Repositorio Universidad Europea del Atlántico
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In silico prediction, molecular docking and simulation of natural flavonoid apigenin and xanthoangelol E against human metapneumovirus
No full textHuman metapneumovirus (hMPV) is one of the potential pandemic pathogens, and it is a concern for elderly subjects and immunocompromised patients. There is no vaccine or specific antiviral available for hMPV. We conducted an in-silico study to predict initial antiviral candidates against human metapneumovirus. Our methodology included protein modeling, stability assessment, molecular docking, molecular simulation, analysis of non-covalent interactions, bioavailability, carcinogenicity, and pharmacokinetic profiling. We pinpointed four plant-derived bio-compounds as antiviral candidates. Among the compounds, apigenin showed the highest binding affinity, with values of − 8.0 kcal/mol for the hMPV-F protein and − 7.6 kcal/mol for the hMPV-N protein. Molecular dynamic simulations and further analyses confirmed that the protein-ligand docked complexes exhibited acceptable stability compared to two standard antiviral drugs. Additionally, these four compounds yielded satisfactory outcomes in bioavailability, drug-likeness, and ADME-Tox (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity) and STopTox analyses. This study highlights the potential of apigenin and xanthoangelol E as an initial antiviral candidate, underscoring the necessity for wet-lab evaluation, preclinical and clinical trials against human metapneumovirus infection
Efficacy of liposomal amphotericin B for treating post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis (PKDL): A systematic review and single-arm meta-analysis
No full textBackground
Post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis (PKDL) is a skin condition that can become a complication in about 15 % of patients who have had kala-azar. Despite its significance, treatment options for PKDL are still limited. This systematic review and meta-analysis aim to evaluate the efficacy of amphotericin B for this condition.
Methods
PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, and Web of Science databases were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that reported the efficacy of Liposomal Amphotericin B in the treatment of PKDL. This study followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Events per 100 observations with 95 % confidence intervals were performed for outcomes.
Results
Nine studies with 639 patients were included, the treatment durations ranging from 7 to 60 days. The mean age ranged from 9.2 to 31.0 years, and 359 patients were male. The PKDL treatment with liposomal amphotericin B resulted in a cure rate of 91.36 % (95 % CI: 76.60-97.15). However, a relapse was observed in 11.42 % (95 % CI: 6.20-20.8) of patients. Adverse events were common, with hepatic enzyme elevation (ALT/AST) being the most frequent (61.75 %; 95 % CI: 21.81–90.33), followed by fever in 29.93 % of cases (95 % CI: 5.09–77.30). Among the more serious side effects, decreased serum potassium was observed in 19.27 % (95 % CI: 3.84–58.82), and increased serum creatinine, indicative of nephrotoxicity, occurred in 15.08 % (95 % CI: 3.97–43.27). Nausea or vomiting, although less severe, affected 12.36 % of patients (95 % CI: 4.81–28.25).
Conclusions
These findings highlight that while liposomal amphotericin B is a potent therapeutic option for PKDL, its administration requires careful management and clinical vigilance to optimize outcomes and minimize risks
The SAM-m6A axis as an unexplored therapeutic hub for plant-derived regulation of disease metabolism
No full textS-adenosylmethionine (SAM) is the main cellular methyl donor and a core product of one-carbon metabolism. Its balance with S-adenosylhomocysteine (SAH) defines methylation potential and shapes epigenetic and epitranscriptomic outputs. RNA N6-methyladenosine (m6A) directly depends on SAM and is controlled by a writer-reader-eraser system. This review summarizes how altered SAM supply, SAH accumulation, and shifts in the SAM/SAH ratio can reprogram m6A landscapes. These changes can occur in cancer, metabolic disease, inflammation, and neurodegeneration. We integrate metabolic control of SAM generation and consumption with regulation of METTL3/METTL14, WTAP and related cofactors, and the erasers FTO and ALKBH5. We also assess plant-derived bioactive compounds proposed to act on this coupling. Most phytochemicals do not behave as potent, selective m6A enzyme inhibitors. They more often act upstream by reshaping one-carbon metabolism, redox state, and protein expression. This profile contrasts with canonical synthetic inhibitors that block a single node with higher affinity and more predictable pharmacodynamics. Together, the evidence supports the SAM-m6A axis as a practical framework to connect nutrient state with RNA fate decisions. It also highlights key gaps for translation, including target engagement, dose-exposure alignment, and causal validation of m6A-dependent phenotypes
Mechanistic insights into ultrasound‐induced gamma‐aminobutyric acid accumulation in coffee leaves: a comprehensive study on the synthesis pathways, signal molecules, and transcriptome
No full textBACKGROUND
Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is a naturally occurring bioactive component in plants. Our previous study demonstrated that ultrasound could increase the activity of glutamate decarboxylase (GAD) and effectively enhance GABA accumulation in coffee leaves. However, the mechanism underlying this action has yet to be explored. In this study, we investigated how ultrasound promotes GABA accumulation in coffee leaves by analyzing the relative contribution of the two GABA synthesis pathways, as well as changes in the key enzymes, signal molecules, and transcriptomes in coffee leaves under ultrasound treatment.
