Nuove osservazioni su una glossa botanica mediolatina : citamus 'colchico'

Il grigion. schiombla, tschiombla 'colchico', lombardo alpino or. ciĝám(b)ula, si-, trent.occ. (Giudicarie) čiĝámbọla, segámbola ecc., insieme forse con lo sporadico friul. subalpino siàngala, ven- gono attribuiti nel noto ribelle di V. Bertoldi (1923: §§ 71–3) ad una glossa mediolatina citamus, cito- mus, riportata nel Diefenbach ma piuttosto isolata e possibile cattiva lettura di cart(h)amus (1288, 1304). L'ipotesi passa attraverso un suffissato (e non documentato) *citamŭla, che renderebbe le numerose varianti dialettali attraverso una normale lenizione di -t- > -d- > -ø- (con eventuale refezio- ne tramite -g-) – tratto fonetico estraneo tuttavia al friulano – e si oppone a quella sostenuta in prima istanza da Michael (1905), che pensava ad un *cicamŭla dissimilato da *ciclamŭla, derivato da cyclāmen 'ciclamino', i cui fiori hanno somiglianza con quelli del colchico e del croco. Va tuttavia riconosciuta ad Alessio la valorizzazione del meridionale šamo 'giusquiamo', solanacea velenosa di lontana tradizione per le sue proprietà farmacologiche (così come per il colchico, una liliacea): una forma, almeno semipopolare, che a mio avviso può esser stata diffusa anche in aree settentrionali, sempre in una variante suffissata *šámula, *siá- che rende facile conto del patrimonio grigionese schiombla (/š/!), lombardo segám(b)ola, meno invece del friulano siángala. Una nuova soluzione che offre il vantaggio di recuperare un filone autonomo ed elaborato di hyoscyamus in un areale alpino sostanzialmente omogeneo

Internal carotid artery fibromuscular dysplasia in arterial hypertension: Management in clinical practice

Fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD) reminds of a rare form of secondary arterial hypertension occurring in young people and involving the renal arteries. FMD may also involve vertebral, subclavian, mesenteric, iliac arteries and carotid arteries. FMD of internal carotid arteries is a rare finding that is frequently incidental and asymptomatic. It usually occurs in middle-aged women and is secondary to media-intima fibrodysplasia. The carotid artery may be elongated or kinked and associated cerebral aneurysms have been reported. Symptoms including transient ischaemic attack or stroke are uncommon and are related to decrease of blood flow or embolization by platelet aggregates. At the onset, differential diagnosis with vasculitis must be placed. Computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) angiography demonstrates bilateral high-grade stenosis with the characteristic "string of beads" pattern. Antiplatelet medication is the accepted therapy for asymptomatic lesions. Graduated endoluminal surgical dilation is an outmoded therapy, no longer used in most medical centres. Current percutaneous angioplasty is the preferred treatment for symptomatic carotid FMD, but no randomized controlled trials comparing this methodology with surgery is available. The management of a case of arterial systemic FMD in a 52-year-old women, diagnosed after a hypertensive crysis, is discussed. Imaging methods disclosed stenoses of carotid arteries, of celiac tripod and of superior mesenteric artery. Because of high risk associated to endovascular surgery, medical therapy was started. In the first year of follow-up, no events have been reported

cDNA-AFLP analysis of plant and pathogen genes expressed in grapevine infected with Plasmopara viticola

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The oomycete <it>Plasmopara viticola </it>(Berk. and Curt.) Berl. and de Toni causes downy mildew in grapevine (<it>Vitis vinifera </it>L.). This pathogen is strictly biotrophic, thus completely dependent on living host cells for its survival. The molecular basis of compatibility and disease development in this system is poorly understood. We have carried out a large-scale cDNA-AFLP analysis to identify grapevine and <it>P. viticola </it>genes associated with the infection process.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We carried out cDNA-AFLP analysis on artificially infected leaves of the susceptible cultivar Riesling at the oil spot stage, on water-treated leaves and on a sample of pure sporangia as controls. Selective amplifications with 128 primer combinations allowed the visualization of about 7000 transcript-derived fragments (TDFs) in infected leaves, 1196 of which (17%) were differentially expressed. We sequenced 984 fragments, 804 of which were identified as grapevine transcripts after homology searching, while 96 were homologous to sequences in <it>Phytophthora </it>spp. databases and were attributed to <it>P. viticola</it>. There were 82 orphan TDFs. Many grapevine genes spanning almost all functional categories were downregulated during infection, especially genes involved in photosynthesis. Grapevine genes homologous to known resistance genes also tended to be repressed, as were several resistance gene analogs and carbonic anhydrase (recently implicated in pathogen resistance). In contrast, genes encoding cytoskeletal components, enzymes of the phenylpropanoid and beta-oxidation pathways, and pathogenesis related proteins were primarily upregulated during infection. The majority of <it>P. viticola </it>transcripts expressed <it>in planta </it>showed homology to genes of unknown function or to genomic <it>Phytophthora </it>sequences, but genes related to metabolism, energy production, transport and signal transduction were also identified.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study provides the first global catalogue of grapevine and <it>P. viticola </it>genes expressed during infection, together with their functional annotations. This will help to elucidate the molecular basis of the infection process and identify genes and chemicals that could help to inhibit the pathogen.</p

