Sex-Biased Control of Inflammation and Metabolism by a Mitochondrial Nod-Like Receptor.

Mitochondria regulate steroid hormone synthesis, and in turn sex hormones regulate mitochondrial function for maintaining cellular homeostasis and controlling inflammation. This crosstalk can explain sex differences observed in several pathologies such as in metabolic or inflammatory disorders. Nod-like receptor X1 (NLRX1) is a mitochondria-associated innate receptor that could modulate metabolic functions and attenuates inflammatory responses. Here, we showed that in an infectious model with the human protozoan parasite, Leishmania guyanensis, NLRX1 attenuated inflammation in females but not in male mice. Analysis of infected female and male bone marrow derived macrophages showed both sex- and genotype-specific differences in both inflammatory and metabolic profiles with increased type I interferon production, mitochondrial respiration, and glycolytic rate in Nlrx1-deficient female BMDMs in comparison to wild-type cells, while no differences were observed between males. Transcriptomics of female and male BMDMs revealed an altered steroid hormone signaling in Nlrx1-deficient cells, and a "masculinization" of Nlrx1-deficient female BMDMs. Thus, our findings suggest that NLRX1 prevents uncontrolled inflammation and metabolism in females and therefore may contribute to the sex differences observed in infectious and inflammatory diseases

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics' resources: focus on curated databases

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (www.isb-sib.ch) provides world-class bioinformatics databases, software tools, services and training to the international life science community in academia and industry. These solutions allow life scientists to turn the exponentially growing amount of data into knowledge. Here, we provide an overview of SIB's resources and competence areas, with a strong focus on curated databases and SIB's most popular and widely used resources. In particular, SIB's Bioinformatics resource portal ExPASy features over 150 resources, including UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot, ENZYME, PROSITE, neXtProt, STRING, UniCarbKB, SugarBindDB, SwissRegulon, EPD, arrayMap, Bgee, SWISS-MODEL Repository, OMA, OrthoDB and other databases, which are briefly described in this article

Exploitation des eaux souterraines dans le périmètre irrigué de Tadla (Maroc) Etat des lieux et éléments de méthodologie pour contribuer à une réflexion sur une gestion intégrée et durable des eaux souterraines et de surface

L'importance des ressources en eau souterraine dans le périmètre irrigué de Tadla a été révélée pendant les années de sécheresse de 1981 à 1984 lorsqu'elles ont permis de combler le déficit en eau de surface. Depuis cette date, le recours à l'eau souterraine est devenu systématique compte tenu du contexte de pénurie d'eau de surface que connaît actuellement le bassin de l'Oum Er Rbia. Si au début, l'exploitation des eaux souterraines par pompage privé a été encouragé pour rabattre le niveau de la nappe dont le niveau était proche de la surface du sol, on assiste à partir du début des années 1990 à une prolifération « illicite » des puits et forages, et ce malgré l'existence de la loi 10-50 sur l'eau qui interdit tout accès non autorisé à la nappe. Les aquifères de Tadla sont actuellement fortement sollicités et leur niveau baisse sous l'effet conjugué d'une sous-alimentation provoquée par les sécheresses et une forte pression exercée par ces pompages privés. Par ailleurs, les modalités de gestion des eaux souterraines et la manière dont elles sont valorisées restent au stade actuel mal connues. Le présent article est le premier d'une série concernant des travaux de recherche sur la gestion des eaux souterraines dans les pays du Maghreb menée dans le cadre du projet Sirma. L'article dresse un état des lieux de la problématique de gestion des ressources en eaux dans le Tadla et décrit, la méthodologie de travail. Des résultats préliminaires seront également présentés

PamgeneAnalyzeR: open and reproducible pipeline for kinase profiling.

Protein phosphorylation--catalyzed by protein kinases-is the most common post-translational modification. It increases the functional diversity of the proteome and influences various aspects of normal physiology and can be altered in disease states. High throughput profiling of kinases is becoming an essential experimental approach to investigate their activity and this can be achieved using technologies such as PamChip® arrays provided by PamGene for kinase activity measurement. Here, we present 'pamgeneAnalyzeR', an R package developed as an alternative to the manual steps necessary to extract the data from PamChip® peptide microarrays images in a reproducible and robust manner. The extracted data can be directly used for downstream analysis. PamgeneAnalyzeR is implemented in R and can be obtained from https://github.com/amelbek/pamgeneAnalyzeR

Supporting the Shift from State Water to Community Water: Lessons from a Social Learning Approach to Designing Joint Irrigation Projects in Morocco

This paper focuses on the evaluation of a participatory approach aimed at supporting groups of small-scale farmers in the design of joint drip irrigation projects. Our idea was to create a sustainable social learning environment in which they could acquire adaptive knowledge about new irrigation technology and about designing and managing a joint irrigation project while at the same time improving their negotiation capacities. We developed a framework to evaluate the process as well as the outputs and outcomes of the use of our approach with four groups of smallholder farmers in the Tadla irrigation scheme in Morocco. Our findings showed that the learning environment made it possible to compensate for the knowledge differential among stakeholders and to co-produce knowledge that can be mobilized by small-scale farmers to help them make better informed decisions when choosing whether or not to engage in a joint irrigation project and when developing and implementing such a project. We expect that this will ultimately contribute to supporting the shift from state water to community water through a shared understanding of the technical, economic, and social issues and options related to the management of irrigation wate

Study of retention of organophosphorus compoundsand volatile organic solventson polydimethylsiloxane using inverse gas chromatography

A detailed study of retention of the variety of volatile organic solvents (VOS) and organophosphorus compounds on the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) preliminary characterized by FTIR and DSC methods was carried out by means of an inverse gas chromatography technique. The specific retention volumes and infinite dilution activity coefficients were determined for different classes of VOCs, linear and cyclic alkanes, chloroalkanes, oxygen compounds (alcohols, ketones, and esters), and nitriles as well as for typical organophosphorus compounds, 4-nitrophenyl esters of diethyl phosphoric (paraoxon) and diethyl thiophosphoric (parathion) acids. The effect of dipole-dipole interactions and dispersion interactions on the efficacy of the retention of the studied compounds on the PDMS was analyzed. Organophosphorus stimulants are characterized by strong retention on the PDMS, the difference in their retention are to be connected with more efficient dipole-dipole interaction of the oxygen atom of paraoxon with the PDMS than that of the sulphur atom of parathion. A possibility of using PDMS as a base for the detection layers sensitive to organophosphorus compounds was demonstra