Medical Sciences Forum, Volume 11, Issue 1

Caco-2 cells are well established models of intestinal epithelium, being routinely used to evaluate toxicity and bioavailability. Although usually overlooked, Caco-2 monolayers may also be used to assess biotransformation by epithelial cells, which m...

The administration of highly cytotoxic or immunomodulating drugs directly into a tumor is a method used in the clinic for late stages of cancers and in clinical trials for platinum-based drugs. A hydrophobic non-innocent Schiff base V(V) complex with...

GNE myopathy (GNEM) is a rare disease clinically characterized by progressive muscle atrophy and weakness. Besides the rare incidence of the disease, the limited preclinical models are among the major bottlenecks for a better pathophysiological under...

Studies of the pharmacological action of vanadium compounds have shown that vanadium has been arousing interest as a potential candidate for therapeutic applications. Polyoxovanadates (POVs) emerge from polyoxometalatates (POMs) and are responsible f...

Chlorpyrifos is a pesticide revised as dangerous for human health. While dermal permeation of chlorpyrifos is still poorly investigated, alternatives to animal and/or human skin are demanded. In this work, the suitability of synthetic membranes as al...

In order to evaluate the immunomodulatory potential of novel monofloral Irish honeys, THP-1 monocyte-derived macrophages provided a suitable cell-based model. THP-1 cells can be differentiated to macrophages using phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate (PMA...

In previous studies (Marques-da-Silva et al., 2019), we measured the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of three polyoxovanadates, namely V10, MnV11, and MnV13, against Escherichia coli. MICs were obtained following the standard method, which r...

Chlorpyrifos (CPF) is a widely used insecticide. The aim of this work was to study the effect of CPF in skin fibroblasts exposed to concentrations detected in human skin and unleash underlying cellular mechanisms. Fibroblasts were exposed to differen...

Cytochrome c (Cc) is well-known as an electron carrier at mitochondria but can also catalyze peroxidase-like reactions. Although the reported catalytic abilities are low, the role of Cc in transforming environmental toxicants requires additional stud...

Several natural bioactive compounds are described for their beneficial effects to skin. Nevertheless, for some compounds, dermal absorption is a challenge, demanding new methods to enhance skin penetration. In this work, pre-treatment with a micronee...