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Publications (82)
Several studies have shown that the oxidative impact of pesticides is most prevalent in rural environments where they are intensively used. At different levels, pyrethroids are reported to promote neurodegeneration; they share the ability to promote oxidative stress, and to induce mitochondrial impairments, α-synuclein overexpression and neuronal c...
Background:
Since both genomic and environmental factors are involved in obesity etiology, several studies about the influence of adiposity on both nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA methylation patterns have been carried out. Nevertheless, few evidences exploring the usage of buccal swab samples to study mitochondrial DNA epigenetics can be found...
There is growing awareness within the scientific community of the strong connection between the inflammation in the intestine and the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease (PD). In previous studies we developed a PD animal model exposing pup rats to permethrin (PERM) pesticide. Here, we intended to explore whether in our animal model there were chang...
This study investigated the preventive efficacy of the crude oil extracted from Nigella sativa seeds in a rat model of arthritis induced by using complete Freund’s adjuvant (CFA). Nigella sativa oil at 1.82 mL/kg or 0.91 mL/kg (corresponding to 1596 and 798 mg/kg, respectively) was orally administered for 25 days from the day of immunization. One i...
Permethrin is a synthetic pyrethroid extensively used as anti-woodworm agent and for indoor and outdoor pest control. The main route of human exposure is through fruit, vegetable and milk intake. Low dosage exposure to permethrin during neonatal brain development (from postnatal day 6 to postnatal day 21) leads to dopamine decrease in rat striatum...
Rheumatoid arthritis is characterized by chronic progressive inflammation and damage at joints leading to disability in about 250 million people between 30 and 60 years of age. Here we studied the capacity of Nigella sativa oil cultivar, produced in the Marche region (Italy), to slow the onset/progression of disease in an adjuvant-induced arthritis...
The oil obtained from the seeds of Nigella sativa L. (N. sativa), also known as black cumin, is frequently used in the Mediterranean area for its anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, and anti-cancer activities. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of the oil extracted from seeds of a N. sativa cu...
Early-life exposure (from postnatal day 6 to postnatal day 21) to permethrin has been associated with long-term development of dopaminergic neurodegeneration in rats. Here, we first investigated if the dopamine decrease observed following early postnatal exposure to permethrin, an oxidative stressor, can impair the dopamine level in the brain of th...
The mechanisms associated to the development of neurodegeneration due to pesticide exposure are not clear yet. In this study we evaluated how permethrin pesticide (PERM) can influence the Nurr1 gene and protein expression, and if a pro-oxidant activity of the pesticide contributes to up-regulation of Nurr1 in a dopaminergic cell line. Incubation of...
Gut microbiota has a proven role in regulating multiple neuro-chemical pathways through the highly
interconnected gut-brain axis. Oral bacteriotherapy thus has potential in the treatment of central
nervous system-related pathologies, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Current AD treatments aim to
prevent onset, delay progression and ameliorate sy...
Introduction:
Oxidative stress, alpha-synuclein changes, mitochondrial complex I defects and dopamine loss, observed in the striatum of rats exposed to the pesticide permethrin in early life, could represent neuropathological hallmarks of Parkinson's disease (PD). Nevertheless, an animal model of PD should also fulfill criteria of face and predict...
External factors including diet, lifestyle, and environmental exposure to pollutants are linked to the onset of several diseases such as cancer, neurodegeneration, cardiovascular, and metabolic disorders. Particularly, early life exposure to environmental pollution plays a critical role in the development of age-related diseases because, during thi...
Changes in the homeostasis of metals and microelements have been demonstrated in Parkinson’s disease, whose etiology includes both a genetic and environmental basis. We studied the difference of microelements in the hair of Parkinson’s disease subjects (n = 46) compared with healthy controls (n = 24). Hair was chosen as a representative matrix to m...
Alteration of the gut microbiota through diet and environmental contaminants may disturb the mammalian digestive system, leading to various diseases. Because most exposure to environmentally pyrethroid pesticides such as permethrin (PERM) occurs through the diet, the commensal gut microbiota is likely to be exposed to PERM. The study aimed at evalu...
