Multivariate analysis as a tool for selecting the vine pruning pretreatment towards the highest enzymatic hydrolysis yield

Lignocellulosic materials require pretreatment to remove lignin enabling the enzyme access to the cellulose. This work used multivariate analysis to investigate the acid and alkali pretreatments of vine pruning followed by enzymatic hydrolysis. The best acid pretreatment conditions were H2SO4 1.5%, 120 °C for 30 min, removing 68.7% of hemicellulose, enabling 95.8% of cellulose recovery. However, this treatment was not enough to allow the enzyme hydrolysis. A second step of treatment with NaOH 3.0% at 120 °C without agitation for 60 min led to a material with 75.0% of cellulose and 25.0% of lignin. However, the lowest glucose yield (80.86% and 32.26 g L?1 of glucose) was obtained after the enzyme hydrolysis of this material. The highest glucose yield (98.72% with 35.06 g L?1) was obtained using a pretreated material containing 68.1% of cellulose and 31.9% of lignin obtained after a milder condition (NaOH 2% at 100 °C), thus showing that not all the lignin need to be removed to obtain a high saccharification yield. A less severe pretreatment with no adverse effect on the glucose yield with the advantage of preserving the non-cellulose biomass fractions was effective for vine prune valorization.This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UIDB/04469/2020 unit, BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER000004), the projects Multibiorefinery (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016403), FoSynBio (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029549) and Lignozymes (POCI-01- 0145-FEDER-029773) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte 2020. In Brazil, this study was funded in part by the Coordenaçao ~ de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) - Finance Code 001, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnologico (CNPq) and Fundaçao Cearense de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnologico (FUNCAP). The authors would like to acknowledge the Central Analytical (Physical Department) of Federal University of Ceara for conducting the SEM analysis and the Centro de Tecnologia Canavieira – CTC/Brazil for the support. E. Gudina and L. Rodrigues acknowledge FCT for the Post-doctoral (CEB-BPD/01/2015/07) and sabbatical (SFRH/BSAB/142991/2019) grants, respectively.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Factors influencing terrestriality in primates of the Americas and Madagascar

Among mammals, the order Primates is exceptional in having a high taxonomic richness in which the taxa are arboreal, semiterrestrial, or terrestrial. Although habitual terrestriality is pervasive among the apes and African and Asian monkeys (catarrhines), it is largely absent among monkeys of the Americas (platyrrhines), as well as galagos, lemurs, and lorises (strepsirrhines), which are mostly arboreal. Numerous ecological drivers and species-specific factors are suggested to set the conditions for an evolutionary shift from arboreality to terrestriality, and current environmental conditions may provide analogous scenarios to those transitional periods. Therefore, we investigated predominantly arboreal, diurnal primate genera from the Americas and Madagascar that lack fully terrestrial taxa, to determine whether ecological drivers (habitat canopy cover, predation risk, maximum temperature, precipitation, primate species richness, human population density, and distance to roads) or species-specific traits (bodymass, group size, and degree of frugivory) associate with increased terrestriality. We collated 150,961 observation hours across 2,227 months from 47 species at 20 sites in Madagascar and 48 sites in the Americas. Multiple factors were associated with ground use in these otherwise arboreal species, including increased temperature, a decrease in canopy cover, a dietary shift away from frugivory, and larger group size. These factors mostly explain intraspecific differences in terrestriality. As humanity modifies habitats and causes climate change, our results suggest that species already inhabiting hot, sparsely canopied sites, and exhibiting more generalized diets, are more likely to shift toward greater ground use

Genomics and epidemiology for gastric adenocarcinomas (GE4GAC): a Brazilian initiative to study gastric cancer

Abstract Gastric cancer (GC) is the fifth most common type of cancer worldwide with high incidences in Asia, Central, and South American countries. This patchy distribution means that GC studies are neglected by large research centers from developed countries. The need for further understanding of this complex disease, including the local importance of epidemiological factors and the rich ancestral admixture found in Brazil, stimulated the implementation of the GE4GAC project. GE4GAC aims to embrace epidemiological, clinical, molecular and microbiological data from Brazilian controls and patients with malignant and pre-malignant gastric disease. In this letter, we summarize the main goals of the project, including subject and sample accrual and current findings