Obesity, adipokines and their relationship with insulin resistance

La obesidad es uno de los principales problemas de salud a nivel mundial. Es una enfermedad que se asocia con un consumo excesivo de alimentos, aunque también se asocia con un proceso de inflamación crónica y con un grupo de trastornos conocidos como síndrome metabólico. Algunas de las características más distintivas de la obesidad son que los adipocitos del individuo están hipertrofiados, tienen un perfil de secreción de adipoquinas irregular, tienen un mayor reclutamiento de células inflamatorias y una homeostasis metabólica alterada; lo que eventualmente resulta en el desarrollo de varias patologías o condiciones importantes, como la resistencia a la insulina y la disfunción mitocondrial. Esta revisión tiene como objetivo presentar el conocimiento actual sobre la inflamación del tejido adiposo asociada a la obesidad.Obesity is one of the main health problems worldwide. It is a disease that is associated with excessive food consumption, although it is also associated with a process of chronic inflammation and with a group of disorders known as metabolic syndrome. Some of the most distinctive characteristics of obesity are that the individual's adipocytes are hypertrophied, have an irregular adipokine secretion profile, have increased recruitment of inflammatory cells, and altered metabolic homeostasis; which eventually results in the development of various important pathologies or conditions, such as insulin resistance and mitochondrial dysfunction. This review aims to present the current knowledge on inflammation of adipose tissue associated with obesity

Transcriptomics and molecular evolutionary rate analysis of the bladderwort (Utricularia), a carnivorous plant with a minimal genome

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The carnivorous plant <it>Utricularia gibba </it>(bladderwort) is remarkable in having a minute genome, which at ca. 80 megabases is approximately half that of <it>Arabidopsis</it>. Bladderworts show an incredible diversity of forms surrounding a defined theme: tiny, bladder-like suction traps on terrestrial, epiphytic, or aquatic plants with a diversity of unusual vegetative forms. <it>Utricularia </it>plants, which are rootless, are also anomalous in physiological features (respiration and carbon distribution), and highly enhanced molecular evolutionary rates in chloroplast, mitochondrial and nuclear ribosomal sequences. Despite great interest in the genus, no genomic resources exist for <it>Utricularia</it>, and the substitution rate increase has received limited study.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here we describe the sequencing and analysis of the <it>Utricularia gibba </it>transcriptome. Three different organs were surveyed, the traps, the vegetative shoot bodies, and the inflorescence stems. We also examined the bladderwort transcriptome under diverse stress conditions. We detail aspects of functional classification, tissue similarity, nitrogen and phosphorus metabolism, respiration, DNA repair, and detoxification of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Long contigs of plastid and mitochondrial genomes, as well as sequences for 100 individual nuclear genes, were compared with those of other plants to better establish information on molecular evolutionary rates.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The <it>Utricularia </it>transcriptome provides a detailed genomic window into processes occurring in a carnivorous plant. It contains a deep representation of the complex metabolic pathways that characterize a putative minimal plant genome, permitting its use as a source of genomic information to explore the structural, functional, and evolutionary diversity of the genus. Vegetative shoots and traps are the most similar organs by functional classification of their transcriptome, the traps expressing hydrolytic enzymes for prey digestion that were previously thought to be encoded by bacteria. Supporting physiological data, global gene expression analysis shows that traps significantly over-express genes involved in respiration and that phosphate uptake might occur mainly in traps, whereas nitrogen uptake could in part take place in vegetative parts. Expression of DNA repair and ROS detoxification enzymes may be indicative of a response to increased respiration. Finally, evidence from the bladderwort transcriptome, direct measurement of ROS <it>in situ</it>, and cross-species comparisons of organellar genomes and multiple nuclear genes supports the hypothesis that increased nucleotide substitution rates throughout the plant may be due to the mutagenic action of amplified ROS production.</p

