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In Colombia, labor inclusion is an issue that has been dealt with in different spaces of social interest. By 2011, according to the World Report on Disability, there were more than 1,000 million people with some disability and it is to be assumed that access to work is reduced due to this situation. MinSalud (2017) According to figures from DANE in Colombia, 6.4% of citizens have some type of disability, 52% of working age and only 15% of them work. (CONFANDI, 2015). Teleworking as a work modality allows us to comply with two schemes: stable employment hiring and labor inclusion of people with disabilities. In addition to avoiding their displacement, working from home is an ideal option for the disabled worker since most have physical spaces in their home adapted to their needs; and for the contracting companies since it alleviates the requirements of adaptation in their facilities in the circulation areas and in the sanitary services, among others. Thus, a high use of this style of work by workers with disabilities would be expected, however in this study carried out the percentage of disabled people is similar to that described in conventional work, so it would be worthwhile to encourage more teleworking among companies and in the disabled population. (Uribe S, 2017)

People with mild dementia may have many difficulties associated to clinical symptoms in daily life activities, but also the person perception about his daily performance might influence the participation in activities. To know the perception of the people with mild dementia about their performance in daily life activities, it was made a qualitative study, it was conducted through focus groups with 13 persons with dementia participants from Kintun Center. Groups of four to five persons were formed, where they discussed about two main topics: important activities and activities where they perceive difficulties. Through a hermeneutic-interpretative with open coding analysis, we observed two main themes in relation to daily activities performance: on one hand, the need of keep meaningful roles and on the other hand, the auto marginality and the dependence sensation imposed by the social environment. These findings highlight the importance of considering the perception of the person with dementia and their environment in relation to the possibilities of participation in daily activities, considering that not only the clinical symptoms may affect the participation, it may be affected also by the interpretation about daily situations.

Mycoplasma contamination in cell culture affects the properties of cell lines. Gold standard detection by microbiological culture takes days and requires specialists. The polymerase chain reaction and loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) are fast molecular options, but LAMP only requires one heating block for DNA amplification. This study presents a comparative genomic analysis of Mycoplasma species to identify common target genes different from the rrsA gene, which encodes 16 S rRNA. The aim is to implement a LAMP assay to detect Mycoplasma species, reducing the time and specialized equipment required for detection. We performed a comparative genomic analysis through Mauve software and the GView server and selected infB and clpB genes as target candidates for designing LAMP primers. We evaluated both genes by multiple sequence alignment (MSA). The infB gene presented the best score MSA assessment with lower odd-log values (5,480,281) than other genes. We selected the infB gene to design LAMP primers specific to Mycoplasma spp. We used these primers to implement LAMP at 63 °C for 30 min, which showed 100% positive amplifications for detecting Mycoplasma spp. In conclusion, we present a methodology utilizing the infB gene-based LAMP assay to detect three of the six most prevalent Mycoplasma species in cell culture., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.)

Due to the high resistance that cancer has shown to conventional therapies, it is difficult to treat this disease, particularly in advanced stages. In recent decades, treatments have been improved, being more specific according to the characteristics of the tumor, becoming more effective, less toxic, and invasive. Cancer can be treated by the combination of surgery, radiation therapy, and/or drug administration, but therapies based on anticancer drugs are the main cancer treatment. Cancer drug development requires long-time preclinical and clinical studies and is not cost-effective. Drug repurposing is an alternative for cancer therapies development since it is faster, safer, easier, cheaper, and repurposed drugs do not have serious side effects. However, cancer is a complex, heterogeneous, and highly dynamic disease with multiple evolving molecular constituents. This tumor heterogeneity causes several resistance mechanisms in cancer therapies, mainly the target mutation. The CRISPR-dCas9-based artificial transcription factors (ATFs) could be used in cancer therapy due to their possibility to manipulate DNA to modify target genes, activate tumor suppressor genes, silence oncogenes, and tumor resistance mechanisms for targeted therapy. In addition, drug repurposing combined with the use of CRISPR-dCas9-based ATFs could be an alternative cancer treatment to reduce cancer mortality. The aim of this review is to describe the potential of the repurposed drugs combined with CRISPR-dCas9-based ATFs to improve the efficacy of cancer treatment, discussing the possible advantages and disadvantages., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Martinez-Escobar, Luna-Callejas and Ramón-Gallegos.)