RESULTS
The mechanical extraction had a negligible effect on GABA levels in coffee leaves, and the substrate sodium glutamate was essential for GABA accumulation under ultrasound stress. Aminoguanidine pretreatment reduced GABA content by 31.02% under ultrasound treatment. Fluorescent imaging revealed increased intracellular Ca2+ and H+ levels, potentially contributing to enhanced GAD activity in ultrasound-treated leaves. Transcriptomic analysis identified 1053 differentially expressed genes associated with multiple metabolic pathways, including carbohydrates, amino acids, flavonoids, and other primary and secondary metabolite biosynthesis. Further analysis indicated that ultrasound may enhance GABA accumulation by modulating Ca2+, reactive oxygen species, mitogen-activated protein kinase, and phosphatidylinositol signaling pathways, as well as the glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolic pathways.
CONCLUSION
This study revealed that ultrasound promoted GABA accumulation mainly through the GABA shunt pathway, with mechanical extraction playing a minimal role. Ultrasound may enhance GAD activity by increasing intracellular Ca2+ levels and lowering pH, while also regulating the expression of genes related to GABA biosynthesis. © 2026 Society of Chemical Industry
Parents’ nutrition knowledge, perceived barriers and enablers, and healthy-eating attitudes associated with children’s adherence to the Mediterranean diet: the DELICIOUS project
No full textObjective: Children’s dietary choices are influenced by several factors, including parents’ modeling. The relation between parents’ psychosocial factors and their children’s level of adherence to the Mediterranean diet were explored.
Methods: Food literacy, perceived barriers and enablers, and healthy-eating attitude following the Capability, Opportunity and Motivation (COM-B) model for behavioral change were evaluated in 2,011 participants in the DELICIOUS (UnDErstanding consumer food choices & promotion of healthy and sustainable Mediterranean Diet and LIfestyle in Children and adolescents through behavIOUral change actionS) project. Adherence to the Mediterranean diet was assessed through the KIDMED questionnaire. Beta coefficients and standard errors (SEs) were calculated through linear regression analyses.
Results: Post-adjustment for potential confounding factors, results showed significant positive correlation between children’s adherence to the Mediterranean diet and parental food literacy [β (SE) = 0.180 (0.011)], perceived barriers and enablers [β (SE) = 0.135 (0.009)], and healthy-eating attitudes (divided into five constructs) [β (SE) = 0.069 (0.030), β (SE) = 0.037 (0.029), β (SE) = 0.162 (0.017), β (SE) = 0.147 (0.010), β (SE) = 0.158 (0.011)]. Individual dietary components of the Mediterranean diet were also associated with various psychosocial factors.