The number of children affected by Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is dramatically increasing as well as the studies aimed at understanding the risk factors associated with the development of ASD. Since the etiology of ASD is partly genetic and partly environmental, factors (i.e., heavy metals, pesticides) as well as lifestyle seem to have a key ro...
Hair is a non-invasive biological material useful in the biomonitoring of trace elements because it is a vehicle for substance excretion from the body, and it permits evaluating long-term metal exposure. Here, hair from an animal model of neurodegeneration, induced by early life permethrin treatment from the sixth to 21th day of life, has been anal...
Environmental exposure to pesticides during the early stages of development represents an important risk factor for the onset of neurodegenerative diseases in adult age. Neonatal exposure to Permethrin (PERM), a member of the family of synthetic pyrethroids, can induce a Parkinson-like disease and cause some alterations in striatum of rats, involvi...
The exposure to xenobiotics in the early stages of life represents the most important component in the etiology of many neurodegenerative disorders. Proteomic analysis of plasma and brain samples from early life treated animal model was performed in order to identify early biomarkers of neurodegeneration. Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis followe...
Background and purpose:
Substance P and its preferred neurokinin receptor NK1 have been implicated in stress and anxiety and have been proposed as possible therapeutic targets for the treatment of anxiety/depression. Attention is also being focused on the role this neuropeptide system may play in drug addiction.
Experimental approach:
Since stre...
Leucine supplementation exerts a positive effect on mTOR pathway that is involved in the synthesis of skeletal muscle protein. In the present study, the capability of a 15-day dietary leucine supplementation (310 mg/kg) to improve the performance in acute high intensity effort and the inductive capacity on skeletal muscle protein anabolism in rats...
The proclivity of permethrin and its metabolites to affect the structure and activity of Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase (SOD) has been investigated by using intrinsic fluorescence and 8-ANS fluorescence techniques. In silico molecular docking investigations were carried out in order to assess the means of interaction at a molecular level between SOD an...
During the neurodevelopmental period, the brain is potentially more susceptible to environmental exposure to pollutants. The aim was to determine if neonatal exposure to permethrin (PERM) pesticide, at a low dosage that does not produce signs of obvious abnormalities, could represent a risk for the onset of diseases later in the life.
Neonatal rats...
Cypermethrin (CY), a class II pyrethroid pesticide, is globally used to control insects in the household and in agriculture. Despite beneficial roles, its uncontrolled and repetitive application leads to unintended effects in non-target organisms. In light of the relevant anti-oxidant properties of alpha-lipoic acid (ALA), in the work described her...
Environmental, nutritional or hormonal influences in early life may have long-term effects changing homeostatic processes and physiological parameters in adulthood. NF-kB and Nrf2, two of the main transcription factors regulating genes involved in pro-inflammatory and antioxidant responses respectively, can be modified by various stimuli. NF-kB con...
Abstract 1. The effect of different permethrin treatments on the redox system of rat liver, is presented. Two types of oral administration were chosen: (i) sub-chronic treatment (1/10 of LD50 for 60 days) during adolescence (5 weeks old) and (ii) sub-acute treatment (1/44 of LD50 for 15 days) during early life (from postnatal days 6-21). 2. The res...
Pesticide exposure during brain development represents an important risk factor for the onset of brain-aging processes. Here, the impact of permethrin administered to rats from 6(th) to 21(st) day of life, at a dose near to "no observed adverse effect level" (NOAEL), was studied when animals reached 500 day-old. The permethrin treatment induced a d...
Background:
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a frequent form of senile dementia. Neuroglobin (Ngb) has a neuroprotective role and decreases Aβ peptide levels. Ngb, promoting Akt phosphorylation, activates cell survival involving cyclic-nucleotide response element-binding protein (CREB). A new molecule (IBU-LA) was synthetized and administered to an AD...
