Biodegradable poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate)/thermoplastic polyurethane blends with improved mechanical and barrier performance

Papers presented at 5th International Conference on Bio-based and Biodegradable Polymers (BIOPOL-2015)Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) polymers pose a green alternative to fossil-fuel derived polymers, as they exhibit good biocompatibility, biodegradability and outstanding barrier performance compared to other biopolyesters. However, their excessive brittleness has not yet been overcome without compromising barrier performance. In this work, a native ester-based thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) not stabilised against hydrolysis, has been thoroughly assessed for the first time as an additive in melt blends with PHBV. Phase segregation in scanning electron microscopy (SEM) confirmed the immiscibility of the two polymers, however a degree of interaction has been found. Wide-angle X-ray scattering and differential scanning calorimetry revealed no major effect of the TPU on the crystallinity of the PHBV phase. The onset and kinetics of thermal degradation was not altered by the presence of the TPU up to 50 wt% content. Blends with increasing TPU contents showed a gradual decrease in the modulus of elasticity and tensile strength, while a substantial increase in elongation at break has been found for contents of TPU above 20 wt%, which resulted an improvement in the overall toughness of the blends. The excellent barrier performance of the PHBV against water vapour and aroma compounds was shown to be unaffected by TPU loads of ≤30 wt%. Full decomposition of neat PHBV and PHBV/TPU blends below 50 wt% TPU content was achieved after 40 days according to biodisintegration standards (ISO 20200). The study puts forward the potential use of TPU to improve the mechanical performance of these natural biopolyesters without compromising the barrier properties or the biodisintegratibility of the melt blends.The authors wish to thank the European project ECOBIOCAP and the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under project MAT2012-38947-C02 for financial support. Jennifer Gonzalez-Ausejo gratefully acknowledges financial support under grant “Pla de promoció de la investigació en la Universitat Jaume I” Predoc/2012/32

The Effects Of The Distribution Of Agricultural Direct Payments

The Common Agricultural Policy (the CAP) is the most important common policy of the European Union, for which reason it traditionally monopolizes a large part of the European Union budget. Without doubt, the aids that farms receive from this policy are the pillar on which it sustains the battered agricultural sectors. Among CAP aid, direct payments are particularly important, in 2008 accounting for about 37% of the total EU budget. The main objective of this paper is to analyse the effects that the distribution of the CAP direct payments have on the agrarian economy. Specifically, we have analysed the equality level in distribution of CAP direct aid in the countries of the European Union using a concentration index. In this way, we have examined the fairness of distribution of CAP direct aid in the agricultural sector

Effects of Atorvastatin on Vitamin D Levels in Patients With Acute Ischemic Heart Disease

Producción CientíficaVitamin D deficiency is a risk factor for osteoporosis and other chronic diseases, including type 1 diabetes, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, and ischemic heart disease. Cholesterol and vitamin D share the 7-dehydrocolesterol metabolic pathway. This study evaluated the possible effect of atorvastatin on vitamin D levels in patients with acute ischemic heart disease. Eighty-three patients (52 men and 31 women) with an acute coronary syndrome (75 with acute myocardial infarction and 8 with unstable angina) were included. After diagnosis, patients received atorvastatin as secondary prevention. Serum vitamin D was measured by high-performance liquid chromatography at baseline and at 12 months. Atorvastatin treatment produced a statistically significant decrease in cholesterol and triglyceride levels and an increase in vitamin D levels (41 19 vs 47 19 nmol/L, p 0.003). Vitamin D deficiency was decreased by 75% to 57% at 12 months. In conclusion, atorvastatin increases vitamin D levels. This increase could explain some of the beneficial effects of atorvastatin at the cardiovascular level that are unrelated to cholesterol levels

