Treatment as well as management of orbital tumors

Volumetric muscle loss causes functional weakness and is often treated with muscle grafts or implant of biomaterials. Extracellular matrices, obtained through tissue decellularization, have been widely used as biological biomaterials in tissue engineering. Optimal decellularization method varies among tissues and have significant impact on the quality of the matrix. This study aimed at comparing the efficacy of four protocols, that varied according to the temperature of tissue storage and the sequence of chemical reagents, to decellularize murine skeletal muscles. Tibialis anterior muscles were harvested from rats and were frozen at -20°C or stored at room temperature, followed by decellularization in solutions containing EDTA + Tris, SDS and Triton X-100, applied in different sequences. Samples were analyzed for macroscopic aspects, cell removal, decrease of DNA content, preservation of proteins and three-dimensional structure of the matrices. Processing protocols that started with incubation in SDS solution optimized removal of cells and DNA content and preserved the matrix ultrastructure and composition, compared to those that were initiated with EDTA + Tris. Freezing the samples before decellularization favored cell removal, regardless of the sequence of chemical reagents. Thus, to freeze skeletal muscles and to start decellularization with 1% SDS solution showed the best results.To characterize the reproductive biology of Scinax acuminatus and contribute to the natural history of this species, the morphology of the reproductive system of males and females was analyzed at anatomical, histological and immunohistochemical levels. The individuals were collected fortnightly between August and December (2016) and January to December (2018). The anatomy of the reproductive system was analyzed in a stereoscopic microscope, and histological preparations staining with hematoxylin-eosin and Masson's trichromic, PAS and Coomassie Blue was performed as well. To characterize the meiotic-active cells in the testes, immunostaining with the PCNA proliferation protein was performed. There were found females with ovaries with oocytes in different stages of maturity and post-ovulatory females. Males presented continuous spermatogenesis, which could be confirmed by the immunostaining of PCNA in spermatogonia during the cycle. The results of this work serve as a basis for the characterization of the reproductive cycle in S. acuminatus and provide background information on the analysis of spermatogenic activity by IHQ from the study of the immunodetection of the PCNA cell proliferation protein. Future studies will focus on the evaluation of cell death processes during the reproductive cycle in the studied species to compare with those obtained in terms of cell proliferation.Climate change has already altered global biodiversity, causing the migration of species and changes in habitat distribution. To implement a sustainable conservation strategy, it is necessary to understand the impacts of climate change on species. Lessingianthus is a South American genus that includes numerous endangered species, some of which grow in the Brazilian Cerrado, a Neotropical savanna considered a world's biodiversity hotspot. However, the impact of global climate change on these species has still not been estimated. We evaluate the effect of climate change on the habitat of 10 threatened Lessingianthus species and on their potential distribution, and assess the effectiveness of current protected areas (PAs) using ecological niche models. Based on the maximum entropy algorithm (Maxent), we first modeled the potential distribution of these species under current climatic conditions and then projected the distribution for two future scenarios of climate change (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5) and two time periods (2050 and 2070). We predicted current habitat suitability and identified suitable bioclimatic variables for these species. Our findings suggest that the area comprising the south and southeast of Cerrado is irreplaceable and the most biotically stable region for these endangered species; therefore, it should be considered a conservation priority area.This study examines the distribution of primary and secondary space holders integrated in morphological and feeder functional groups as well as the species richness over the seasons on northern Patagonian rocky shores. We also evaluated whether the temporal changes in species richness, assemblage structure and species turnover were related to seasonal changes. These patterns were studied by non-destructive samplings between December 2013 and March 2015. Selleckchem SR59230A Thirty taxa were identified, including six algal morphological functional and three invertebrate feeder groups. The cover of seaweeds and invertebrates was positively correlated with changes in the environmental factors. The marked seasonality in this Patagonian zone changed between two contrasting periods. Species richness and assemblage structure were associated with seasonal changes and were influenced by the more abundant morphological and feeder functional groups. We suggest that habitat-formers, such as articulated calcareous and suspensor feeder groups, can expand and retract over time-scales of months to seasons, generating available space for the colonization and growth of other organisms. We conclude that seasonal changes and the dynamics of articulated calcareous and suspensor feeder groups drive changes in the algal and invertebrate abundances, in turn driving changes in species richness and assemblage structure.In this paper, we introduce a new family of distributions whose probability density function is defined as a weighted sum of two probability density functions; one is defined as a warped version of the other. We focus our attention on a special case based on the exponential distribution with three parameters, a dilation transformation and a weight with polynomial decay, leading to a new life-time distribution. The explicit expressions of the moments generating function, moments and quantile function of the proposed distribution are provided. For estimating the parameters, the method of maximum likelihood estimation is used. Two applications with practical data sets are given.