Trimethyltin (TMT) is an organotin compound which is considered a useful tool to obtain an animal model of neurodegeneration associated with cognitive impairment (Pompili et al., 2011; Geloso et al., 2011). In the present work, this model was used in order to investigate the animal behaviour in association with the immunohistochemical expression of...
Pesticide exposure during brain development could represent an important risk factor for the onset of neurodegenerative diseases. Previous studies investigated the effect of permethrin (PERM) administered at 34mg/kg, a dose close to the no observable adverse effect level (NOAEL) from post natal day (PND) 6 to PND 21 in rats. Despite the PERM dose d...
The triorganotin compound trimethyltin (TMT) is a highly toxic molecule which has a great impact on human health. The aim of this study was to investigate the specific alteration of dopamine receptors and transporters in the hippocampus of TMT-treated rats. The TMT-treated group showed impaired spatial reference memory in a Morris water maze task c...
The effect of a low dose of the insecticide permethrin administered during early-life was evaluated on leukocytes inflammation mediators on 300- and 500-day-old rats. Nurr1, NF-κB-p65, Nrf2, lipid peroxidation and GSH levels increased with age but compared to the control group, treatment with permethrin induced a significant increase only of Nurr1...
Early life environmental exposure to pesticides could play a critical role in the onset of age-related diseases. The present study aims to evaluate in brain, plasma and leukocytes of 300 day-old rats, the effect of a low dose of the insecticide permethrin administered during early life (1/50 LD(50), from 6th to 21st day of life). The outcomes show...
Alzheimer's disease (AD) commonly begins with loss of recent memory and is associated to pathological and histological hallmarks such as β amyloid plaques, neural tangles (NFT), cholinergic deficit, extensive neuronal loss and synaptic changes in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus. The amyloid cascade hypothesis implies the activity of β, γ secret...
The decoction of the combined stem barks of Khaya ivorensis A. Chev. (Meliaceae) and Alstonia boonei De Wild (Apocynaceae) has a history of use in traditional medicine of central Cameroon for malaria treatment but also for the prevention of the disease.
The purpose of this investigation was to determine the antiplasmodial activity of Khaya ivorensi...
Due to increased global use, acute and chronic exposures to pyrethroid insecticides in humans are of clinical concern. Pyrethroids have a primary mode of action that involves interference with the sodium and calcium channels in excitable cells, which may include cardiac myocytes. Here, we investigated the possible cardiac toxicity of permethrin met...
Early life environmental exposure to xenobiotics could represent a critical period for the onset of permanent alterations in the structure and function of different organs. Cardiovascular diseases can be related to various factors including environmental toxicants. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of early life permethrin tre...
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and antioxidant therapy might protect against the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD). In the present work, we synthesized a molecular combination of glutathione (GSH) and ibuprofen (IBU) via an amide bond and investigated its potential for targeted delivery of the parent drugs to neurons, where ce...
Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative pathology due to the presence of β-amyloid plaques at brain level and hippocampus level and associated with the loss of memory speech and learning. At the basis of these effects lie molecular mechanisms which include nitric oxide metabolic pathway, whose involvement in the occurrence of morphological modif...
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder associated primarily with loss of dopamine (DA) neurons in the nigrostriatal system. With the aim of increasing the bioavailability of L: -dopa (LD) after oral administration and of overcoming the pro-oxidant effect associated with LD therapy, we designed a peptidomimetic LD prodrug (1) able...
Based on the well known biological versatility of the imidazoline nucleus, we prepared the novel derivatives 3a-k inspired by 2-BFI scaffold to assess imidazoline molecules as D(2)-like dopamine receptor ligands. Conservative chemical modifications of the lead structure, such as the introduction of an hydroxy group in the aromatic ring alone or ass...
Pollutants including insecticides have been recently reported to be a risk factor involved in various diseases. Permethrin, a member of the family of synthetic pyrethroids, is widely used as insecticide in agriculture and other domestic applications. To investigate possible cardiotoxicity, we had examined different concentrations of permethrin on t...