Nonuniversality of front fluctuations for compact colonies of nonmotile bacteria

The front of a compact bacterial colony growing on a Petri dish is a paradigmatic instance of non-equilibrium fluctuations in the celebrated Eden, or Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ), universality class. While in many experiments the scaling exponents crucially differ from the expected KPZ values, the source of this disagreement has remained poorly understood. We have performed growth experiments with B. subtilis 168 and E. coli ATCC 25922 under conditions leading to compact colonies in the classically alleged Eden regime, where individual motility is suppressed. Non-KPZ scaling is indeed observed for all accessible times, KPZ asymptotics being ruled out for our experiments due to the monotonic increase of front branching with time. Simulations of an effective model suggest the occurrence of transient nonuniversal scaling due to diffusive morphological instabilities, agreeing with expectations from detailed models of the relevant biological reaction-diffusion processes.This work has been supported by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Agencia Estatal de Investigación, and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (Spain and European Union) through Grants No. FIS2015- 66020-C2-1-P, FIS2015-69167-C2-1-P, FIS2015-73337-JIN, and BIO2016-79618-R, and by Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain) Grant No. NANOAVANSENS S2013/MIT302

CXCL6 is an important paracrine factor in the pro-angiogenic human cardiac progenitor-like cell secretome

Studies in recent years have established that the principal effects in cardiac cell therapy are associated with paracrine/autocrine factors. We combined several complementary techniques to define human cardiac progenitor cell (CPC) secretome constituted by 914 proteins/genes; 51% of these are associated with the exosomal compartment. To define the set of proteins specifically or highly differentially secreted by CPC, we compared human mesenchymal stem cells and dermal fibroblasts; the study defined a group of growth factors, cytokines and chemokines expressed at high to medium levels by CPC. Among them, IL-1, GROa (CXCL1), CXCL6 (GCP2) and IL-8 are examples whose expression was confirmed by most techniques used. ELISA showed that CXCL6 is significantly overexpressed in CPC conditioned medium (CM) (18- to 26-fold) and western blot confirmed expression of its receptors CXCR1 and CXCR2. Addition of anti-CXCL6 completely abolished migration in CPC-CM compared with anti-CXCR2, which promoted partial inhibition, and anti-CXCR1, which was inefficient. Anti-CXCL6 also significantly inhibited CPC CM angiogenic activity. In vivo evaluation also supported a relevant role for angiogenesis. Altogether, these results suggest a notable angiogenic potential in CPC-CM and identify CXCL6 as an important paracrine factor for CPC that signals mainly through CXCR2.This study was supported by funding from the European Commission (HEALTH-2009_242038) and by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (SAF2012-34327 and SAF2015-70882-R to AB and BIO2012-37926 and BIO2015-67580-P to JV), the Research Program of the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid (S2010/BMD-2420) and the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (RETICS-RD12/0019/0018 to AB and RETICS-RD12/0042/0056 to JV).S

Estudio longitudinal de calidad de vida en ancianos de Cuenca. Validez predictiva del cuestionario CVA.

Título. Validez predictiva del cuestionario CVA de calidad de vida en ancianos.Objetivo. Evaluar la validez predictiva del cuestionario CVA y analizar cuál/es de sus 5 dimensiones predice/n mejor los resultados adversos en salud.Diseño. Estudio observacional longitudinal prospectivo.Emplazamiento. Tres zonas básicas de salud de la provincia de Cuenca.Participantes. Quinientos diecinueve individuos mayores de 64 años seleccionados aleatoriamente tomando como marco muestral los domicilios en los que residía al menos una persona mayor de 64 años. Mediciones y resultados principales. A partir del cuestionario CVA se evaluó la calidad de vida de los individuos en 1994 y 2002. En esos 8 años de seguimiento, fallecieron 130 individuos (25%). Se ajustó un modelo de Regresión de Cox en el que se incluyeron como covariables aquellas que en el análisis bivariante mostraron asociación estadística. Se observó que se comportaban como predictores independientes de mortalidad: el índice global del cuestionario (Hazard ratio o HR= 1,07; IC95%= 1,009-1,14); el deterioro en las actividades de la vida diaria (HR= 2,77 IC95%= 1,45-5,31); la edad elevada (HR= 2,94 IC95%= 1,93-4,48); el sexo masculino (HR= 1,7 IC95%= 1,19-2,44) y el deterioro cognitivo (HR= 2 IC95%= 1,26-3,16).Conclusiones. El cuestionario CVA tiene capacidad para predecir mortalidad, siendo las actividades de la vida diaria, la dimensión del cuestionario que mejor la predice.<br /