General and species-specific transcriptional responses to downy mildew infection in a susceptible (Vitis vinifera) and a resistant (V. riparia) grapevine species

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Downy mildew is a destructive grapevine disease caused by <it>Plasmopara viticola </it>(Berk. and Curt.) Berl. and de Toni, which can only be controlled by intensive fungicide treatments. Natural sources of resistance from wild grapevine (<it>Vitis</it>) species are used in conventional breeding approaches, but the signals and effectors involved in resistance in this important crop species are not well understood.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Early transcriptional changes associated with <it>P. viticola </it>infection in susceptible <it>V. vinifera </it>and resistant <it>V. riparia </it>plants were analyzed using the Combimatrix microarray platform. Transcript levels were measured 12 and 24 h post-inoculation, reflecting the time points immediately preceding the onset of resistance in <it>V. riparia</it>, as determined by microscopic analysis. Our data indicate that resistance in <it>V. riparia </it>is induced after infection, and is not based on differences in basal gene expression between the two species. The strong and rapid transcriptional reprogramming involves the induction of pathogenesis-related proteins and enzymes required for the synthesis of phenylpropanoid-derived compounds, many of which are also induced, albeit to a lesser extent, in <it>V. vinifera</it>. More interestingly, resistance in <it>V. riparia </it>also involves the specific modulation of numerous transcripts encoding components of signal transduction cascades, hypersensitive reaction markers and genes involved in jasmonate biosynthesis. The limited transcriptional modulation in <it>V. vinifera </it>represents a weak attempted defense response rather than the activation of compatibility-specific pathways.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Several candidate resistance genes were identified that could be exploited in future biotechnological approaches to increase disease resistance in susceptible grapevine species. Measurements of jasmonic acid and methyl jasmonate in infected leaves suggest that this hormone may also be involved in <it>V. riparia </it>resistance to <it>P. viticola</it>.</p

Land Cover Map of the Fluvial/Littoral Parana River Complex (FLPRC) Using Geomatic Tools

