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Biomedical subjects

E Brianti

Publications and source records attributed to E Brianti.

18 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Efficacy of oxfendazole and fenbendazole against tortoise (Testudo hermanni) oxyurids.

Thirty-six tortoises (Testudo hermanni) with naturally acquired oxyurids infections were used to assess the anthelmintic efficacy of oxfendazole (Dolthene; Merial) and fenbendazole (Panacur; Hoechst Roussel Vet). Animals were randomly assigned to three groups (A, B, and C) based on sex and weight. Animals in group A (seven males and six females) were orally treated with oxfendazole at dose rate of 66 mg/kg, group B animals (nine males and eight females) were orally treated with fenbendazole at dose rate of 100 mg/kg, and group C animals (three males and three females) were not treated and served as controls. All animals were individually stabled in plexiglas boxes under controlled conditions of temperature, humidity, and light beginning 7 days pretreatment and continuing for the duration of the trial. Individual tortoises feces were examined daily by the McMaster technique and drugs efficacy was assessed by the fecal eggs count reduction (FECR) test. Both drugs showed 100% of FECR. However, oxfendazole reached this level 12 days after treatment, whereas 31 days after treatment were necessary to obtain the same stable result with fenbendazole. The two drugs were well tolerated by all the animals and no adverse reactions were observed after treatment.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

The zoophilic fruitfly Phortica variegata: morphology, ecology and biological niche.

Flies belonging to the subfamily Steganinae (Drosophilidae) display unusual zoophilic feeding habits at the adult and/or larval stage. Phortica variegata (Fallén) feeds on tears or eye liquid around the eyes of humans and carnivores. When feeding it is a potential vector of Thelazia callipaeda (Railliet and Henry) eyeworms. Adult and larval stages of this fly may be easily confused with other species belonging to the same genus, and little is known on the biology and ecology of P. variegata. In April-November 2005, a total of 969 P. variegata were collected in an area with a high prevalence of canine thelaziosis. The number of flies collected weekly was then related to climatic and environmental parameters (e.g. temperature, relative humidity and total rainfall) recorded daily at the collection site. The highest number of Phortica were collected during July-August. The sex ratio (number of males : females) rose from approximately 0.5 during May-July, to approximately 3.0 in August and 181 during September-October. Distributional data, representing 242 sites at which P. variegata has been collected in Europe, were analysed using a desktop implementation of the genetic algorithm for rule-set prediction (GARP) to model ecological requirements across Europe, as well as in Italy. P. variegata is shown to be mainly active at 20-25 degrees C and 50-75% RH. The ecological niche model suggests with a high degree of confidence that large areas of Europe are likely to represent suitable habitat for this species, mostly concentrated in central Europe. The results reported here contribute basic knowledge on the ecology and geographical distribution of P. variegata flies, which will be fundamental to gaining a better understanding of their role as vectors of human and animal pathogens.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Agrometeorology and models for the parasite cycle forecast.

Insects are strongly influenced by meteorological variables in their natural environment. In agriculture, mathematical models have been developed to understand and forecast the cycle of pests based on climate data. By this manner, with the goal of reduce and rationalize plant chemical treatments, agrometeorological models have been realized to estimate the length and starting times of parasites phenological phases. In Sicily a new network of 95 GSM meteorological stations and a specific mathematical model for Aonidiella aurantii are used by Sicilian Agrometeorological Information System (SIAS) for the integrated pest management program of citrus orchards in the Island. As the plants parasites, vector borne diseases are influenced by climate in their appearance and abundance. In lights of the benefits that could derive from a model for the control of Leishmania vectors, SIAS experiences in modelling were used to develop a deductive model for Phlebotomus perniciosus which represents the major vector of human and canine leishmaniasis in Sicily.

Agriculture↗
PubMed2006

Proposal of Health Information System (HIS) as tool for the epidemiological surveillance of leishmaniasis in urban areas.

In recent years leishmaniasis has become a serious Public Health problem in Italy. The coexistence of infected dogs, vectors and humans, makes urban areas suitable environment for the spread of this zoonotic disease. With the purpose to improve the current system for the control of leishmaniasis in urban areas, the authors report their experiences carrying out a Health Information System (HIS) for the surveillance of the disease in the city of Messina. The HIS project is built on a dataset containing geographical data on urban environment, census tracts at parish level and data of human and canine leishmaniasis cases reported in the last years. The HIS allows the spatial representation of the disease occurrence and can be used as a novel epidemiological tool to perform area-based surveillance.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

[A minimum medical GIS database (MMDb) for Europe].

Geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) technologies are being used increasingly to study the spatial and temporal patterns of some parasitic diseases of medical and veterinary importance. At the same time, the incorporation of GIS in this field shows the scarcity of the data and images available, which sometime discourage researchers that still look at GIS as a system too difficult and unusable for medical study. Aware of this problem and supported by success of earlier MMDb's for Africa, Asia and South America, the authors' aim is to construct and offer an MMDb for Europe. The initial MMDb is composed with vector images covering an area situated from -11 degrees-70 degrees N to 58 degrees-30 degrees E. Specifically, data layers include: a) Global Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) 16 days at 250 m spatial resolution designed to provide consistent spatial and temporal comparisons of vegetation conditions, supplied in the MMDb as seasonal and annual composite images from 2000 to 2003, b) MODIS Land Surface Temperature (LST) calculated from daytime and nighttime observations at 8 day intervals at 1 km spatial resolution, supplied in the MMDb as seasonal and annual composites images for day (maximum) temperatures, night (minimum) temperatures from 2000 to 2003, c) GTOPO30 Digital Elevation Model (DEM) at 1 km spatial resolution, d) United States Geological Survey (USGS) Land use/land cover scheme, e) USGS actual and potential evapotranspiration supplied for all 12 months as a grid at 50 km spatial resolution, f) USGS precipitation showing the amount of rainfall for all 12 months supplied as a grid at 50 km spatial resolution, g) USGS shapefiles of administrative and political boundaries, cities, towns, villages, lakes, rivers, streams, road, railroads and more. The MMDb projection will be in geographic latitude-longitude, decimal degree format. This global format is most commonly used for public access map database resources and can be readily re-projected as needed for compatibility with various national mapping systems. There is no "required" software, and end users need only common commercial GIS software packages that have mutual import-export functions. Additionally, the MMDb is meant to be a dynamic resource that end users may improve and modify with other regional data.

Animals↗
PubMed2000

T-cell cytokine pattern at three time points during specific immunotherapy for mite-sensitive asthma.

BACKGROUND: Several lines of evidence indicate that specific immunotherapy may act by modifying the patterns of cytokines produced by helper T cells. However, different protocols have been used and different results obtained. OBJECTIVES: To quantify the effect of specific immunotherapy on the TH1/TH2 T-cell cytokine pattern at the single cell level. METHODS: We examined the interferon-gamma/interleukin-4 ratio in peripheral blood CD4+ and CD8+ T cells from 12 subjects with house dust mite-sensitive asthma using a flow cytometric method of intracellular cytokine detection. Cytokine production was determined following stimulation with phorbol myristate acetate/ionomycin, a policlonal activator. Subjects were examined at three occasions: before specific immunotherapy, after the 3-months dose increase phase and after 1 year of treatment. During the treatment year patients kept a diary in which they recorded: (a) symptoms of asthma according to a 0-3 grading (0 = absent, 1 = mild, 2 = moderate, 3 = severe); (b) number of puffs (100 microg) per day of salbutamol required to control symptoms; and (c) peak expiratory flow. RESULTS: Specific immunotherapy improved clinical indices of disease activity including symptom scores and medication use during the treatment year, and had a marked effect in increasing the interferon-gamma/interleukin-4 ratio in peripheral blood CD4+ T cells already after the dose increase phase (5.47 +/- 1.5 vs 4.07 +/- 1.49%, P = 0.03) with and a further rise after 1 year's treatment (16.12 +/- 2.8 vs 4.07 +/- 1.49 and 16.12 +/- 2.8 vs 5.47 +/- 1.5%, P = 0.001 and P = 0.002, respectively). There were no significant changes in the interferon-gamma/interleukin-4 ratio in peripheral blood CD8+ T cells at the three times of the study. CONCLUSIONS: These data add to view that the efficacy of specific immunotherapy may be attributed to a modified cytokine secretion of CD4+ T cells.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Antigenic targets in epimembranous glomerulonephritis. Experimental data and potential application in human pathology.

Although membranous glomerulonephritis (MGN) has been long considered as a prototype of glomerulonephritis (GN) due to the deposition of circulating immune complexes (CIC), a growing body of evidence indicates that immune deposits can also be formed in situ and implicate antigens expressed by glomerular epithelial cells (GEC). Some of these antigens have recently been identified. The first one, gp330 - a 330-kd glycoprotein restricted to the coated pits of GEC and renal brush border (BB) - is responsible for Heymann nephritis, a rat model of MGN. However, it is absent in the human glomerulus and is therefore probably not involved in human cases of MGN, at least in those due to in situ formation of CIC. In addition, by raising monoclonal antibodies against rat and rabbit BB, we have isolated two other BB proteins also expressed on GEC. The latter, respectively identified as dipeptidyl peptidase IV (90 kd) and enkephalinase (85 kd), can serve as targets for the formation of short-lived immune deposits. Since they are also detected on human GEC, they might play a role in the pathogenesis of MGN in man.