ChemInform is a weekly Abstracting Service, delivering concise information at a glance that was extracted from about 100 leading journals. To access a ChemInform Abstract of an article which was published elsewhere, please select a “Full Text” option. The original article is trackable via the “References” option.
Development in Africa today is hampered by a number of severe infectious and parasitic diseases, among which malaria takes a sad, leading role. In Cameroon, the malaria burden is particularly heavy in rural, remote areas, due to the lack of medical centres that can assure prompt and appropriate treatment to health seeking individuals. Thus, still a...
Both oxidative stress and inflammation are elevated in brains of Alzheimer's disease patients, but their pathogenic significance still remains unclear. Current evidence support the hypothesis that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and antioxidant therapy might protect against the development of Alzheimer's disease, and ibuprofen has th...
Current evidences support the hypothesis that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and antioxidant therapy might protect against the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD). In the present work, our attention was focused on ibuprofen (IBU) used in clinical trails to prevent Alzheimer's disease, and (R)-alpha-lipoic acid (LA) considered as...
Pyrethroids are one of the most widely used class of insecticides and their toxicity is dominated by pharmacological actions upon the CNS. This study reports as the subchronic treatment (60 days) with permethrin (PERM) (1/10 of LD(50)) induced nuclear DNA damage in rat striatum cells. Comet assay outcomes showed that PERM produced single- and doubl...
Polymorphonuclear neutrophils are professional phagocytes whose efficacy depends on a multicomponent NADPH oxidase for generating superoxide anions and bacterial killing. They can be primed and activated by different agents that can impair oxidative burst and phagocytosis with opposite effects: reduced capability to destroy bacteria or hyperactivat...
Pyrethroids are widely used insecticides of low acute toxicity in mammals but the consequences of long-term exposure are of concern. Their insecticidal action is related to neurotoxicity and, in addition, there are indications of mammalian immuno-toxicity. In this work the effect of 60 days permethrin (150 mg kg(-1) body weight/day) exposure on two...
A series of multifunctional codrugs (1-6) were synthesized to overcome the pro-oxidant effect associated with L-dopa (LD) therapy. Target compounds release LD and dopamine (DA) in human plasma after enzymatic hydrolysis, displaying an antioxidant effect superior to that of N-acetylcysteine (NAC). After intracerebroventricular injection of codrug 4,...
Pyrethroids are important insecticides used largely because of their high activity as an insecticide and their low mammalian toxicity. Some studies have demonstrated that these products show neurotoxic effects on the mammalian central nervous system. The aim of the present study was to investigate the propensity of permethrin to induce oxidative st...
This paper reports the synthesis and preliminary evaluation of new L-dopa (LD) conjugates (1 and 2) obtained by joining LD with two different natural antioxidants, caffeic acid and carnosine, respectively. The antioxidant efficacy of compounds 1 and 2 was assessed by evaluating plasmatic activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione pero...
A series of novel molecular combinations (1-4), in which L-dopa (LD) is linked covalently via an amide bond with glutathione (GSH), were synthesized and evaluated as potential anti-Parkinson agents with antioxidant properties. These conjugates were characterized by evaluating solubility, chemical and enzymatic stabilities, and apparent partition co...
Since pyrethroids are involved in reactive oxygen species production and no investigations have yet been performed on smooth muscle cell integrity, we studied the influence of permethrin- and cypermethrin-treatment on rabbit aorta using confocal laser scanning fluorescence microscopy, which allows cell viability to be assessed within the wall of li...
Pyrethroids are a class of insecticides involved in different neurological disorders. They cross the blood-brain barrier and exert their effect on dopaminergic system, contributing to the burden of oxidative stress in Parkinson's disease through several pathways. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of neonatal exposition to perm...
