Periphyton responses to nitrogen decline and warming in eutrophic shallow lake mesocosms

Periphyton is a key primary producer in shallow lakes, sensitive to global warming and changes in nutrient balances. Reduced nitrogen availability due to accelerated denitrification at higher temperatures or in response to reduced N loadings aimed to reduce the eutrophication may affect periphyton biomass and composition, to compensate for the low N availability (e.g. promoting N2-fixing). We analysed periphyton responses to N decline in 12 eutrophic shallow lake mesocosms during one year of low N compared to high N, under three temperature scenarios: ambient, A2 IPCC scenario and A2 increased by 50%. We used two submerged macrophytes (Potamogeton crispus and Elodea canadensis) and artificial imitations of these as substrates for periphyton growth. Nitrogen decline increased periphyton biomass and induced compositional changes irrespective of season, plant type, and temperature. Periphyton biomass was negatively associated to phytoplankton and positively to plant complexity. Warmer scenarios negatively affected periphyton exclusively at high N loadings. Low N conditions were associated with lower periphyton taxonomic richness, lower N2-fixing cyanobacteria biovolume and increased biovolume of large-sized chlorophytes and non-N2-fixing cyanobacteria. Our results suggest that low N conditions promoted periphyton due to a more efficient use of nutrients and improved light conditions resulting from lower phytoplankton biomass and contrasting effects of temperature. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.This study was supported by the Sino-Danish Centre – Aarhus University, the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of the Republic, Uruguay. E.J. was also supported by the TÜBITAK, BIDEB 2232 program (118C250). C.A. was supported by the Doctoral INPhINIT–INCOMING program, fellowship code (LCF/BQ/DI20/11780004), from “la Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434). We thank Beibei Hao for her valuable assistance with the experimental design and Ann Lene Vigh and Kathrine Tabermann Uhrenholt for the field and lab assistance

Analysing the impact of climate change on hydrological ecosystem services in laguna del sauce (Uruguay) using the swat model and remote sensing data

Assessing how climate change will affect hydrological ecosystem services (HES) provision is necessary for long-term planning and requires local comprehensive climate information. In this study, we used SWAT to evaluate the impacts on four HES, natural hazard protection, erosion control regulation and water supply and flow regulation for the Laguna del Sauce catchment in Uruguay. We used downscaled CMIP-5 global climate models for Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 projections. We calibrated and validated our SWAT model for the periods 2005 2009 and 2010 2013 based on remote sensed ET data. Monthly NSE and R2 values for calibration and validation were 0.74, 0.64 and 0.79, 0.84, respectively. Our results suggest that climate change will likely negatively affect the water resources of the Laguna del Sauce catchment, especially in the RCP 8.5 scenario. In all RCP scenarios, the catchment is likely to experience a wetting trend, higher temperatures, seasonality shifts and an increase in extreme precipitation events, particularly in frequency and magnitude. This will likely affect water quality provision through runoff and sediment yield inputs, reducing the erosion control HES and likely aggravating eutrophication. Although the amount of water will increase, changes to the hydrological cycle might jeopardize the stability of freshwater supplies and HES on which many people in the south-eastern region of Uruguay depend. Despite streamflow monitoring capacities need to be enhanced to reduce the uncertainty of model results, our findings provide valuable insights for water resources planning in the study area. Hence, water management and monitoring capacities need to be enhanced to reduce the potential negative climate change impacts on HES. The methodological approach presented here, based on satellite ET data can be replicated and adapted to any other place in the world since we employed open-access software and remote sensing data for all the phases of hydrological modelling and HES provision assessment. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme within the framework of the project SMARTLAGOON under grant agreement No. 101017861. This study was also supported by the State Research Agency of Spain through the excellence certification María de Maeztu (Ref. MDM-2017-0714). Celina Aznarez was supported by the Doctoral INPhINIT–INCOMING program, fellowship code (LCF/BQ/DI20/11780004), from “la Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434). Javier Senent-Aparicio was supported by the training grant (21201/EE/19) awarded by the Séneca Foundation in the framework of the Jimenez de la Espada Mobility, Cooperation and Internationalization Program. Adrián López-Ballesteros was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte with an FPU grant (FPU17/00923). Juan Pablo Pacheco was supported by the Sino-Danish Center–Aarhus University, the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of the Republic, Uruguay. This work has received funding from the European Union?s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme within the framework of the project SMARTLAGOON under grant agreement No. 101017861. This study was also supported by the State Research Agency of Spain through the excellence certification Mar?a de Maeztu (Ref. MDM-2017-0714). Celina Aznarez was supported by the Doctoral INPhINIT?INCOMING program, fellowship code (LCF/BQ/DI20/11780004), from ?la Caixa? Foundation (ID 100010434). Javier Senent-Aparicio was supported by the training grant (21201/EE/19) awarded by the S?neca Foundation in the framework of the Jimenez de la Espada Mobility, Cooperation and Internationalization Program. Adri?n L?pez-Ballesteros was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Educaci?n, Cultura y Deporte with an FPU grant (FPU17/00923). Juan Pablo Pacheco was supported by the Sino-Danish Center?Aarhus University, the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of the Republic, Uruguay. The authors acknowledge Paper Check Proofreading and Editing Services for proofreading the manuscript