El Complejo Fluvio/Litoral del río Paraná (CFLRP) es un humedal que posee características de sistemas ambientales complejos y heterogéneos, las cuales están dadas por la acción conjunta de procesos hidrológicos, geomorfológicos, biológicos y de origen antrópico asociados con el uso del suelo y la gestión del territorio. En el caso de los procesos de origen antrópico, se ha observado que las principales actividades económicas en el CFLRP se han centrado en los últimos a˜nos en la ganadería de isla y la forestación de salicáceas, si bien se pueden nombrar otras actividades como la urbanización, la pesca, la apicultura, el transporte fluvial, etc. Estas actividades han amenazado al CFLRP, ante lo cual se han realizado algunos esfuerzos de conservación que han conducido a la declaración de una parte de la región como área natural protegida. En este escenario, la cartografía de la cobertura y especialmente las cubiertas vegetales son un insumo básico para los planes de gestión territorial. Los datos de teledetección constituyen una base importante para la cartografía y seguimiento de cubiertas y permiten lograr mapas precisos y a escalas adecuadas. Teniendo lo anterior en cuenta, el presente trabajo se propuso generar un mapa de cobertura de suelo para el CFLRP mediante el uso de datos del sensor Landsat 8 OLI que sirva como propuesta metodológica para la generación de cartografía que puedan emplear los responsables de la gestión del territorio. Se descargó la escena 227-82 del servidor EarthExplorer (USGS, NASA, 2013). Como ventana temporal se utilizaron fechas representativas contrastantes en la región: primavera (período de aguas bajas) y oto˜no (período de aguas altas). De esta forma se incluyó la variabilidad temporal propia del área de estudio. Con el software e-Cognition (Trimble, 2000) se segmentó un compuesto multitemporal de 12 bandas (primavera y oto˜no). Se usaron como criterios un factor de escala de 100, de color de 0.9 y de forma de 0.1, a partir de lo cual se obtuvo un vectorial de polígonos de clases. Por otra parte, se realizó una clasificación no supervisada con el clasificador KMEAN (Técnica de Análisis de Auto-Organización Iterativa de Datos), empleando como parámetros 60 clases y 10 iteraciones. El mapa raster resultante se integró al vectorial producto de la segmentación a fin de obtener estadísticas (moda y diversidad) sobre el comportamiento de los píxeles en cada polígono. Finalmente, en la interpretación de los resultados, se le asignó la clase al polígono a partir de la moda e información de terreno. Se discriminaron 11 clases de cobertura, algunas de las cuales se asociaron con las características fisonómicas de la vegetación (fisonomías arbóreas, arbustivas, herbáceas de gran porte y herbáceas de baja altura). Otras de las clases de cobertura identificadas fueron agua, suelo, áreas urbanas, entre otras.Fluvio/Littoral Parana River complex (FLPRC) is a major wetland that has the characteristics of complex and heterogeneous environmental systems, which are given by the joint action of hydrological, geomorphological, biological and anthropogenic processes associated to land use practices. In the case of anthropogenic processes, it has been observed that the main economic activities have been focused, in recent years, on livestock farming and Salicaceae forestation, and other activities such as fishing, beekeeping, river transport, and recently urbanization. These activities have threatened the FLPRC, where some conservation efforts have been done, and led to the creation of some protected areas. In this context, land cover cartography is a basic input for land management plans. Remote sensing data are an important base for mapping and monitoring of land cover and allow achieving accurate maps. With this in mind, the present work was proposed to generate a map of land cover for CFLRP by using data from Landsat 8 OLI sensor, which serve as methodological proposal for generating cartography that can be used by those responsible of land management. 227-82 scene images of EarthExplorer server (USGS, NASA, 2013) were downloaded. Two temporal windows representing contrasting dates were used: spring (low water period) and autumn (high water period). Thus, the temporal variability of the study area was included. With e-Cognition software (Trimble, 2000), a segmentation of a multi-temporal product of 12 bands (spring and fall) was done. The result was a feature class. Furthermore, an unsupervised classification with KMEAN classifier using as parameters 60 classes and 10 iterations was performed. The resulting raster map was joined to the segmentation product to obtain statistics on the behavior of the pixels in each feature class. Finally, in the interpretation of the results, a class assignment was made to the feature class based on mode and field data. 11 land cover classes were discriminated, some of which were associated with the physiognomic characteristics of the vegetation (tree, shrubs, grass physiognomies). Other land cover classes were water, land, urban areas, among others.Fil: Aceñolaza, Pablo Gilberto. Provincia de Entre Ríos. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción. Universidad Autónoma de Entre Ríos. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción; ArgentinaFil: Zamboni, Lisandra Pamela. Universidad Autónoma de Entre Rí­os. Facultad de Ciencia y Tecnología. Centro Regional de Geomática; ArgentinaFil: Tentor, Fernando Raul. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales; ArgentinaFil: Kalesnik, Fabio Alberto. Universidad Nacional de Luján; ArgentinaFil: Rodriguez, Estela Elizabeth. Provincia de Entre Ríos. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción. Universidad Autónoma de Entre Ríos. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción; ArgentinaFil: Sione, Walter Fabian. No especifica;Fil: Serafini, Maria Cristina. No especifica

PD-L1 expression heterogeneity in non-small cell lung cancer: Evaluation of small biopsies reliability

Immunotherapy with checkpoint inhibitors, allowing recovery of effector cells function, has demonstrated to be highly effective in many tumor types and represents a true revolution in oncology. Recently, the anti-PD1 agent pembrolizumab was granted FDA approval for the first line treatment of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors show PD-L1 expression in \ue2\u89\ua5 50% of neoplastic cells and as a second line treatment for patients with NSCLC expressing PD-L1 in \ue2\u89\ua51% of neoplastic cells, evaluated with a validated assay. For the large majority of patients such evaluation is made on small biopsies. However, small tissue samples such as core biopsies might not be representative of tumors and may show divergent results given the possible heterogeneous immunoexpression of the biomarker. We therefore sought to evaluate PD-L1 expression concordance in a cohort of 239 patients using tissue microarrays (TMA) as surrogates of biopsies stained with a validated PD-L1 immunohistochemical assay (SP263) and report the degree of discordance among tissue cores in order to understand how such heterogeneity could affect decisions regarding therapy. We observed a discordance rate of 20% and 7.9% and a Cohen's \uce\uba value of 0.53 (moderate) and 0,48 (moderate) for \ue2\u89\ua5 1% and \ue2\u89\ua5 50% cutoffs, respectively. Our results suggest that caution must be taken when evaluating single biopsies from patients with advanced NSCLC eligible for immunotherapy; moreover, at least 4 biopsies are necessary in order to minimize the risk of tumor misclassification

