Tratamiento quirúrgico de ptosis palpebral miogénica adquirida

Objective: To report the surgical outcome of aponeurosis surgery in patients with acquired myogenic eyelid ptosis and describe surgical guidelines for their correction. Methods: The clinical records of two patients with acquired myogenic eyelid ptosis after surgical correction were reviewed. Results: In two patients with acquired myogenic eyelid ptosis and barely good levator function, levator resection surgery was performed. Corneal complications appeared in both cases. Conclusion: Patients with acquired myogenic eyelid ptosis are at risk of post-operative surgical complications from corneal exposure. Surgical correction should be conservative and performed only when the visual axis is compromise

Arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis modulates the apocarotenoid biosynthetic pathway in saffron

[EN] Crocus sativus L. (saffron) has been propagated for millennia to produce the precious spice saffron from the red stigmas. The inebriant organoleptic and bioactive properties mainly depend on the content of crocins (dyeing capacity), picrocrocin (flavor), and safranal (aroma), apocarotenoids deriving from zeaxanthin. In this study, an integrated biochemical and molecular analysis was carried out on fresh saffron stigmas to investigate the in-fluence exerted by the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus (AMF) Rhizophagus intraradices on the production of the main saffron apocarotenoids responsible for the properties of the spice. Since mineral enrichment due to AM symbiosis has been related to changes in the secondary metabolism of plants, the mineral content of saffron corms at flowering was also analyzed. Rare arbuscules (AMF trade structures) were found in mycorrhized plants. However, the expression of D27, CCD7, and NCED involved in the synthesis of strigolactones (SLs) and abscisic acid (ABA), which promote AM symbiosis, did not change in the stigmas. The transcription of beta-LYC and CCD4a/ b was not affected by AMF, whereas that of CCD2, which encodes the key enzyme producing major apocar-otenoids, was upregulated. The crocin content was reduced in treated plants even if the expression of ALDH, UGT74AD1, and UGT91P3, involved in crocin synthesis, did not change. Conversely, UGT709G1, implicated in picrocrocin synthesis, was overexpressed in the inoculated plants, thus the safranal content was increased in the spice.This research was funded by the program Interreg V-A Francia Italia Alcotra (Grant No. 1139 "ANTEA - Attivita innovative per lo sviluppo della filiera transfrontaliera del fiore edule"; and grant no. 8336 "ANTES-Fiori eduli e piante aromatiche: attivita capitalizzazione dei progetti ANTEA ed ESSICA").Stelluti, S.; Grasso, G.; Nebauer, SG.; Alonso, GL.; Renau-Morata, B.; Caser, M.; Demasi, S.... (2024). Arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis modulates the apocarotenoid biosynthetic pathway in saffron. Scientia Horticulturae. 323. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scienta.2023.11244132

Cuadernos de Arquitectura Sustentable

El libro en su primer volumen busca reunir artículos seleccionados ya publicados en congresos y seminarios a fin de mostrar de manera compacta los temas en los que ha trabajado la Cátedra de Instalaciones Czajkowski-Gómez en el período 2005-2009 y el LAyHS en el período 2009-2011.Laboratorio de Arquitectura y Hábitat SustentableFacultad de Arquitectura y Urbanism

Cuadernos de Arquitectura Sustentable

El libro en su primer volumen busca reunir artículos seleccionados ya publicados en congresos y seminarios a fin de mostrar de manera compacta los temas en los que ha trabajado la Cátedra de Instalaciones Czajkowski-Gómez en el período 2005-2009 y el LAyHS en el período 2009-2011.Laboratorio de Arquitectura y Hábitat SustentableFacultad de Arquitectura y Urbanism

Salmonella Biofilm Formation on Aspergillus niger Involves Cellulose – Chitin Interactions