SSDSS IV MaNGA - Properties of AGN host galaxies

We present here the characterization of the main properties of a sample of 98 AGN host galaxies, both type-II and type-I, in comparison with those of about 2700 non-active galaxies observed by the MaNGA survey. We found that AGN hosts are morphologically early-type or early-spirals. For a given morphology AGN hosts are, in average, more massive, more compact, more central peaked and rather pressurethan rotational-supported systems. We confirm previous results indicating that AGN hosts are located in the intermediate/transition region between star-forming and non-star-forming galaxies (i.e., the so-called green valley), both in the ColorMagnitude and the star formation main sequence diagrams. Taking into account their relative distribution in terms of the stellar metallicity and oxygen gas abundance and a rough estimation of their molecular gas content, we consider that these galaxies are in the process of halting/quenching the star formation, in an actual transition between both groups. The analysis of the radial distributions of the starformation rate, specific star-formation rate, and molecular gas density shows that the quenching happens from inside-out involving both a decrease of the efficiency of the star formation and a deficit of molecular gas. All the intermediate data-products used to derive the results of our analysis are distributed in a database including the spatial distribution and average properties of the stellar populations and ionized gas, published as a Sloan Digital Sky Survey Value Added Catalog being part of the 14th Data Release: http://www.sdss.org/dr14/manga/manga-data/manga-pipe3d-value-added-catalog/Comment: 48 pages, 14 figures, in press in RMxA

A novel hydro-pneumatic fluid percussion device for inducing traumatic brain injury: assessment of sensory, motor, cognitive, molecular, and morphological outcomes in rodents

IntroductionThe fluid percussion method is widely used to induce brain injury in rodents. However, this approach has several limitations, including variability in the resulting damage, which is attributed to factors such as manual control of the mass used to generate the desired pressure. To address these issues, several modifications to the original method have been proposed.MethodsIn this study, we present a novel device called the Hydro-pneumatic Fluid Percussion Device, which delivers fluid directly to a lateral region of the brain to induce injury. To validate this model, three groups of male and female rats were subjected to lateral fluid percussion using our device, and the resulting damage was evaluated using sensory, motor, and cognitive tests, measurements of serum injury biomarkers, and morphological analysis via cresyl violet staining.ResultsOur results demonstrate that this new approach induced significant alterations in all parameters evaluated.DiscussionThis novel device for inducing TBI may be a valuable alternative for modeling brain injury and studying its consequences

Sistema de calentamiento por inducción electromagnética para pruebas experimentales en laboratorios de Físico-Química

En los laboratorios de Físico - Química se utilizan equipos de calentamiento tales como Estufas, Hornos / Muflas, Parrillas de calentamiento, Autoclaves y Baño María, los cuales generan el calor a partir de resistencias eléctricas. Aunque permiten alcanzar los niveles de temperatura deseados, el tiempo en el que lo logran no siempre es satisfactorio cuando se requieren resultados rápidos. En este documento se presenta el diseño de un sistema que utiliza la inducción electromagnética para calentar el recipiente en donde se encuentra el material o solución en estudio, alcanzando temperaturas de hasta 500 °C en 4 minutos para algunas aplicaciones; el sistema cuenta con un control de temperatura y una interfaz gráfica de usuario para monitorear el tiempo en el que alcanzó la temperatura deseada, el tiempo de calentamiento, tiempo de enfriamiento y el historial de pruebas.Palabra(s) Clave(s): efecto cortical, frecuencia de resonancia, inducciónelectromagnética, interfaz gráfica de usuario, tanque resonante

Pipe3d, a pipeline to analyze integral field spectroscopy data: II Analysis sequence and califa dataproducts