Background: MP-AzeFlu, intranasal formulation of azelastine hydrochloride (AZE) and fluticasone propionate (FP), is superior to AZE or FP alone for treatment of allergic rhinitis (AR). However, the precise anti-inflammatory mechanism of action of MP-AzeFlu has not been characterized., Objective: To investigate the anti-inflammatory effects of MP-AzeFlu compared with AZE or FP alone in an established in vitro model of eosinophilic inflammation., Methods: Nasal mucosal epithelial cells and peripheral blood eosinophils were obtained from human volunteers. Epithelial cells were stimulated with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS) in the presence of MP-AzeFlu, AZE, or FP (1:10 2 to 1:10 5 dilution). Concentrations of interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8, and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) were measured by ELISA. Eosinophils were incubated in 10% human epithelial cell-conditioned medium (HECM) and survival assessed by trypan blue dye exclusion. Results are expressed as mean ± SEM percentage secretion/survival compared with FBS/HECM (respectively)., Results: FP and MP-AzeFlu (all dilutions) and AZE (1:10 2 ) significantly reduced IL-6 secretion and eosinophil survival compared with positive controls. At 1:10 2 dilution, IL-6 secretion was significantly lower with MP-AzeFlu (38.3 ± 4.2%, compared with FBS = 100%) than with AZE (76.1 ± 4.9%) or FP (53.0 ± 4.9%). At 1:10 2 dilution, eosinophil survival was significantly lower with MP-AzeFlu at day 3 (17.5 ± 3.0%) and day 4 (2.4 ± 1.4%, compared with HECM = 100%) than with AZE (day 3: 75.2 ± 7.2%; day 4: 44.0 ± 9.7%) or FP (day 3: 38.5 ± 3.5%; day 4: 14.6 ± 4.0%)., Conclusion: Greater reductions in cytokine secretion and eosinophil survival observed with MP-AzeFlu in vitro may underlie MP-AzeFlu's superior clinical efficacy vs. AZE or FP alone observed in AR patients.

Temperature has a substantial effect on both the physiology and behavior of ectothermic animals such as lizards. Physiology and behavior can also be influenced by ontogenetic and sex differences, but these effects are largely understudied in lizards. We examined ontogenetic and sex-based differences in thermal tolerances, preferred temperature, and temperature-dependent evaporative water loss rates in Italian Wall Lizards, Podarcis siculus, collected from an introduced population near Los Angeles, California, USA that were acclimated to laboratory conditions. Podarcis siculus has been introduced to multiple localities in the USA and the Mediterranean region and has demonstrated remarkable ability to adapt to novel climatic conditions. In the California population, adults of both sexes had a higher critical thermal maximum (CT max ) than juveniles, and adult females had a lower critical thermal minimum (CT min ) than juveniles and adult males. Thus, adult females had a significantly wider thermal breadth (CT max - CT min ) compared to adult males and juveniles. Mass-specific evaporative water loss was higher in juveniles compared to adult males at intermediate temperatures. There was no significant difference among groups for preferred temperature. This implies that thermal tolerance, a physiological characteristic, varies with age and sex for this population, whereas thermal preference, a behavioral characteristic, does not. Interestingly, CT min for all age and sex classes was above temperatures likely experienced by some nonnative populations in winter, suggesting individuals need to find urban thermal retreats. These results add to the growing literature demonstrating that thermal tolerances and breadths can vary between sexes and across age classes in squamate species., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)