A simple methodology for the determination of the fatty acid composition of edible oils through (1)H NMR is proposed. The method is based on the fact that all fatty acid chains are esterified to a common moiety, glycerol, and the quantification is done directly in the (1)H NMR spectra through the relationship between the areas of a characteristic signal of each fatty acid and a signal of the glycerol moiety, without the use of mathematical equations. The methodology was successfully applied to determine the fatty acid composition of several edible oils, with equivalent results to those given by the AOAC Official method by gas chromatography. Its main advantages are simplicity and the lack of need for sample pre-treatment such as derivatization or extraction.

In December 2019, a novel beta (β) coronavirus eventually named SARS-CoV-2 emerged in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, causing an outbreak of severe and even fatal pneumonia in humans. The virus has spread very rapidly to many countries across the world, resulting in the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Clinically, the diagnosis of this unprecedented illness, called coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), becomes difficult because it shares many symptoms with other respiratory pathogens, including influenza and parainfluenza viruses. Therefore, laboratory diagnosis is crucial for the clinical management of patients and the implementation of disease control strategies to contain SARS-CoV-2 at clinical and population level. Here, we summarize the main clinical and imaging findings of COVID-19 patients and discuss the advances, features, advantages, and limitations of different laboratory methods used for SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis.

Multiple epicenters of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic have emerged since the first pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China, such as Italy, USA, and Brazil. Brazil is the third-most affected country worldwide, but genomic sequences of SARS-CoV-2 strains are mostly restricted to states from the Southeast region. Pernambuco state, located in the Northeast region, is the sixth most affected Brazilian state, but very few genomic sequences from the strains circulating in this region are available. We sequenced 101 strains of SARS-CoV-2 from patients presenting Covid-19 symptoms that reside in Pernambuco. Phylogenetic reconstructions revealed that all genomes belong to the B lineage and most of the samples (88%) were classified as lineage B.1.1. We detected multiple viral introductions from abroad (likely from Europe) as well as six local B.1.1 clades composed by Pernambuco only strains. Local clades comprise sequences from the capital city (Recife) and other country-side cities, corroborating the community spread between different municipalities of the state. These findings demonstrate that different from Southeastern Brazilian states where the epidemics were majorly driven by one dominant lineage (B.1.1.28 or B.1.1.33), the early epidemic phase at the Pernambuco state was driven by multiple B.1.1 lineages seeded through both national and international traveling.

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Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy (ESWT) has had a wide use in rehabilitation, and has presented positive effects in the treatment of unaesthetic affections. The objective of the present study was to search, in the literature, the mechanisms of action and the physiological aspects of shockwaves acting on the biological tissue to improve the condition of cellulite and localized fat. The systematic review of the literature was carried out in the period of September 2016 to February 2017 based on the bibliographic databases such as Lilacs, Medline, PubMed, and SciELO. Fifteen articles were identified in that systematic review, three of which were excluded as they did not make the complete access to the article available or the theme investigated did not encompass the objective of the study. The revision demonstrated that extracorporeal shockwaves present relevant effects on the biological tissue, which leads to the restructuring of skin properties and subcutaneous tissue, thus clinically improving the aspects of cellulite and localized fat.

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The aims of this study were to investigate the frequency of pulmonary hemorrhage (PH) in mice unable to produce functional B and T lymphocytes and to explore the effect of an inducible nitric oxide synthase gene (Inos) knockout (KO) on the frequency/severity of interstitial nephritis in vivo. We studied the outcome of infection by the virulent Leptospira interrogans serovar Copenhageni strain Cop. The animals used were Inos KO mice, recombination activating gene 1 (Rag1) KO mice, CB17 severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice, and the respective wild-type (WT) C57BL/6 and BALB/c controls. The Inos KO and WT mice survived with no clinical symptoms of leptospirosis. The frequency and severity of nephritis was significantly lower in the Inos KO mice. All of the Rag1 KO and SCID animals died of acute leptospirosis, whereas all of the WT mice survived. PH was observed in 57 and 94% of Rag1 KO mice and in 83 and 100% of SCID mice, using inoculum doses of 10 7 and 10 6 leptospires, respectively. There was no evidence of PH in the WT controls. In conclusion, the loss of the Inos gene had a negligible effect on the outcome of leptospiral infection, although we observed a reduced susceptibility for interstitial nephritis in this group. Of note, the absence of functional B-and T-cell lymphocytes did not preclude the occurrence of PH. These data provide evidence that PH in leptospirosis may not be related only to autoimmune mechanisms.

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