Conclusion: These results confirm the importance of parental food literacy, perceived enablers and barriers to healthy-eating, health-eating attitude in their children’s adherence to the Mediterranean diet
Loneliness, Aloneness, and Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet in Southern Italian Individuals
No full textBackground/Objectives: Research across multiple disciplines has explored how nutrition is shaped by social isolation and feelings of loneliness, especially in the elderly population. Evidence from neuroscience highlights that loneliness may alter eating patterns, encouraging emotional eating or other compensatory food behaviors. Conversely, isolation from social contexts is often linked to a reduced variety of nutrient intake. This study set out to examine how psychosocial aspects, particularly social connectedness and feeling alone, relate to adherence to the Mediterranean diet among older adults residing in Sicily, southern Italy. Methods: Dietary habits of 883 adults were collected through food frequency questionnaires and assessed for adherence to the Mediterranean diet. Loneliness was measured through a targeted question from a standardized tool designed to capture depressive symptoms. Direct questions asked whether participants were engaged in social networks, such as family, friends and neighborhoods, or religious communities, in order to assess objective aloneness. Logistic regression analyses were performed to assess associations between variables of interest. Results: After accounting for potential confounders, both loneliness and aloneness showed an association with stronger adherence to the Mediterranean diet. Specifically, individuals experiencing loneliness and aloneness were less likely to have high adherence to the Mediterranean diet (OR = 0.28, 95% CI: 0.15, 0.51, and OR = 0.26, 95% CI: 0.12, 0.54, respectively). Conclusions: These findings underscore the importance of fostering social engagement among older populations, who may particularly benefit from maintaining active social ties to support healthier eating behaviors
Suicide Ideation Detection Using Social Media Data and Ensemble Machine Learning Model
No full textIdentifying the emotional state of individuals has useful applications, particularly to reduce the risk of suicide. Users’ thoughts on social media platforms can be used to find cues on the emotional state of individuals. Clinical approaches to suicide ideation detection primarily rely on evaluation by psychologists, medical experts, etc., which is time-consuming and requires medical expertise. Machine learning approaches have shown potential in automating suicide detection. In this regard, this study presents a soft voting ensemble model (SVEM) by leveraging random forest, logistic regression, and stochastic gradient descent classifiers using soft voting. In addition, for the robust training of SVEM, a hybrid feature engineering approach is proposed that combines term frequency-inverse document frequency and the bag of words. For experimental evaluation, “Suicide Watch” and “Depression” subreddits on the Reddit platform are used. Results indicate that the proposed SVEM model achieves an accuracy of 94%, better than existing approaches. The model also shows robust performance concerning precision, recall, and F1, each with a 0.93 score. ERT and deep learning models are also used, and performance comparison with these models indicates better performance of the SVEM model. Gated recurrent unit, long short-term memory, and recurrent neural network have an accuracy of 92% while the convolutional neural network obtains an accuracy of 91%. SVEM’s computational complexity is also low compared to deep learning models. Further, this study highlights the importance of explainability in healthcare applications such as suicidal ideation detection, where the use of LIME provides valuable insights into the contribution of different features. In addition, k-fold cross-validation further validates the performance of the proposed approach
Estudio y desarrollo de estrategias de comunicación digital en el marco de la Inteligencia Artificial
No full textLa línea de actividad de I+D que se propone se orienta al estudio y desarrollo de
estrategias de comunicación digital en el marco de la Inteligencia Artificial
Para llevar a cabo el objetivo general, se han definido los siguientes objetivos
específicos:
OE1. Analizar el estado del arte en el uso de la inteligencia artificial en creación de
contenidos para medios digitales.
OE2. Estudiar los mecanismos de la GenAI (Inteligencia Artificial generativa) para
analizar contenidos en webs corporativas.
OE3. Implementar un prototipo web con contenidos para GenAI.
OE4. Diseñar y proponer un plan de mejora para la creación de contenidos digitales
adaptados para entornos de GenAI.
La presente iniciativa se orienta a generar un conocimiento que permita mejorar la
operatividad en la comunicación a través de medios digitales en un entorno de uso
generalizado de Inteligencia Artificial. La iniciativa se enmarca en la adaptación de
las organizaciones para crear medios de comunicación digital teniendo presente las
herramientas de Inteligencia Artificial, lo que es un ámbito claramente en alza.
Estratégicamente, se pretende avanzar en este campo de conocimiento para que se
pueda transferir tanto hacia el mercado español como latinoamericano por nuestra
relación con estos mercados.