Salmonella cycles between host and nonhost environments, where it can become an active member of complex microbial communities. The role of fungi in the environmental adaptation of enteric pathogens remains relatively unexplored. We have discovered that S. enterica Typhimurium rapidly attaches to and forms biofilms on the hyphae of the common fungus, Aspergillus niger. Several Salmonella enterica serovars displayed a similar interaction, whereas other bacterial species were unable to bind to the fungus. Bacterial attachment to chitin, a major constituent of fungal cell walls, mirrored this specificity. Pre-incubation of S. Typhimurium with N-acetylglucosamine, the monomeric component of chitin, reduced binding to chitin beads by as much as 727-fold and inhibited attachment to A. niger hyphae considerably. A cellulose-deficient mutant of S. Typhimurium failed to attach to chitin beads and to the fungus. Complementation of this mutant with the cellulose operon restored binding to chitin beads to 79% of that of the parental strain and allowed for attachment and biofilm formation on A. niger, indicating that cellulose is involved in bacterial attachment to the fungus via the chitin component of its cell wall. In contrast to cellulose, S. Typhimurium curli fimbriae were not required for attachment and biofilm development on the hyphae but were critical for its stability. Our results suggest that cellulose–chitin interactions are required for the production of mixed Salmonella-A. niger biofilms, and support the hypothesis that encounters with chitinaceous alternate hosts may contribute to the ecological success of human pathogens

Unravelling Soil Fungal Communities from Different Mediterranean Land-Use Backgrounds

Fungi strongly influence ecosystem structure and functioning, playing a key role in many ecological services as decomposers, plant mutualists and pathogens. The Mediterranean area is a biodiversity hotspot that is increasingly threatened by intense land use. Therefore, to achieve a balance between conservation and human development, a better understanding of the impact of land use on the underlying fungal communities is needed.We used parallel pyrosequencing of the nuclear ribosomal ITS regions to characterize the fungal communities in five soils subjected to different anthropogenic impact in a typical Mediterranean landscape: a natural cork-oak forest, a pasture, a managed meadow, and two vineyards. Marked differences in the distribution of taxon assemblages among the different sites and communities were found. Data analyses consistently indicated a sharp distinction of the fungal community of the cork oak forest soil from those described in the other soils. Each soil showed features of the fungal assemblages retrieved which can be easily related to the above-ground settings: ectomycorrhizal phylotypes were numerous in natural sites covered by trees, but were nearly completely missing from the anthropogenic and grass-covered sites; similarly, coprophilous fungi were common in grazed sites.Data suggest that investigation on the below-ground fungal community may provide useful elements on the above-ground features such as vegetation coverage and agronomic procedures, allowing to assess the cost of anthropogenic land use to hidden diversity in soil. Datasets provided in this study may contribute to future searches for fungal bio-indicators as biodiversity markers of a specific site or a land-use degree

Antibiofilm Activity of an Exopolysaccharide from Marine Bacterium Vibrio sp. QY101

Bacterial exopolysaccharides have always been suggested to play crucial roles in the bacterial initial adhesion and the development of complex architecture in the later stages of bacterial biofilm formation. However, Escherichia coli group II capsular polysaccharide was characterized to exert broad-spectrum biofilm inhibition activity. In this study, we firstly reported that a bacterial exopolysaccharide (A101) not only inhibits biofilm formation of many bacteria but also disrupts established biofilm of some strains. A101 with an average molecular weight of up to 546 KDa, was isolated and purified from the culture supernatant of the marine bacterium Vibrio sp. QY101 by ethanol precipitation, iron-exchange chromatography and gel filtration chromatography. High performance liquid chromatography traces of the hydrolyzed polysaccharides showed that A101 is primarily consisted of galacturonic acid, glucuronic acid, rhamnose and glucosamine. A101 was demonstrated to inhibit biofilm formation by a wide range of Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria without antibacterial activity. Furthermore, A101 displayed a significant disruption on the established biofilm produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, but not by Staphylococcus aureus. Importantly, A101 increased the aminoglycosides antibiotics' capability of killing P. aeruginosa biofilm. Cell primary attachment to surfaces and intercellular aggregates assays suggested that A101 inhibited cell aggregates of both P. aeruginosa and S. aureus, while the cell-surface interactions inhibition only occurred in S. aureus, and the pre-formed cell aggregates dispersion induced by A101 only occurred in P. aeruginosa. Taken together, these data identify the antibiofilm activity of A101, which may make it potential in the design of new therapeutic strategies for bacterial biofilm-associated infections and limiting biofilm formation on medical indwelling devices. The found of A101 antibiofilm activity may also promote a new recognition about the functions of bacterial exopolysaccharides