Brain tumour microstructure is associated with post-surgical cognition

Brain tumour microstructure is potentially predictive of changes following treatment to cognitive functions subserved by the functional networks in which they are embedded. To test this hypothesis, intra-tumoural microstructure was quantified from diffusion-weighted MRI to identify which tumour subregions (if any) had a greater impact on participants’ cognitive recovery after surgical resection. Additionally, we studied the role of tumour microstructure in the functional interaction between the tumour and the rest of the brain. Sixteen patients (22–56 years, 7 females) with brain tumours located in or near speech-eloquent areas of the brain were included in the analyses. Two different approaches were adopted for tumour segmentation from a multishell diffusion MRI acquisition: the first used a two-dimensional four group partition of feature space, whilst the second used data-driven clustering with Gaussian mixture modelling. For each approach, we assessed the capability of tumour microstructure to predict participants’ cognitive outcomes after surgery and the strength of association between the BOLD signal of individual tumour subregions and the global BOLD signal. With both methodologies, the volumes of partially overlapped subregions within the tumour significantly predicted cognitive decline in verbal skills after surgery. We also found that these particular subregions were among those that showed greater functional interaction with the unaffected cortex. Our results indicate that tumour microstructure measured by MRI multishell diffusion is associated with cognitive recovery after surgery.</p

Quality of life in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases

Fundamento. Determinar la calidad de vida relacionada con la salud en pacientes con enfermedad de Crohn y colitis ulcerosa, así como evaluar las diferencias en función del sexo, tipo de enfermedad y otras variables sociodemográficas. Método. Estudio observacional, descriptivo y transversal en 100 pacientes atendidos en el servicio de Digestivo del Complejo Hospitalario de Navarra. Se empleó un cuestionario con variables sociodemográficas y clínicas, además del Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire-32, en su versión adaptada al castellano, para medir la calidad de vida. Resultados. La media de la puntuación total del cuestionario de calidad vida es de 166 puntos (D.T.=40,06) sobre un máximo de 232. Se han hallado diferencias estadísticamente significativas en función del tipo de enfermedad (p=0,005) y el sexo (p=0,001). Conclusiones. Las personas con enfermedad de Crohn o sexo femenino perciben peor calidad de vida relacionada con la salud respecto a pacientes con colitis ulcerosa u hombres.Background. To determine the health-related quality of life in patients with Crohn disease and ulcerative colitis, as well as to evaluate differences according to sex, type of disease and other sociodemographic variables. Method. Cross sectional study of 100 outpatients in the Digestive Service of the Navarre Hospital Complex. A questionnaire with sociodemographic and clinical variables was used, as well as a version of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire-32 adapted to Spanish, in order to measure quality of life. Results. The average score of the questionnaire on quality of life was 166 points (D.T.=40.06) out of a maximum of 232. Statistically significant differences were found according to type of disease (p=0.005) and sex (p=0.001). Conclusions. People with Crohn disease or females perceive a worse quality of life related to health in comparison to patients with ulcerative colitis or men

Long-term precipitation in Southwestern Europe reveals no clear trend attributable to anthropogenic forcing

We present a long-term assessment of precipitation trends in Southwestern Europe (1850-2018) using data from multiple sources, including observations, gridded datasets and global climate model experiments. Contrary to previous investigations based on shorter records, we demonstrate, using new long-term, quality controlled precipitation series, the lack of statistically significant long-term decreasing trends in precipitation for the region. Rather, significant trends were mostly found for shorter periods, highlighting the prevalence of interdecadal and interannual variability at these time-scales. Global climate model outputs from three CMIP experiments are evaluated for periods concurrent with observations. Both the CMIP3 and CMIP5 ensembles show precipitation decline, with only CMIP6 showing agreement with long term trends in observations. However, for both CMIP3 and CMIP5 large interannual and internal variability among ensemble members makes it difficult to identify a trend that is statistically different from observations. Across both observations and models, our results make it difficult to associate any declining trends in precipitation in Southwestern Europe to anthropogenic forcing at this stage

Brain tumour microstructure is associated with post-surgical cognition.

