Microarray gene expression profiling of neural tissues in bovine spastic paresis

Abstract: Background: Bovine Spastic Paresis (BSP) is a neuromuscular disorder which affects both male and female cattle. BSP is characterized by spastic contraction and overextension of the gastrocnemious muscle of one or both limbs and is associated with a scarce increase in body weight. This disease seems to be caused by an autosomal and recessive gene, with incomplete penetration, although no genes clearly involved with its onset have been so far identified. We employed cDNA microarrays to identify metabolic pathways affected by BSP in Romagnola cattle breed. Investigation of those pathways at the genome level can help to understand this disease. Results: Microarray analysis of control and affected individuals resulted in 268 differentially expressed genes. These genes were subjected to KEGG pathway functional clustering analysis, revealing that they are predominantly involved in Cell Communication, Signalling Molecules and Interaction and Signal Transduction, Diseases and Nervous System classes. Significantly enriched KEGG pathway's classes for the differentially expressed genes were calculated; interestingly, all those significantly under-expressed in the affected samples are included in Neurodegenerative Diseases. To identify genome locations possibly harbouring gene(s) involved in the disease, the chromosome distribution of the differentially expressed genes was also investigated. Conclusions: The cDNA microarray we used in this study contains a brain library and, even if carrying an incomplete transcriptome representation, it has proven to be a valuable tool allowing us to add useful and new information to a poorly studied disease. By using this tool, we examined nearly 15000 transcripts and analysed gene pathways affected by the disease. Particularly, our data suggest also a defective glycinergic synaptic transmission in the development of the disease and an alteration of calcium signalling proteins. We provide data to acquire knowledge of a genetic disease for which literature still presents poor results and that could be further and specifically analysed in the next future. Moreover this study, performed in livestock, may also harbour molecular information useful for understanding human diseases

Utilización de nuevas materias primas y residuos industriales para mejorar las posibilidades de uso de los materiales cerámicos del área de Bailén (Jaén)

Raw materials used by the ceramic industry in Jaén (southern Spain) consist of mixtures of carbonated clays from the Guadalquivir Basin and red clays from the Iberian Massif. The mixtures formulation usually obeys empirical experience developed by this industry for many generations. This work evaluates different possibilities of using these raw materials to manufacture new ceramic products on the basis of clay physical-chemical properties and analyzes limitations to produce high added value products. As an alternative to overcome these limitations, the mixture of these clays with raw materials from near regions (pyrophyllite clay) and with different industrial wastes is proposed. These wastes are screen glass from monitors and oil impregnated diatomaceous earth. The study of the technological properties shows that the new mixtures are suitable for the processing of ceramic products in which structural and thermal insulating properties are improved or kept.La materia prima empleada por la industria cerámica de Jaén consiste en mezclas de margas de la Depresión del Guadalquivir con arcillas rojas del Macizo Ibérico. La formulación de estas mezclas responde generalmente a la experiencia empírica desarrollada por esta industria durante generaciones. El presente trabajo evalúa las posibilidades de utilización de estas materias primas para fabricar nuevos productos cerámicos de construcción basándose en sus propiedades físico-químicas y analiza las limitaciones que presentan para la fabricación de productos de mayor valor añadido. Como alternativa para superar estas limitaciones se propone la mezcla con arcillas pirofilíticas de áreas geográficamente cercanas y con diferentes residuos industriales. Estos residuos son vidrio de pantalla descontaminado y tierras diatomeas impregnadas con aceites vegetales. El estudio de caracterización tecnológica muestra que las nuevas mezclas permiten el procesamiento de piezas cerámicas y que en ellas se mejoran o mantienen las propiedades estructurales y de aislamiento térmico

Residual strain scanning of alumina-based ceramic composites by neutron diffraction

The objective of this work is to non-destructively determine the residual stress profile in the bulk of two characteristic types of alumina-based composites, with the aim of improving their durability and structural integrity

Modulation of Host Immunity by Human Respiratory Syncytial Virus Virulence Factors: A Synergic Inhibition of Both Innate and Adaptive Immunity

Indexación: Web of Science; Scopus.The Human Respiratory Syncytial Virus (hRSV) is a major cause of acute lower respiratory tract infections (ARTIs) and high rates of hospitalizations in children and in the elderly worldwide. Symptoms of hRSV infection include bronchiolitis and pneumonia. The lung pathology observed during hRSV infection is due in part to an exacerbated host immune response, characterized by immune cell infiltration to the lungs. HRSV is an enveloped virus, a member of the Pneumoviridae family, with a non-segmented genome and negative polarity-single RNA that contains 10 genes encoding for 11 proteins. These include the Fusion protein (F), the Glycoprotein (G), and the Small Hydrophobic (SH) protein, which are located on the virus surface. In addition, the Nucleoprotein (N), Phosphoprotein (P) large polymerase protein (L) part of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase complex, the M2-1 protein as a transcription elongation factor, the M2-2 protein as a regulator of viral transcription and (M) protein all of which locate inside the virion. Apart from the structural proteins, the hRSV genome encodes for the non-structural 1 and 2 proteins (NS1 and NS2). HRSV has developed different strategies to evade the host immunity by means of the function of some of these proteins that work as virulence factors to improve the infection in the lung tissue. Also, hRSV NS-1 and NS-2 proteins have been shown to inhibit the activation of the type I interferon response. Furthermore, the hRSV nucleoprotein has been shown to inhibit the immunological synapsis between the dendritic cells and T cells during infection, resulting in an inefficient T cell activation. Here, we discuss the hRSV virulence factors and the host immunological features raised during infection with this virus.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcimb.2017.00367/ful

