The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic that we are currently experiencing is exerting a massive toll both in human lives and economic impact. One of the challenges we must face is to try to understand if and how different variants of the virus emerge and change their frequency in time. Such information can be extremely valuable as it may indicate shifts in aggressiveness, and it could provide useful information to trace the spread of the virus in the population. In this work we identified and traced over time 7 amino acid variants that are present with high frequency in Italy and Europe, but that were absent or present at very low frequencies during the first stages of the epidemic in China and the initial reports in Europe. The analysis of these variants helps defining 6 phylogenetic clades that are currently spreading throughout the world with changes in frequency that are sometimes very fast and dramatic. In the absence of conclusive data at the time of writing, we discuss whether the spread of the variants may be due to a prominent founder effect or if it indicates an adaptive advantage.
The COVID-19 pandemic, especially during the first wave, posed a great challenge to the hospital management and generally promoted nosocomial pathogen dissemination. MDR
A. baumannii
can easily spread and persist for a long time on surfaces, causing outbreaks in health care settings.
The interactions between aromatase inhibitors (AI) in breast cancer (BC) and gut microbiota (GM) have not been completely established yet. The aim of the study is to evaluate the bio-diversity of GM and the relationship between GM, inflammation and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in postmenopausal women with BC during adjuvant AI treatment compared to women with disease relapse during or after one year of AI therapy (“endocrine-resistant”). We conducted a monocenter observational case-control study. Eighty-four women with BC (8 cases, 76 controls) were enrolled from 2019 to 2021. We observed a significant difference in the mean microbial abundance between the two groups for the taxonomic rank of order (p 0.035) and family (p 0.029); specifically, the case group showed higher diversity than the control group. Veillonella reached its maximum abundance in cases (p 0.022). Cytokine levels were compared among the groups created considering the TILs levels. We obtained a statistically significant difference (p 0.045) in IL-17 levels among the groups, with patients with low TILs levels showing a higher median value for IL-17 (0.15 vs. 0.08 pg/mL). Further studies about the bio-diversity in women with BC may lead to the development of new biomarkers and targeted interventions.
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