Brain tumour microstructure is potentially predictive of changes following treatment to cognitive functions subserved by the functional networks in which they are embedded. To test this hypothesis, intra-tumoural microstructure was quantified from diffusion-weighted MRI to identify which tumour subregions (if any) had a greater impact on participants' cognitive recovery after surgical resection. Additionally, we studied the role of tumour microstructure in the functional interaction between the tumour and the rest of the brain. Sixteen patients (22-56 years, 7 females) with brain tumours located in or near speech-eloquent areas of the brain were included in the analyses. Two different approaches were adopted for tumour segmentation from a multishell diffusion MRI acquisition: the first used a two-dimensional four group partition of feature space, whilst the second used data-driven clustering with Gaussian mixture modelling. For each approach, we assessed the capability of tumour microstructure to predict participants' cognitive outcomes after surgery and the strength of association between the BOLD signal of individual tumour subregions and the global BOLD signal. With both methodologies, the volumes of partially overlapped subregions within the tumour significantly predicted cognitive decline in verbal skills after surgery. We also found that these particular subregions were among those that showed greater functional interaction with the unaffected cortex. Our results indicate that tumour microstructure measured by MRI multishell diffusion is associated with cognitive recovery after surgery

Whole Exome Sequencing Suggests Much of Non-BRCA1/BRCA2 Familial Breast Cancer Is Due to Moderate and Low Penetrance Susceptibility Alleles

The identification of the two most prevalent susceptibility genes in breast cancer, BRCA1 and BRCA2, was the beginning of a sustained effort to uncover new genes explaining the missing heritability in this disease. Today, additional high, moderate and low penetrance genes have been identified in breast cancer, such as P53, PTEN, STK11, PALB2 or ATM, globally accounting for around 35 percent of the familial cases. In the present study we used massively parallel sequencing to analyze 7 BRCA1/BRCA2 negative families, each having at least 6 affected women with breast cancer (between 6 and 10) diagnosed under the age of 60 across generations. After extensive filtering, Sanger sequencing validation and co-segregation studies, variants were prioritized through either control-population studies, including up to 750 healthy individuals, or case-control assays comprising approximately 5300 samples. As a result, a known moderate susceptibility indel variant (CHEK2 1100delC) and a catalogue of 11 rare variants presenting signs of association with breast cancer were identified. All the affected genes are involved in important cellular mechanisms like DNA repair, cell proliferation and survival or cell cycle regulation. This study highlights the need to investigate the role of rare variants in familial cancer development by means of novel high throughput analysis strategies optimized for genetically heterogeneous scenarios. Even considering the intrinsic limitations of exome resequencing studies, our findings support the hypothesis that the majority of non-BRCA1/BRCA2 breast cancer families might be explained by the action of moderate and/or low penetrance susceptibility alleles

iCLIP Predicts the Dual Splicing Effects of TIA-RNA Interactions

Transcriptome-wide analysis of protein-RNA interactions predicts the dual splicing effects of TIA proteins, showing that their local enhancing function is associated with diverse distal splicing silencing effects

Different modes of interaction by TIAR and HuR with target RNA and DNA

TIAR and HuR are mRNA-binding proteins that play important roles in the regulation of translation. They both possess three RNA recognition motifs (RRMs) and bind to AU-rich elements (AREs), with seemingly overlapping specificity. Here we show using SPR that TIAR and HuR bind to both U-rich and AU-rich RNA in the nanomolar range, with higher overall affinity for U-rich RNA. However, the higher affinity for U–rich sequences is mainly due to faster association with U-rich RNA, which we propose is a reflection of the higher probability of association. Differences between TIAR and HuR are observed in their modes of binding to RNA. TIAR is able to bind deoxy-oligonucleotides with nanomolar affinity, whereas HuR affinity is reduced to a micromolar level. Studies with U-rich DNA reveal that TIAR binding depends less on the 2′-hydroxyl group of RNA than HuR binding. Finally we show that SAXS data, recorded for the first two domains of TIAR in complex with RNA, are more consistent with a flexible, elongated shape and not the compact shape that the first two domains of Hu proteins adopt upon binding to RNA. We thus propose that these triple-RRM proteins, which compete for the same binding sites in cells, interact with their targets in fundamentally different ways