En este ámbito, la creación de medios digitales tan populares como los portales webs
corporativos debe adaptarse para lograr el mejor impacto posible en el marco de la
que podríamos denominar sociedad de la Inteligencia Artificial. Como es sabido, las
herramientas de IA permiten a los usuarios acceder a los medios digitales disponibles
de un modo diferente a las casuísticas anteriores. Ello implica que cabe modificar
las estrategias de comunicación y creación de contenidos digitales con objeto a
generar resultados para la IA que sean ciertamente representativos, evitar la
generación de informaciones falsas o incompletas, así como también facilitar que
estas herramientas “nos encuentren” con mayor facilidad. Esto a fines de marketing
y publicidad.
Población beneficiaria: creadores de contenidos, comunicadores, periodistas,
publicistas, SEOs
Segmento de mercado: empresas, especialmente pymes.
Resultados esperados:
- Conocimientos actualizados en el uso de la inteligencia artificial en creación de
contenidos para medios digitales.
- Mecanismos de la GenAI (Inteligencia Artificial generativa) para analizar contenidos
en webs corporativas.
- Estrategias para la creación de contenidos digitales adaptados para entornos de
GenAI.
- Mecanismos para el control de calidad del contenido digital
Effects of a 12-week multicomponent exercise programme on physical function in older adults with cancer: Study protocol for the ONKO-FRAIL randomised controlled trial
No full textIntroduction
Cancer in older adults is often associated with functional limitations, geriatric syndromes, poor self-rated health, vulnerability, and frailty, and these conditions might worsen treatment-related side effects. Recent guidelines for patients with cancer during and after treatment have documented the beneficial effects of exercise to counteract certain side effects; however, little is known about the role of exercise during cancer treatment in older adults.
Materials and Methods
This is a multicentre randomised controlled trial in which 200 participants will be allocated to a control group or an intervention group (the sample size has been calculated to detect a clinical difference of 1 point in Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) score, assuming an α error of 0.05, a β error of 0.20, and a 10 % loss rate). Patients aged ≥70 years, diagnosed with any type of solid cancer and candidates for systemic treatment are eligible. Subjects in the intervention group are invited to participate in a 12-week supervised multicomponent exercise programme in addition to receiving usual care. Study assessments are conducted at baseline and three months. The primary outcome measure is physical function as assessed by the SPPB. Secondary outcome measures include comprehensive geriatric assessment scores (including social situation, basic and instrumental activities of daily living, cognitive function, depression, nutritional status, polypharmacy, geriatric syndromes, pain, and emotional distress), anthropometric characteristics, frailty status, physical fitness, physical activity, cognitive function, quality of life, fatigue, and nutritional status. Study assessments also include analysis of inflammatory, endocrine, and nutritional mediators in serum and plasma as potential frailty biomarkers at mRNA and protein levels and multiparametric flow cytometric analysis to measure immunosenescence markers on T and NK cells.
Discussion
This study seeks to extend our knowledge on exercise interventions during systemic anticancer treatment in patients over 70 years of age. Results from this research will guide the management of older adults during systemic treatment in hospitals seeking to enhance the standard of care
Validation and Reliability of the Spanish Internet Addiction Test-7 (IAT-7) for Adolescents
No full textProblematic internet use has been consistently associated with different adverse effects on bio-psycho-social health outcomes. However, there is a lack of consensus in the definition and measures. This study aimed to translate and culturally adapt the Internet Addiction Test–Short Form (IAT-7) into Spanish and to evaluate its validity and reliability among adolescents. A total of 783 participants aged 12–18 years completed the questionnaires while 106 answered again two months later to assess test–retest reliability. Construct validity was examined using confirmatory factor analysis to test the two-factor structure. Convergent and discriminant validity, reliability, and invariance were analyzed. All items showed significant standardized loadings (0.55–0.85; p < 0.001), and fit indices supported the two-factor model. Both factors showed adequate convergent validity, while moderate correlation between factors (ρ = 0.667) supported discriminant validity. Test–retest reliability was strong (ICC = 0.814), and internal consistency was satisfactory (Cronbach’s α = 0.850; McDonald’s ω = 0.853). Furthermore, measurement invariance analyses supported the equivalence of the scale across gender and age. In conclusion, the Spanish IAT-7 is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing problematic internet use in adolescents aged 12–18 years