Animals↗
PubMed1988

Study of immune complexes in bronchoalveolar lavage fluids.

Immune complexes (IC) were investigated in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BAL) of 5 patients with hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP), 11 with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and 16 with sarcoidosis (S) by three different methods: C1Q-BA, KgB, AKgB-MA. Using AKgB-MA, it is possible to identify the class of antibodies forming the IC. IC were present in all cases of HP, in 8/11 (73%) of IPF and in 10/16 (62%) of S. However, the three tests showed discordant results for the three different diseases: C1Q-BA and KgB-SP were both positive in 40%, AKgB-MA in 80% of HP cases; C1Q-BA in 73%, KgB-SP in 9% and AKgB-MA in 46% of IPF cases; C1Q-BA in 31%, KgB-SP in 12% and AKgB-MA in 31% of S cases. In all of the diseases, the IC were mostly composed of IgG; moreover, in HP IgA was also frequently present. The determination of IC in different fractions obtained from BAL ultracentrifugation, confirmed the simultaneous presence of IC of different molecular weights and antibody composition. Lung transbronchial biopsy with immunofluorescence showed immunoglobulin, prevalently IgG, and C, in all HP cases, the majority of IPF cases and 50% of S cases. This confirms the importance of IC in the pathogenesis and/or evolution of some pulmonary diseases.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Polyvalent antigen-antibody interactions are required for the formation of electron-dense immune deposits in passive Heymann's nephritis.

In order to analyze the initial steps involved in the formation of subepithelial electron-dense immune deposits, the authors induced passive Heymann's nephritis in rats by intravenous injection of monoclonal or polyclonal antibodies to the relevant antigen, a 330,000-dalton brush border protein also expressed within coated pits of glomerular epithelial cells. Whereas both mono- and polyclonal antibodies induced deposits detectable by indirect immunofluorescence, electron-dense deposits were only found in glomerular capillary walls of rats injected with polyclonal antibodies. Immunoultrastructural analysis confirmed the subepithelial location of heterologous IgG: monoclonal antibodies were essentially confined to the coated pits of glomerular epithelial cells, whereas polyclonal antibodies were detected in coated pits and in the subepithelial electron-dense deposits. In the face of an excess of circulating antibody, gp 330 was not detectable in the deposits, but a striking increase in the number of endoplasmic reticula positive for gp 330 was found. The results indicate that highly cross-linked immune complexes formed by polyvalent antibodies on the epithelial cell surface are necessary for the induction of subepithelial electron-dense deposits.

Animals↗
PubMed1986

Ultrastructural localization by monoclonal antibodies of brush border antigens expressed by glomeruli. II. Extrarenal distribution.

An immunoultrastructural study has been undertaken for analysis of the extrarenal localization of two brush border (BB) glycoproteins of 90 kd and 330 kd expressed by glomeruli. In previous studies on renal tissue, it has been shown that gp 330 is restricted to coated pits and BB intermicrovillar invaginations, whereas gp 90 is diffusely distributed on epithelial cell membranes and in addition expressed on glomerular endothelial cells. At variance from observations made in the kidney, gp 330 and gp 90 are mainly expressed on different epithelial cell types: gp 330 is found on the coated pits of the epithelium lining the epididymis and on the entire surface of the microvilli of Type II pneumocytes, whereas gp 90 is detected on the gut brush border and the biliary pole of hepatocytes; gp 90 is also found on endothelia lining all distal capillary beds studied in heart, lung, liver, and spleen. These observations thus indicate that gp 90 is expressed by a wide variety of cell types, all associated with high membrane turnover. Conversely, gp 330 has a restricted distribution at the organ, cellular and subcellular level and may be related with a defined system of receptor-mediated endocytosis.

Animals↗
PubMed1986

Ultrastructural localization by monoclonal antibodies of brush border antigens expressed by glomeruli. I. Renal distribution.

The authors have previously reported the production of monoclonal anti-brush border antibodies defining two glycoprotein (gp) antigens of 90 and 330 kd which are also expressed on glomerular cells and may thus be of significance for in situ formation of immune complexes. The 330-kd antigen is involved in Heymann's nephritis, whereas the 90-kd antigen induces transient glomerular immune deposits. In this report, the authors describe the renal ultrastructural localization of the two antigens, which are both detectable on brush border and glomerular epithelial cells but assume contrasting patterns: gp 90 is diffusely present on the cell membranes, whereas gp 330 is concentrated in the intermicrovillar region and within the coated pits. Their localization within proximal tubular cells, on the membrane of intracytoplasmic vesicles, suggests that they are involved in endocytosis. In addition, gp 90 is expressed on endothelial cells lining glomerular capillaries. These observations may help us to understand the formation and different kinetics of immune glomerular deposits.

Animals↗