Probing the Shape of a Graphene Nanobubble

Gas molecules trapped between graphene and various substrates in the form of bubbles are observed experimentally. The study of these bubbles is useful in determining the elastic and mechanical properties of graphene, adhesion energy between graphene and substrate, and manipulating the electronic properties via strain engineering. In our numerical simulations, we use a simple description of elastic potential and adhesion energy to show that for small gas bubbles ($\sim 10$ nm) the van der Waals pressure is in the order of 1 GPa. These bubbles show universal shape behavior irrespective of their size, as observed in recent experiments. With our results the shape and volume of the trapped gas can be determined via the vibrational density of states (VDOS) using experimental techniques such as inelastic tunneling and inelastic neutron scattering. The elastic energy distribution in the graphene layer which traps the nanobubble is homogeneous apart from its edge, but the strain depends on the bubble size thus variation in bubble size allows control of the electronic and optical properties.Comment: 5 Figures (Supplementary: 1 Figure), Accepted for publication in PCC

User acceptance of open enterprise solution: the OSS-ERP case

Organizations implement Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems with the objective of reaching operational efficiency and the incorporation to new markets through the information flow control on time of the entire organization. However, ERP systems are complex tools, mainly for the small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). For these reason, new ERP configurations have arisen for SMEs such as Open Source Software-ERP (OSS-ERP). OSS-ERP is a research topic barely analyzed by the literature. Specifically, this paper’s aim is to focus on the OSS-ERP users’ acceptance and use. The authors have developed a research model based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) for testing the users’ behavior toward OSS-ERP.Las organizaciones implantan Sistemas Integrados de Gestión (ERP, acrónimo de Enterprise Resource Planning) con el objetivo de alcanzar eficiencias operativas y la incorporación a nuevos mercados mediante un mayor control del flujo de información de toda la empresa a tiempo real. Sin embargo, los sistemas ERP son herramientas complejas, principalmente la pequeña y mediana empresa (PYME). Por esta razón, están surgiendo nuevas configuraciones de sistemas ERP para PYME como los sistemas ERP de código abierto (OSS-ERP). OSS-ERP es un tópico de investigación escasamente analizado en la literatura. Concretamente, este artículo se centra en el y aceptación de los usuarios a los sistemas OSS-ERP. Los autores han desarrollado un modelo de investigación basado en Metamodelo de Aceptación de la Tecnología (TAM) para testar el comportamiento de los usuarios hacia los sistemas OSS-ERP

Ocurrencia y litología del Toro Shale

Este artíulo presenta inicialmente una mirada general a la evolución del pensamiento geológico y las ideas que se tienen en la actualidad sobre el carácter litológico, origen y posición estratigráfica del Miembro Toro, de la Formación La Paz. Estos sedimentoshan sido descritos, en diferentes ocasiones, como "lutitas alteradas", dolomitas, diques riolíticos, arcillolitas arenosas y piroclásticos, y no se ha logrado una opinión única en cuanto a su origen y verdadero carácter litológico. En la actualidad, la mayoría de los autores se refieren a esta unidad litológica con el nombre de "Toro Shale" y lo colocan, estratigráficamente en la base de la Formación La Paz, de edad eocena. Se presentan dos mapas que muestran la ocurrencia, distribución y espesor de este miembro, basados en datos de subsuelo y afloramientos, y se intenta dar a estos factores una explicación. Finalmente, el autor describe algunos análisis petrográficos, electro-microscópicos y de difracción por Rayos X adelantados en los Laboratorios de la Cities Service de Tulsa, Oklahoma

Visualizing the motion of graphene nanodrums

Membranes of suspended two-dimensional materials show a large variability in mechanical properties, in part due to static and dynamic wrinkles. As a consequence, experiments typically show a multitude of nanomechanical resonance peaks, which makes an unambiguous identification of the vibrational modes difficult. Here, we probe the motion of graphene nanodrum resonators with spatial resolution using a phase-sensitive interferometer. By simultaneously visualizing the local phase and amplitude of the driven motion, we show that unexplained spectral features represent split degenerate modes. When taking these into account, the resonance frequencies up to the eighth vibrational mode agree with theory. The corresponding displacement profiles however, are remarkably different from theory, as small imperfections increasingly deform the nodal lines for the higher modes. The Brownian motion, which is used to calibrate the local displacement, exhibits a similar mode pattern. The experiments clarify the complicated dynamic behaviour of suspended two-dimensional materials, which is crucial for reproducible fabrication and applications

Neonatal meningitis caused by streptococcus pneumonia in Iran

Meningitis, pneumonia, and sepsis in newborns and young infants (age<60 days) are the main causes of childhood mortality in developing countries. Even though streptococcus pneumonia is the most commonly detected microorganism in pediatric bacterial meningitis, it is rare in newborn infants. The following article reports a case of pneumococcal meningitis that was detected early in a newborn infant in 2013. A female baby was born by vaginal delivery with a birth weight of 2900 grams. She was symptomatic (poor feeding) from her first day of life, but she was admitted with a toxic status (dehydrated, lethargic, cyanotic, hypo tone, hypo reflex) to our referral center on her third day life. Her blood culture showed no growth of any organism and her urine culture was also negative, but the Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) culture showed growth of streptococcus pneumonia. The maternal sepsis workup was normal. Despite all therapeutic management, unfortunately, the patient died on her fourth day after admission