutated phaseolin carrying a signal peptide (directing it into the thylakoids) also enriched of a cysteine residue added to its C-terminal region. This modification allows for the formation of inter-chain disulfide bonds, as we previously demonstrated, and should promote polymerization. To verify the effect of the peptide modification and to quantify polymer formation, we employed hollow-fiber flow field-flow fractionation coupled to UV and multi-angle laser scattering detection (HF5-UV-MALS): HF5 allows for the selective size-based separation of phaseolin species, whereas MALS calculates molar mass and conformation state of each population. With the use of two different HF5 separation methods we first observed the native state of P.Vulgaris phaseolin, mainly assembled into trimers, and compared it to mutated phaseolin (P*) which instead resulted highly aggregated. Then we further characterized P* using a second separation method, discriminating between two and distinct high-molecular weight (HMW) species, one averaging 0.8 × 10 6 Da and the second reaching the tens of million Da. Insight on the conformation of these HMW species was offered from their conformation plots, which confirmed the positive impact of the Cys modification on polymerization., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests., (Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

This study aims at demonstrating the feasibility of using microalgae-bacteria consortia for the treatment of the sidestream flow of the supernatant from blackwater dewatering (centrate) in an urban wastewater treatment plant in Northern Italy. A 1200 L raceway reactor was used for the outdoor cultivation of a diverse community of Chlorella spp., Scenedesmus spp. and Chlamydomonas spp. in continuous operation mode with 10 days hydraulic retention time. During the trial, an average daily areal productivity of 5.5 ± 7.4 g TSS m -2  day -1 was achieved while average nutrient removal efficiencies were 86% ± 7% and 71% ± 10% for NH 4 -N and PO 4 -P, respectively. The microalgal nitrogen assimilation accounted for 10% of the nitrogen in the centrate while 34% was oxidized to nitrite and nitrate. The oxygen produced by microalgae fully covert the oxygen demand for nitrification. This suggests that the proposed process would reduce the aeration demand for nitrification in the water line of the plant, while producing algal biomass to be further valorized for energy or material recovery., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The following authors have affiliations with organizations with direct or indirect financial interest in the subject matter discussed in the manuscript: Marco Mantovani: Università degli Studi di Milano – Bicocca (Italy); Francesca Marazzi: Università degli Studi di Milano – Bicocca (Italy); Riccardo Fornaroli: Università degli Studi di Milano – Bicocca (Italy); Micol Bellucci: Politecnico di Milano (Italy); Elena Ficara: Politecnico di Milano (Italy); Valeria Mezzanotte: Università degli Studi di Milano – Bicocca (Italy)., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Wood-tar is a liquid material obtained by wood gasification process, and comprises several polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). Tar biodegradation is a very challenging task, due to its toxicity and to its complex chemistry. The 'microbial resource management' concerns the use of environmental microbial communities potentially able to provide us services. We applied this concept in tar biodegradation. Tar composed by several PAH (including phenanthrene, acenaphthylene and fluorene) was subjected to a biodegradation process in triplicate microcosms spiked with a microbial community collected from PAH-rich soils. In 20 days, 98.9% of tar was mineralized or adsorbed to floccules, while negative controls showed poor PAH reduction. The dynamics of fungal and bacterial communities was assessed through Automated Ribosomal Intergenic Spacer Analysis (ARISA), 454 pyrosequencing of the fungal ITS and of the bacterial 16S rRNA. Quantification of the degrading bacterial communities was performed via quantitative Real Time PCR of the 16S rRNA genes and of the cathecol 2,3-dioxygenase genes. Results showed the importance of fungal tar-degrading populations in the first period of incubation, followed by a complex bacterial dynamical growth ruled by co-feeding behaviors., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In this work, we present a structural characterization of the putative fusion peptide E2(279-298) corresponding to the E2 envelope protein of the HGV/GBV-C virus by (1)H NMR, CD and MD studies performed in H(2)O/TFE and in lipid model membranes. The peptide is largely unstructured in water, whereas in H(2)O/TFE and in model membranes it adopts an helical structure (approximately 65-70%). The partitioning free energy DeltaG ranges from -6 to -7.5 kcal mol(-1). OCD measurements on peptide-containing hydrated and oriented lipid multilayers showed that the peptide adopts a predominantly surface orientation. The (1)H NMR data (observed NOEs, deuterium exchange rates, Halpha chemical shift index and vicinal coupling constants) and the molecular dynamics calculations support the conclusions that the peptide adopts a stable helix in the C-terminal 9-18 residues slightly inserted into the lipid bilayer and a major mobility in the amino terminus of the sequence (1-8 residues).

Peptides inhibitory to partially purified endopeptidase and crude proteinase from Pseudomonas fluorescens ATCC 948 were isolated from tryptic hydrolysates of zein and hordein by reversed-phase fast protein liquid chromatography and identified by sequencing. The sequences are Ser-Ala-Tyr-Pro-Gly-Gln-Ile-Thr-Ser-Asn and Gln-Val-Ser-Leu-Asn-Ser-Gly-Tyr-Tyr for peptides from zein and hordein, respectively. Inhibitions of >85% and from >50 to >85% were determined on endopeptidase and proteinase by peptides from zein and hordein. K i values ranged from 4 to 32 μM. The same peptides also showed inhibition of the angiotensin I-converting enzyme. The concentrations of peptides providing 50% inhibition of angiotensin I-converting enzyme were 7 and 23 μM for the decapeptide and nonapeptide, respectively. Other fractions containing peptides with less inhibitory activity were detected in the zein as well as in the gluten tryptic digests.