3,984 research outputs found
The Parent Populations of 6 groups identified from Chemical Tagging in the Solar neighborhood
We estimate the size and distribution of the parent populations for the 6
largest (at least 20 stars in the Solar neighborhood) chemical groups
identified in the Chemical Tagging experiment by Mitschang et al.~2014. Stars
in the abundance groups tend to lie near a boundary in angular momentum versus
eccentricity space where the probability is highest for a star to be found in
the Solar neighborhood and where orbits have apocenter approximately equal to
the Sun's galactocentric radius. Assuming that the parent populations are
uniformly distributed at all azimuthal angles in the Galaxy, we estimate that
the parent populations of these abundance groups contain at least 200,000
members. The spread in angular momentum of the groups implies that the
assumption of a uniform azimuthal distribution only fails for the two youngest
groups and only for the highest angular momentum stars in them. The parent
populations of three thin disk groups have narrow angular momentum
distributions, but tails in the eccentricity and angular momentum distributions
suggest that only a small fraction of stars have migrated and increased in
eccentricity. In contrast, the parent populations of the thick disk groups
exhibit both wide angular momentum and eccentricity distributions implying that
both heating and radial migration has taken place.Comment: accepted for publication in MNRA
The genus Inula and their metabolites : From ethnopharmacological to medicinal uses
ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: The genus Inula comprises more than one hundred species widespread in temperate regions of Europe and Asia. Uses of this genus as herbal medicines have been first recorded by the Greek and Roman ancient physicians. In the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, from the 20 Inula spp. distributed in China, three are used as Traditional Chinese medicines, named Tumuxiang, Xuanfuhua and Jinfeicao. These medicines are used as expectorants, antitussives, diaphoretics, antiemetics, and bactericides. Moreover, Inula helenium L. which is mentioned in Minoan, Mycenaean, Egyptian/Assyrian pharmacotherapy and Chilandar Medical Codex, is good to treat neoplasm, wound, freckles and dandruff. Many other Inula spp. are used in Ayurvedic and Tibetan traditional medicinal systems for the treatment of diseases such as bronchitis, diabetes, fever, hypertension and several types of inflammation. This review is a critical evaluation of the published data on the more relevant ethnopharmacological and medicinal uses of Inula spp. and on their metabolites biological activities. This study allows the identification of the ethnopharmacological knowledge of this genus and will provide insight into the emerging pharmacological applications of Inula spp. facilitating the prioritirization of future investigations. The corroboration of the ethnopharmacological applications described in the literature with proved biological activities of Inula spp. secondary metabolites will also be explored.University of Aveiro, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal), the European Union, QREN, FEDER, COMPETE, for funding the Organic Chemistry Research Unit (QOPNA) (project PEst-/QUI/UI0062/2013; FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-037296). The work was also supported by a grant of UEFISCDI, Romania, PN-II-PT-PCCA-2 no. 134/2012.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Are endolysins promising agents in controlling E. coli associated post-weaning diarrhea in piglets?
Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) associated infections are the major cause of
piglets mortality in weaning and post-weaning period, resulting in significant economic
losses to the swine industry. Furthermore, the increase of multidrug resistant ETECs have
been recognized a public health danger due to the potential transfer of resistance into the
food chain. Bacterio(phages) endolysins are enzymes produced in the end of phage lytic
cycle that are responsible for cell lysis. So far, no resistance has been reported, which
make endolysins an attractive alternative to antibiotics. In the present work, endolysins
were exploited to tackle ETECs in piglets. Two enzymes previously cloned were tested