Custom CGH array profiling of copy number variations (CNVs) on chromosome 6p21.32 (HLA locus) in patients with venous malformations associated with multiple sclerosis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a complex disorder thought to result from an interaction between environmental and genetic predisposing factors which have not yet been characterised, although it is known to be associated with the HLA region on 6p21.32. Recently, a picture of chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI), consequent to stenosing venous malformation of the main extra-cranial outflow routes (VM), has been described in patients affected with MS, introducing an additional phenotype with possible pathogenic significance.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In order to explore the presence of copy number variations (CNVs) within the HLA locus, a custom CGH array was designed to cover 7 Mb of the HLA locus region (6,899,999 bp; chr6:29,900,001-36,800,000). Genomic DNA of the 15 patients with CCSVI/VM and MS was hybridised in duplicate.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In total, 322 CNVs, of which 225 were extragenic and 97 intragenic, were identified in 15 patients. 234 known polymorphic CNVs were detected, the majority of these being situated in non-coding or extragenic regions. The overall number of CNVs (both extra- and intragenic) showed a robust and significant correlation with the number of stenosing VMs (Spearman: r = 0.6590, p = 0.0104; linear regression analysis r = 0.6577, p = 0.0106).</p> <p>The region we analysed contains 211 known genes. By using pathway analysis focused on angiogenesis and venous development, MS, and immunity, we tentatively highlight several genes as possible susceptibility factor candidates involved in this peculiar phenotype.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The CNVs contained in the HLA locus region in patients with the novel phenotype of CCSVI/VM and MS were mapped in detail, demonstrating a significant correlation between the number of known CNVs found in the HLA region and the number of CCSVI-VMs identified in patients. Pathway analysis revealed common routes of interaction of several of the genes involved in angiogenesis and immunity contained within this region. Despite the small sample size in this pilot study, it does suggest that the number of multiple polymorphic CNVs in the HLA locus deserves further study, owing to their possible involvement in susceptibility to this novel MS/VM plus phenotype, and perhaps even other types of the disease.</p

Estudo de caracterização do perfil químico de amostras de drogas sintéticas (designer drugs) apreendidas pelo Departamento de Polícia Federal no Rio Grande do Sul

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Switching strategy between HP (high pressure)- and LPEGR (low pressure exhaust gas recirculation) systems for reduced fuel consumption and emissions

EGR (Exhaust gas recirculation) plays a major role in current Diesel internal combustion engines as a cost-effective solution to reduce NO emissions. EGR systems will suffer a significant evolution with the introduction of NO after-treatment and the proliferation of more complex EGR architectures such as low pressure EGR or dual EGR. In this paper the combination of HPEGR (high pressure EGR) LPEGR (low pressure EGR) is presented as a method to minimise fuel consumption with reduced NOx emissions. Particularly, the paper proposes to switch between HPEGR and LPEGR architectures depending on the engine operating conditions in order to exploit the potential of both systems. In this sense, given a driving cycle, in the case at hand the NEDC, the proposed strategy seeks the EGR layout to use at each instant of the cycle to minimise the fuel consumption such that NO emissions are kept below a certain limit. The experimental results obtained show that combining both EGR systems sequentially along the NEDC allows to keep NO emission below a much lower limit with minimum fuel consumption.This work has been partially supported by Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologia through Project INNPACTO EGRCOEN.Lujan Martinez, JM.; Guardiola García, C.; Pla Moreno, B.; Reig, A. (2015). Switching strategy between HP (high pressure)- and LPEGR (low pressure exhaust gas recirculation) systems for reduced fuel consumption and emissions. Energy. 90:1790-1798. doi:10.1016/j.energy.2015.06.138S179017989

Optimization of DNA Extraction for RAPD and ISSR Analysis of Arbutus unedo L. Leaves

Genetic analysis of plants relies on high yields of pure DNA. For the strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) this represents a great challenge since leaves can accumulate large amounts of polysaccharides, polyphenols and secondary metabolites, which co-purify with DNA. For this specie, standard protocols do not produce efficient yields of high-quality amplifiable DNA. Here, we present for the first time an improved leaf-tissue protocol, based on the standard cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide protocol, which yields large amounts of high-quality amplifiable DNA. Key steps in the optimized protocol are the addition of antioxidant compounds—namely polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP), 1,4-dithiothreitol (DTT) and 2-mercaptoethanol, in the extraction buffer; the increasing of CTAB (3%, w/v) and sodium chloride (2M) concentration; and an extraction with organic solvents (phenol and chloroform) with the incubation of samples on ice. Increasing the temperature for cell lyses to 70 °C also improved both DNA quality and yield. The yield of DNA extracted was 200.0 ± 78.0 μg/μL and the purity, evaluated by the ratio A260/A280, was 1.80 ± 0.021, indicative of minimal levels of contaminating metabolites. The quality of the DNA isolated was confirmed by random amplification polymorphism DNA and by inter-simple sequence repeat amplification, proving that the DNA can be amplified via PCR