Drug formulations Alimento Supervis (AS) and Alimento Mieleucalipto (AM), which are derived from chestnut honey, have been used as vehicle and supplemented with ginseng, propolis, royal jelly and propolis, and eucalyptus, respectively. These substances are traditionally used as anti-inflammatory medicine and were commercialized before conducting pr...
A series of multifunctional codrugs (1-4), obtained by joining L-Dopa (LD) and dopamine (DA) with (R)-alpha-lipoic acid (LA), was synthesized and evaluated as potential codrugs with antioxidant and iron-chelating properties. These multifunctional molecules were synthesized to overcome the pro-oxidant effect associated with LD therapy. The physicoch...
New organotin(IV) derivatives containing the anionic ligands bis(3,5-dimethylpyrazol-1-yl)dithioacetate [LCS2]− and bis(3,5-dimethylpyrazol-1-yl)acetate [LCO2]− have been synthesized from reaction between (CH3)2SnCl2 and lithium salts of the ligands. Mononuclear complexes of the type {[LCX2](CH3)2SnCl} (X = S or O) have been obtained and fully char...
The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the ability of calcic and magnesic-sulphate-sulphurous spring mineral water (SMW) to reduce total and erythrocyte plasma membrane cholesterol in rats fed a cholesterol-rich diet.
By using different fluorescent probes, 1,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-hexatriene (DPH), 1-[4-(trimethylamino)phenyl]-6-phenylhexa-1,3,...
Pesticides have been considered potential chemical mutagens. In fact, some studies show that various agrochemical ingredients possess mutagenic properties inducing mutations, chromosomal alterations or DNA damage. Experimental evidence shows a marked correlation between mutagenicity and carcinogenicity and indicates that short-term mutagenicity tes...
Pyrethroids are divided into two groups according to their chemical structures: type I pyrethroids are devoid of a cyano moiety at the alpha-position (i.e. permethrin, PERM), while type II pyrethroids have an alpha-cyano moiety (i.e. cypermethrin, CY). Type I pyrethroids cause a type I poisoning syndrome or "T syndrome", whereas type II pyrethroids...
We have studied the influence of hydropinic treatment with calcic and magnesic-sulphate-sulphurous spring mineral water (IDCS water) on plasma cholesterol (T-Ch), low density lipoprotein (LDL-Ch) and high density lipoprotein (HDL-Ch) levels, in experimental animals made hypercholesterolemic with a high cholesterol diet, and investigated possible me...
Among the various pathologies of hepatic function, hypercholesterolaemia is of considerable interest because of its close correlation with arteriosclerosis and myocardial infarction. Ad libitum consumption of "San Giovanni" sulphureous water induces in rats fed a hypercholesterolemic diet, a lower elevation of blood cholesterol levels, of phospholi...
Solid dispersions of lonidamine in PEG 4000 and PVP K 29/32 were prepared by the spray-drying method. Then, the binary systems were studied and characterized using differential scanning calorimetry, hot stage microscopy, and x-ray diffractometry. In vitro dissolution studies of the solid dispersed powders were performed to verify if any lonidamine...
The effects of treatment with the synthetic insecticide cypermethrin on plasma membrane fluidity, lipid peroxidation and antioxidant status in rat erythrocytes were investigated. Rats were treated by gavage with a low dose (12.5 mg/kg body weight per day) of cypermethrin in corn oil for 60 days. DPH and TMA-DPH fluorescence anisotropy experiments s...
A series of muscarinic agonists, straight chained, branched, cyclic alkyl and aromatic derivatives of the oxime 1 (demox) was designed with the aim of investigating their activity on muscarinic receptor subtypes. Effects on M1 receptor were assessed functionally by a microphysiometer apparatus, while M2, M3, and M4 receptor potency and affinity wer...
A series of muscarinic agonists, straight chained, branched, cyclic alkyl and aromatic derivatives of the oxime 1 (demox) was designed with the aim of investigating their activity on muscarinic receptor subtypes. Effects on M1 receptor were assessed functionally by a microphysiometer apparatus, while M2, M3, and M4 receptor potency and affinity wer...