against ETEC SP23 strain exponential cells. First, Lys68 (used herein as proof of concept)
was tested alone or in combination with 5 different organics acids (already implemented
in the piglets diet) citric, malic, formic, lactic and sorbic acids in 20 mM HEPES,
149 mM PBS and 140.33 mM simulated intestinal fluid (SIF). Later, PlyF307 endolysin
was also tested with malic and citric acids in SIF. Results demonstrated that both enzymes
reduced ETEC concentration in more than 4 orders of magnitude in HEPES. Lys68
together with malic acid displayed the best antibacterial activity in PBS, being able to
reduce approximately 1 order of magnitude. However, enzymes efficacy was drastically
reduced when tested in buffers that mimicked physiological conditions. In SIF, Lys68
and PlyF307 did not display antibacterial activity. In summary, phage endolysins revealed
to be ineffective to treat ETEC bacterial load in more complex environments.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
A strategy for the identification of new abiotic stress determinants in arabidopsis using web-based data mining and reverse genetics
Since the sequencing of the Arabidopsis thaliana genome in 2000, plant researchers have faced the complex challenge of assigning function to thousands of genes. Functional discovery by in silico prediction or homology search resolved a significant number of genes, but only a minor part has been experimentally validated. Arabidopsis entry into the post-genomic era signified a massive increase in high-throughput approaches to functional discovery, which have since become available through publicly-available web-based resources. The present work focuses on an easy and straightforward strategy that couples data-mining to reverse genetics principles, to allow for the identification of new abiotic stress determinant genes. The strategy explores systematic microarray-based transcriptomics experiments, involving Arabidopsis abiotic stress responses. An overview of the most significant resources and databases for functional discovery in Arabidopsis is presented. The successful application of the outlined strategy is illustrated by the identification of a new abiotic stress determinant gene, HRR, which displays a heat stress-related phenotype after a loss-of-function reverse genetics approach.No competing financial interests exist. The present work was supported by Foundation for Science and Technology (POCTI/AGR/45462/2002). H. Azevedo (SFRH/BPD/17198/2004), J. Correia (SFRH/BD/16663/2004), J. Oliveira (SFRH/BD/38379/2007), S. Laranjeira (SFRH/BD/29778/2006), C. Barbeta (SFRH/BD/12081/2003) and V. Amorim-Silva (SFRH/BD/29778/2006) were supported by Foundation for Science and Technology
Effect of surface biotreatments on construction materials
STSM Grant from the COST Action CA15202.
Spanish Ministry of Economy - project BIA2017-83526-R.
project DB-Heritage – Database of building materials with historical and heritage interest (PTDC/EPH-PAT/4684/2014).
IF/01054/2014/CP1224/CT0005.
FCT/MCTES (UID/QUI/50006/2019; UID/Multi/04378/2019).
POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007728.
NĂdia Almeida is supported by the Radiation Biology and Biophysics Doctoral Training Programme (RaBBiT-PD/00193/2012; UCIBIO-UID/Multi/04378/2019 and by a PhD fellowship from FCT/MCTES (PD/BD/106034/2015).Surface treatment technology is instrumental to construction material conservation and more specifically to preventing decay and improving durability. Surface treatments help protect and consolidate the built heritage against material damage, reducing repair and replacement costs. This study assessed the effect of two eco-friendly healing agents, one generated by iron-enriched Escherichia coli and the other by mixed microbial cultures that metabolise glycerol, a biodiesel processing by-product, to produce polyhydroxyalkanoates. Healing was monitored by measuring the water drop absorption rate in cement mortar, air lime mortar, ceramic brick, limestone, adobe and compressed earth block. The agents tested lengthened water absorption times in all the materials studied, confirming their efficacy as external repair treatments for construction materials.authorsversionpublishe
Diversidade de Coccinellidae (Coleoptera) em plantas aromáticas (Apiaceae) como sĂtios de sobrevivĂŞncia e reprodução em sistema agroecolĂłgico.