SCOTfluors: Small, Conjugatable, Orthogonal and Tunable Fluorophores for in vivo Imaging of Cell Metabolism

The transport and trafficking of metabolites are critical for the correct functioning of live cells. However, in situ metabolic imaging studies are hampered by the lack of fluorescent chemical structures that allow direct monitoring of small metabolites under physiological conditions with high spatial and temporal resolution. Herein, we describe SCOTfluors as novel small-sized multi-colored fluorophores for real-time tracking of essential metabolites in live cells and in vivo and for the acquisition of metabolic profiles from human cancer cells of variable origin. © 2019 The Authors. Published by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.The authors acknowledge funding from Medical Research Scotland (S.B.: 879-2015), MSCA Individual Fellowship (A.F.: 704912), OPTIMA (N.D.B.: EP/L016559/1), Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellowship (Y.F.: 100104/Z/12/Z) and the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (J.L.A, A.D.: CTQ2017-85378-R). M.V. acknowledges funds from ERC Consolidator Grant (771443), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/M025160/1) and the Royal Society (IEC\R3\170132). The authors thank the technical support from the Flow Cytometry and the Confocal Advanced Light Microscopy units at the University of Edinburgh.Peer reviewe

Surgical treatment for colorectal cancer: Analysis of the influence of an enhanced recovery programme on long-term oncological outcomes-a study protocol for a prospective, multicentre, observational cohort study

Introduction The evidence currently available from enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) programmes concerns their benefits in the immediate postoperative period, but there is still very little evidence as to whether their correct implementation benefits patients in the long term. The working hypothesis here is that, due to the lower response to surgical aggression and lower rates of postoperative complications, ERAS protocols can reduce colorectal cancer-related mortality. The main objective of this study is to analyse the impact of an ERAS programme for colorectal cancer on 5-year survival. As secondary objectives, we propose to analyse the weight of each of the predefined items in the oncological results as well as the quality of life. Methods and analysis A multicentre prospective cohort study was conducted in patients older than 18 years of age who are scheduled to undergo surgery for colorectal cancer. The study involved 12 hospitals with an implemented enhanced recovery protocol according to the guidelines published by the Spanish National Health Service. The intervention group includes patients with a minimum implementation level of 70%, and the control group includes those who fail to reach this level. Compliance will be studied using 18 key performance indicators, and the results will be analysed using cancer survival indicators, including overall survival, cancer-specific survival and relapse-free survival. The time to recurrence, perioperative morbidity and mortality, hospital stay and quality of life will also be studied, the latter using the validated EuroQol Five questionnaire. The propensity index method will be used to create comparable treatment and control groups, and a multivariate regression will be used to study each variable. The Kaplan-Meier estimator will be used to estimate survival and the log-rank test to make comparisons. A p value of less than 0.05 (two-tailed) will be considered to be significant. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Aragon Ethical Committee (C.P.-C.I. PI20/086) on 4 March 2020. The findings of this study will be submitted to peer-reviewed journals (BMJ Open, JAMA Surgery, Annals of Surgery, British Journal of Surgery). Abstracts will be submitted to relevant national and international meetings.The present research study was awarded a Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación health research project grant (PI19/00291) from the Carlos III Institute of the Spanish National Health Service as part of the 2019 call for Strategic Action in Health

Prevalence estimation of significant fibrosis because of NASH in Spain combining transient elastography and histology

