Resumo: Embolização e quimioembolização são exemplos de procedimentos minimamente invasivos aplicados em medicina com objetivo de evitar e/ou amenizar efeitos colaterais causados por tratamentos e intervenções cirúrgicas convencionais. Partículas de poli(álcool vinílico) (PVA) destacam-se entre os materiais utilizados nesses procedimentos por apresentarem características físico-químicas desejáveis como elevada compressibilidade, biocompatibilidade e biodegradabilidade. A proposta deste trabalho foi sintetizar e caracterizar microesferas de PVA/PVAc com tamanhos de partículas entre 30µm e 1200µm por reação de polimerização em suspensão seguida por uma etapa de saponificação. Além disso, estudar a influência da concentração de solução alcalina no processo de saponificação. A caracterização morfológica e estrutural foi feita com auxílio das técnicas de microscopia eletrônica de varredura (MEV) e difração de raios-X (DRX). Além da caracterização físico-química, foi realizado o estudo histopatológico mediante implante subcutâneo das partículas em ratos, análise de dimensão fractal e entropia de Shannon. Os resultados mostraram que a concentração de solução alcalina exerce forte influência na cristalinidade, coloração e características superficiais do polímero obtido. As partículas com alta cristalinidade (saponificadas com solução 25 mol/L de NaOH) induziram à reação inflamatória similar ao comportamento observado para partículas disponíveis comercialmente, enquanto que as partículas menos cristalinas (saponificadas com solução 4 mol/L de NaOH) resultaram em baixa intensidade de reação inflamatória no tecido celular subcutâneo dos ratos. Dimensão fractal... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Embolization and chemoembolization are examples of minimally invasive procedures applied in medicine in order to avoid and/or reduce side effects caused by conventional treatments and surgeries. Particles of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) stand out among these materials due to desirable physical and chemical characteristics such as high compressibility, biocompatibility and biodegradability. The purpose of this study was to synthesize and characterize PVA/PVAc microspheres with sizes between 30µm and 1200µm by reaction of suspension polymerization step followed by a process of saponification. Moreover, study the influence of the concentration of alkaline solution in the process of saponification. The morphological and structural characterization was made with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). In addition to the physico-chemical characterization, it was carried the histopathological study by subcutaneous implantation of particles in rats, analysis of fractal dimension and Shannon's entropy. The results indicated that the concentration of alkaline solution strongly influence the crystallinity, color and surface characteristics of the polymer. Highly crystalline particles (saponified with 25 mol/L NaOH) induced inflammatory reaction similar to the behavior observed for the commercial particles, while particles with lower crystallinity (saponified with 4 mol/L NaOH) presented lower inflammation in the subcutaneous tissue of rats. Fractal dimension and Shannon's entropy showed satisfactory correlation with the histopathological analysis: the values have changed as the permanence time of particles in rats, behavior was satisfactory from a clinical standpoint because it corroborates the qualitative changes observed in the subcutaneous tissues in response to disturbance of the immune... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Orientador: Prof. Dr. José Geraldo Nery / Coorientador: Dra. Rosa Sayoko Kawasaki-Oyama / Banca: José Geraldo Nery / Banca: Moacir Fernandes de Godoy / Banca: Sebastião Roberto Taboga / Mestre

Les technologies actuelles permettent d'explorer le génome entier pour identifier des variants génétiques associés à des phénotypes particuliers, notamment de maladies. C’est le rôle de la bioinformatique de répondre à cette problématique. Dans le cadre de cette thèse, un nouvel outil logiciel a été développé qui permet de mesurer avec une bonne précision le nombre de marqueurs génétiques effectivement indépendants correspondant à un ensemble de marqueurs génotypés dans une population donnée. Cet algorithme repose sur la mesure de l’entropie de Shannon contenue au sein de ces marqueurs, ainsi que des niveaux d’information mutuelle calculés sur les paires de SNPs choisis au sein d’une fenêtre de SNPs consécutifs, dont la taille est un paramètre du programme. Il a été montré que ce nombre de marqueurs indépendants devient constant dès que la population est homogène avec une taille suffisante (N > 60 individus) et que l'on utilise une fenêtre assez grande (taille > 100 SNPs). Ce calcul peut avoir de nombreuses applications pour l'exploitation des données.Une analyse génome-entier a été réalisée sur le photo-vieillissement. Elle a porté sur 502 femmes caucasiennes pour lesquelles un grade de photo-vieillissement a été évalué selon une technologie bien établie. Les femmes ont été génotypées sur des puces Illumina OmniOne (1M SNPs), et deux gènes ont été identifiés (STXBP5L et FBX040) associés à un SNP passant le seuil de Bonferroni, dont l'implication dans le photo-vieillissement était jusqu'alors inconnue. De plus, cette association a aussi été retrouvé dans deux autres phénotypes suggérant un mécanisme moléculaire commun possible entre le relâchement cutané et les rides. On n'observe pas de réplication au niveau du critère lentigines, la troisième composante étudiée du photo-vieillissement.Ces travaux sont en cours de publication dans des revues scientifiques internationales à comité de lecture. / New technologies allow the exploration of the whole genome to identify genetic variants associated with various phenotypes, in particular diseases. Bioinformatics aims at helping to answer these questions. In the context of my PhD thesis, I have first developed a new software allowing to measure with a good precision the number of really independent genetic markers present in a set of markers genotyped in a given population. This algorithm relies on the Shannon's entropy contained within these markers and on the levels of mutual information computed from the pairs of SNPs chosen in a given window of consecutive SNPs, the window size is a parameter of the program. I have shown that the number of really independent markers become stable as soon as the population is homogeneous and large enough (N > 60) and as soon as the window size is large enough (size > 100 SNPs). This computation may have several applications, in particular the diminution of the Bonferroni threshold by a factor that may reach sometimes 4, the latter having little impact in practice.I have also completed a genome-wide association study on photo-ageing. This study was performed on 502 Caucasian women characterized by their grade of photo-ageing, as measured by a well-established technology. In this study, the women were genotyped with OmniOne Illumina chips (1M SNPs), and I have identified two genes (STXBP5L et FBX040) associated with a SNP that passes the Bonferroni threshold, whose implication in photo-ageing was not suspected until now. Interestingly, this association has been highlighted with two other phenotypes which suggest a possible common molecular mechanism between sagging and wrinkling. There was no replication for the lentigin criteria, the third component studied of photo ageing.These studies are on the process to be published in international peer-reviewed scientific journals.