Studies show that Apiaceae may provide concentrated vital resources for predator insects,stimulating their abundance, diversity and persistence in agricultural systems, thereby increasing their effi ciency as biological control agents. Among the predatory insects, Coccinellidae (Coleoptera) on many different species both as larvae and adults, complementing their diet with pollen and/or nectar. This
study aimed to determine the diversity and relative abundance of Coccinellidae species visiting plants
of Anethum graveolens (dill), Coriandrum sativum (coriander) and Foeniculum vulgare (sweet fennel)
(all Apiaceae), particularly in their blooming seasons, and to evaluate the potential of these aromatic species for providing the resources for survivorship and reproduction of coccinelids. Coccinellids were collected by removal of samplings from September to October, 2007. Besides one unidentifi ed species of Chilocorinae, five species of Coccinellinae were collected: Coleomegilla maculata DeGeer, Coleomegilla quadrifasciata (Schönherr), Cycloneda sanguinea (L.), Eriopis connexa (Germar) and Hippodamia convergens Guérin-Meneville. Dill provided a signifi cant increase in the abundance of coccinellids as compared to coriander and sweet fennel. These aromatic species were used by coccinellids as survival and reproduction sites, providing food resources (pollen and/or prey), shelter for larvae, pupae and adults, and mating and oviposition sites as well
Controlling ETEC colonization on cultures of an intestinal pig cell line with a T4-like phage
Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) colonizes the intestine of young pigs causing severe diarrhoea and consequently bringing high producing costs. The rise of antibiotic selective pressure together with on-going limitation on their use demands news strategies to tackle this pathology. The pertinence of using phages to tackle this problematic is being explored, and in this work, the efficacy of a T4-like phage vB_EcoM_FJ1 (FJ1) in reducing the load of ETEC O9:H9 (Sta, F5/F41) was assessed. FJ1 has a 170,053 bp genome, and of the 270 coding sequences none corresponds to identified undesirable proteins, such as integrases or transposases. Envisaging the oral application to piglets, FJ1 was previously encapsulated on CaCO3/alginate. Assays were performed on 15-day cultures of the intestinal pig cell line IPEC-1 seeded in transwell inserts. Phage treatment occurred 2 hours after ETEC infection, when, in average, 5x105 CFU.cm-2 were adhered to cultured cells. Encapsulated phage provided reductions of, approximately, 2.3 Log CFU.cm-2 and 2.8 Log CFU.cm-2 on adhered bacteria, respectively 3 and 6 hours after administration. The repeated exposure of the host to FJ1 led to the emergence of phage-insensitive mutants, phenotype that brought fitness costs to the host strain: they were 70% more vulnerable to the pig complement system and less efficient in adhering to cultured cells (in about 90%). Overall, FJ1 is presented here as promising to fight against ETEC infections through oral administration to piglets.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Application of four molecular typing methods for analysis of Mycobacterium fortuitum group strains causing post-mammaplasty infections
A cluster of cases of post-augmentation mammaplasty surgical site infections occurred between 2002 and 2004 in Campinas, in the southern region of Brazil. Rapidly growing mycobacteria were isolated from samples from 12 patients. Eleven isolates were identified as Mycobacterium fortuitum and one as Mycobacterium porcinum by PCR-restriction digestion of the hsp65 gene. These 12 isolates, plus six additional M. fortuitum isolates from non-related patients, were typed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and three PCR-based techniques: 16S-23S rRNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) genotyping; randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) PCR; and enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus (ERIC) PCR. Four novel M. fortuitum allelic variants were identified by restriction analysis of the ITS fragment. One major cluster, comprising six M. fortuitum isolates, and a second cluster of two isolates, were identified by the four methods. RAPD-PCR and ITS genotyping were less discriminative than ERIC-PCR. ERIC-PCR was comparable to PFGE as a valuable complementary tool for investigation of this type of outbreak.Universidade Federal de SĂŁo Paulo, Escola Paulista Med, Dept Microbiol Imunol & Parasitol, BR-04023062 SĂŁo Paulo, SP, BrazilFleury Ctr Med Diagnost, SĂŁo Paulo, BrazilInst Adolfo Lutz Registro, SĂŁo Paulo, BrazilInst Vozza Med & Diagnose LTDA, Campinas, BrazilCtr Vigilancia Epidemiol Prof Alexandre Vranjac, SĂŁo Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de SĂŁo Paulo, Escola Paulista Med, Dept Microbiol Imunol & Parasitol, BR-04023062 SĂŁo Paulo, SP, BrazilWeb of Scienc
Inhibition of bladder tumor growth by chitooligosaccharides in an experimental carcinogenesis model
Urinary bladder cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide, with the highest incidence in industrialized countries. Patients with cancer commonly use unconventional and complementary therapy including nutraceuticals. In this study we evaluated the efficacy of chitooligosaccharides (in orange juice) in rat bladder cancer chemoprevention and as therapeutic agent, on a rat model of urinary bladder carcinogenesis induced with N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxybutyl) nitrosamine. Results indicate that chitooligosaccharides may have a preventive effect on bladder cancer development and a curative effect upon established bladder tumors, dependent on the concentration ingested 500 mg/kg b.w., every three days, showed capacity to inhibit and prevent the proliferation of bladder cancer; however, this was associated with secondary effects such as hypercholesterolemia and hypertriglyceridemia. The use of lower doses (50 and 250 mg/kg b.w.) showed only therapeutic effects. It is further suggested that this antitumor effect might be due to its expected anti-inflammatory action, as well as by mechanisms not directly dependent of COX-2 inhibition, such as cellular proliferation control and improvement in antioxidant profile.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
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