Universidade Federal de Viçosa

About: Universidade Federal de Viçosa is a education organization based out in Viçosa, Brazil. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Biology. The organization has 16012 authors who have published 26711 publications receiving 353416 citations.

The sialotranscriptome of Amblyomma triste , Amblyomma parvum and Amblyomma cajennense ticks, uncovered by 454-based RNA-seq

Abstract: Tick salivary constituents antagonize inflammatory, immune and hemostatic host responses, favoring tick blood feeding and the establishment of tick-borne pathogens in hosts during hematophagy. Amblyomma triste, A. cajennense and A. parvum ticks are very important in veterinary and human health because they are vectors of the etiological agents for several diseases. Insights into the tick salivary components involved in blood feeding are essential to understanding vector-pathogen-host interactions, and transcriptional profiling of salivary glands is a powerful tool to do so. Here, we functionally annotated the sialotranscriptomes of these three Amblyomma species, which allowed comparisons between these and other hematophagous arthropod species. mRNA from the salivary glands of A. triste, A. cajennense and A. parvum ticks fed on different host species were pyrosequenced on a 454-Roche platform to generate four A. triste (nymphs fed on guinea pigs and females fed on dogs) libraries, one A. cajennense (females fed on rabbits) library and one was A. parvum (females fed on dogs) library. Bioinformatic analyses used in-house programs with a customized pipeline employing standard assembly and alignment algorithms, protein databases and protein servers. Each library yielded an average of 100,000 reads, which were assembled to obtain contigs of coding sequences (CDSs). The sialotranscriptome analyses of A. triste, A. cajennense and A. parvum ticks produced 11,240, 4,604 and 3,796 CDSs, respectively. These CDSs were classified into over 100 distinct protein families with a wide range of putative functions involved in physiological and blood feeding processes and were catalogued in annotated, hyperlinked spreadsheets. We highlighted the putative transcripts encoding saliva components with critical roles during parasitism, such as anticoagulants, immunosuppressants and anti-inflammatory molecules. The salivary content underwent changes in the abundance and repertoire of many transcripts, which depended on the tick and host species. The annotated sialotranscriptomes described herein richly expand the biological knowledge of these three Amblyomma species. These comprehensive databases will be useful for the characterization of salivary proteins and can be applied to control ticks and tick-borne diseases.

Utilização de medicamentos por idosos brasileiros, de acordo com a faixa etária: um inquérito postal

Abstract: The objective of this study was to evaluate factors associated with use of medicines by the elderly. A national postal survey was conducted with a random sample of 3,000 elderly individuals selected from the registry of the Brazilian National Social Security Institute. The study estimated the prevalence and average number of medicines used in the 15 days prior to the survey, according to age bracket. Prevalence of use of medication was 83.0%: 78.8% in the 60-69 year bracket and 87.3% in individuals 70 years or older (p < 0.05). Older elders had taken an average of 4.4 drugs, as compared to 3.3 among younger elders. Drugs for the cardiovascular system were the most widely used. Age 70 years and older, female gender, poor self-rated health, interruption of routine daily activities, six or more medical visits in the previous year, private health insurance, and reporting of four or more illnesses were independently associated with use of medications (p < 0.05). The results expand the knowledge on use of medications among elderly Brazilians, emphasizing the need to improve pharmaceutical care focused on this subgroup of the population.

Effects of protein quality on appetite and energy metabolism in normal weight subjects

Abstract: OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of consumption of different protein sources on food intake and energy expenditure in normal weight subjects. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Breakfast preparations (casein, soy protein, whey protein or control) were ingested during seven consecutive days. Appetite, food intake, and energy expenditure were assessed. RESULTS: Casein consumption led to a lower energy intake than whey protein. There was lower energy intake on day 7 than on day 1 of the casein session. Soy protein preparations resulted in higher diet induced thermogenesis (DIT) than in control preparations. The respiratory quotient (RQ) obtained in the whey protein session was lower than the control and soy protein sessions. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that the consumption of different protein types leads to distinct effects on satiety (casein), DIT (soy protein), and/or RQ (whey protein).