Acord transformatiu CRUE-CSICBackground & Aims: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become a major public health problem, but the prevalence of fibrosis associated with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is largely unknown in the general population. This study aimed to provide an updated estimation of the prevalence of NASH fibrosis in Spain. Methods: This was an observational, retrospective, cross-sectional, population-based study with merged data from two Spanish datasets: a large (N = 12 246) population-based cohort (ETHON), including transient elastography (TE) data, and a contemporary multi-centric biopsy-proven NASH cohort with paired TE data from tertiary centres (N = 501). Prevalence for each NASH fibrosis stage was estimated by crossing TE data from ETHON dataset with histology data from the biopsy-proven cohort. Results: From the patients with valid TE in ETHON dataset (N = 11 440), 5.61% (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 2.53-11.97) had a liver stiffness measurement (LSM) ≥ 8 kPa. The proportion attributable to NAFLD (using clinical variables and Controlled Attenuation Parameter) was 57.3% and thus, the estimated prevalence of population with LSM ≥ 8 kPa because of NAFLD was 3.21% (95% CI 1.13-8.75). In the biopsy-proven NASH cohort, 389 patients had LSM ≥ 8 kPa. Among these, 37% did not have significant fibrosis (F2-4). The estimated prevalence of NASH F2-3 and cirrhosis in Spain's adult population were 1.33% (95% CI 0.29-5.98) and 0.70% (95% CI 0.10-4.95) respectively. Conclusions: These estimations provide an accurate picture of the current prevalence of NASH-related fibrosis in Spain and can serve as reference point for dimensioning the therapeutic efforts that will be required as NASH therapies become available

Tracking the antibody immunome in sporadic colorectal cancer by using antigen self-assembled protein arrays

© 2021 by the authors.Sporadic Colorectal Cancer (sCRC) is the third leading cause of cancer death in the Western world, and the sCRC patients presenting with synchronic metastasis have the poorest prognosis. Genetic alterations accumulated in sCRC tumor cells translate into mutated proteins and/or abnormal protein expression levels, which contribute to the development of sCRC. Then, the tumor-associated proteins (TAAs) might induce the production of auto-antibodies (aAb) via humoral immune response. Here, Nucleic Acid Programmable Protein Arrays (NAPPArray) are employed to identify aAb in plasma samples from a set of 50 sCRC patients compared to seven healthy donors. Our goal was to establish a systematic workflow based on NAPPArray to define differential aAb profiles between healthy individuals and sCRC patients as well as between non-metastatic (n = 38) and metastatic (n = 12) sCRC, in order to gain insight into the role of the humoral immune system in controlling the development and progression of sCRC. Our results showed aAb profile based on 141 TAA including TAAs associated with biological cellular processes altered in genesis and progress of sCRC (e.g., FSCN1, VTI2 and RPS28) that discriminated healthy donors vs. sCRC patients. In addition, the potential capacity of discrimination (between non-metastatic vs. metastatic sCRC) of 7 TAAs (USP5, ML4, MARCKSL1, CKMT1B, HMOX2, VTI2, TP53) have been analyzed individually in an independent cohort of sCRC patients, where two of them (VTI2 and TP53) were validated (AUC ~75%). In turn, these findings provided novel insights into the immunome of sCRC, in combination with transcriptomics profiles and protein antigenicity characterizations, wich might lead to the identification of novel sCRC biomarkers that might be of clinical utility for early diagnosis of the tumor. These results explore the immunomic analysis as potent source for biomarkers with diagnostic and prognostic value in CRC. Additional prospective studies in larger series of patients are required to confirm the clinical utility of these novel sCRC immunomic biomarkers.We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Health Institute Carlos III (ISCIII) for the grants: FIS PI14/01538, FIS PI17/01930 and CB16/12/00400. We also acknowledge Fondos FEDER (EU) “Una manera de hacer Europa” and Junta Castilla-León (COVID19 grant COV20EDU/00187). Fundación Solórzano FS/38-2017. The Proteomics Unit belongs to ProteoRed, PRB3-ISCIII, supported by grant PT17/0019/0023, of the PE I + D + I 2017-2020, funded by ISCIII and FEDER. CNPq-National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (Brazil) (306258/2019-6) and FAPERJ-Foundation for Research Support of Rio de Janeiro State for the financial support (E-26/201.670/2017 and 210.379/2018). M. González-González is supported by MINECOPTA2019-017870-I.A. Landeira-Viñuela is supported by VIII Centenario-USAL PhD Program. P.J.-V. is supported by JCYL PhD Program and scholarship JCYL-EDU/601/2020. P.D. and E.B. are supported by a JCYL-EDU/346/2013 Ph.D. scholarship