Presentamos una version mejorada de FIT3D, una herramienta de ajuste para el analisis de las poblaciones estelares y el gas ionizado en espectros de galaxias de resolucion intermedia. La misma se desarrollo para el análisis de datos de espectroscopía de campo integral y es la base de Pipe3D, un dataducto usado en el analisis de datos de los muestreos CALIFA, MaNGA y SAMI. Describimos la filosof´ıa y los pasos seguidos en el ajuste, presentando un conjunto amplio de simulaciones con el fin de estimar la precisión de los parametros derivados, mostrando el resultado de dichas simulaciones. Finalmente, comparamos el resultado del analisis con FIT3D y el obtenido mediante otros paquetes de uso frecuente, encontrando que los parametros derivados son totalmente compatibles.We present Pipe3D, an analysis pipeline based on the FIT3D fitting tool, developed to explore the properties of the stellar populations and ionized gas of integral field spectroscopy (IFS) data. Pipe3D was created to provide coherent, simple to distribute, and comparable dataproducts, independently of the origin of the data, focused on the data of the most recent IFU surveys (e.g., CALIFA, MaNGA, and SAMI), and the last generation IFS instruments (e.g., MUSE). In this article we describe the di fferent steps involved in the analysis of the data, illustrating them by showing the dataproducts derived for NGC 2916, observed by CALIFA and P-MaNGA. As a practical example of the pipeline we present the complete set of dataproducts derived for the 200 datacubes that comprises the V500 setup of the CALIFA Data Release 2 (DR2), making them freely available through the network. Finally, we explore the hypothesis that the properties of the stellar populations and ionized gas of galaxies at the e ffective radius are representative of the overall average ones, finding that this is indeed the case.Fil: Sánchez, S. F.. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Instituto de Astronomia; MéxicoFil: Pérez, E.. Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía; España. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; EspañaFil: Sanchez Blazquez, P.. Departamento de Fisica Teorica ; Facultad de Ciencias ; Universidad Autonoma de Madrid;Fil: García Benito, Rubén. Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía; España. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; EspañaFil: Ibarra Mede, H. J.. Space Telescope Science Institute; Estados UnidosFil: González, J. J.. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Instituto de Astronomia; MéxicoFil: Rosales Ortega, F. F.. Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Optica y Electrónica ; MéxicoFil: Sánchez Menguiano, L.. Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía; España. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; EspañaFil: Ascasibar, Y.. Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. Facultad de Física. Departamento Astronomía y Meteorología; EspañaFil: Bitsakis, T.. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Instituto de Astronomia; MéxicoFil: Law, D.. Space Telescope Science Institute; Estados UnidosFil: Cano Díaz, M.. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Instituto de Astronomia; MéxicoFil: López Cobá, C.. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Instituto de Astronomia; MéxicoFil: Marino, R. A.. Universidad Complutense de Madrid; EspañaFil: Gil de Paz, A.. Australian Astronomical Observatory; AustraliaFil: López Sánchez, A.. Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (iac); EspañaFil: Barrera Ballesteros, Jorge K.. Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias; EspañaFil: Galbany, Lluís. Millennium Institute Of Astrophysics; Chile. Universidad de Chile; ChileFil: Mast, Damian. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Astronomía Teórica y Experimental. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba. Instituto de Astronomía Teórica y Experimental; ArgentinaFil: Abril Malgarejo, V.. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Instituto de Astronomia; MéxicoFil: Roman Lopes, A.. Universidad de La Serena; Chil

Targeting and retention of HPV16 E7 to the endoplasmic reticulum enhances immune tumour protection

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is where the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I molecules are loaded with epitopes to cause an immune cellular response. Most of the protein antigens are degraded in the cytoplasm to amino acids and few epitopes reach the ER. Antigen targeting of this organelle by Calreticulin (CRT) fusion avoids this degradation and enhances the immune response. We constructed a recombinant adenovirus to express the E7 antigen with an ER-targeting signal peptide (SP) plus an ER retention signal (KDEL sequence). In cell-culture experiments we demonstrated that this new E7 antigen, SP-E7-KDEL, targeted the ER. Infection of mice with this recombinant adenovirus that expresses SP-E7-KDEL showed interferon induction and tumour-protection response, similar to that provided by an adenovirus expressing the E7 antigen fused to CRT. This work demonstrated that just by adding a SP and the KDEL sequence, antigens can be targeted and retained in the ER with a consequent enhancement of immune response and tumour protection. These results will have significant clinical applications