Functional analysis of novel genes differentially expressed genes in heart/hemangioblast precursor cells (H/HPC)

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Effects of mowing regime on diversity of Mediterranean roadside vegetation – implications for management

Shrub development on road outside verges can provide alternative wildlife habitat. However, management of inside verges should keep vegetation at a height consistent with proper road visibility and safety. The influence of management on vegetation was analyzed on the inside verge of two Portuguese roads, one mown once and another twice a year. Specifically, the effect of mowing frequency on shrub abundance and the combined effect of management and shrubs on floristic diversity were addressed. One stretch of each road was surveyed for shrub abundance and for herbaceous species diversity and cover. The effect of mowing frequency on shrub growing and biomass production and allocation was also evaluated along two years. Results indicate that vegetation mowing yearly in spring is enough to keep the inside verge free from most shrubs. However, summer growing shrubs like Dittrichia viscosa can persist, decreasing both floristic diversity and cover, particularly of meadow species. Moreover, in response to spring mowing, shrubs grew fast and were able to disperse efficiently. An additional autumn mowing significantly decreased not only shrub height and canopy area, but specially seed production and dispersal. Thus, the inside verge management should be based on two mowing periods. The first in spring to control winter and spring growing species, and an additional autumn mowing to control growth and dispersal of summer growing shrubs and trees, or even tall grasses. This management regime will combine safety with improvement of the amenity and habitat value of the road verges

Study of Xenopus orthologs of novel genes expressed in the mouse AVE

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Olive mill wastewater valorization : use by non-conventional yeasts.

peer reviewedThe ability of the strains Yarrowia lipolytica and Candida rugosa to grow on Olive Mill Wastewater (OMW) based medium and to produce high-value compounds from OMW (such as enzymes), while degrading this waste, was tested. Factors affecting cellular growth and OMW degradation were also studied, such as OMW composition, dilution and supplementation. OMW collected from 3-phase olive mill of the north region of Portugal were used and characterized chemical and biochemically. OMW with COD ranging from 100 g·L-1 to 200 g·L-1 were supplemented with yeast extract and ammonium chloride proportionally to its organic composition. Preliminary studies of OMW consumption were carried out in batch cultures of Y. lipolytica W29 and C. rugosa PYCC 3238. The strains were able to grow in the OMW used without dilution, to consume almost all of the sugars present in the media and to significantly reduce COD. Y. lipolytica W29 was less affected by operating conditions changes such as, stirring rate variation and OMW medium supplementation

Microbial lipids and added value metabolites production by Yarrowia lipolytica from pork lard

Yarrowia lipolytica is a suitable microbial platform to convert low-value hydrophobic substrates into microbial oils and other important metabolites. In this work, this yeast species was used to simultaneously synthetize ex novo lipids and produce citric acid and lipase from animal fat (pork lard) adding higher value to the low-cost fatty substrate. The effect of pH, lard concentration, arabic gum concentration and oxygen mass transfer rate (OTR) on lipids accumulation on Y. lipolytica batch cultures was assessed by an experimental design based on Taguchi method. OTR was by far the most influential parameter in the range of 96 mg L1 h1 to 480 mg L1 h1. A bio-modification of initial lipidic substrate was observed and, depending on the nutritional and operational conditions, specialty lipids with specific composition and high added-value were obtained. The unsaturated-to-saturated fatty acids ratio of these microbial lipids is higher than in initial substrate, which indicates that they are more suitable than animal fat for food additives. Moreover, the simultaneous induction of lipase and citric acid by Y. lipolytica growing in animal fat demonstrate that a biorefinery approach may be designed based on animal fat raw material.This work was financially supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the project TÜBITAK 2014 (TUBITAK/0009/2014) and of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145FEDER-006684), Post-Doctoral grant (SFRH/BPD/101034/2014) attributed to Marlene Lopes and BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-010145-FEDER-000004) funded by European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020 – Programa Operacional Regional do Norte.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Olive mill wastewater as a renewable resource

The olive mill wastewater (OMW) is a stable emulsion composed by water, olive pulp and residual oil. An approach for using this waste as a renewable resource is of greater interest. Several authors have been studding physicochemical treatment methods. However, the biological treatments allow not only the treatment, but also the effluent valorization, by producing several valuable products. This effluent is also a source of natural antioxidants and its extraction is economically attractive. The ideal OMW valorization process could be achieved by the combination of methods, for instance the use of physical-chemical methods as pretreatment can highly reduce the pollutants concentrations and allows better production efficiency by microorganisms

Simultaneous production of β-glucidase and extraction of antioxidant compounds by solid-state fermentation of winery and olive mill wastes

Wineries and olive mills wastes have a high content in phenolic compounds. This work aims to evaluate the production of β-glucosidase by solid-state fermentation (SSF) of these wastes to increase the extraction of phenolic antioxidant compounds. Filamentous fungi were growth on solid wastes under SSF. The β-glucosidase activity and antioxidant activity was measured in the extract obtained after 7 days of growth at 25 ºC. The results showed that the use of exhausted olive pomace as substrate allowed to achieve the maximum production of β-glucosidase. Fungi that achieved the highest production of enzyme were A. niger CECT 2088 and A. niger MUM 03.49 with 28.31 ± 0.03 and 22.2 ± 0.2 U/g dry substrate. In addition, all studied fungi increased the antioxidant capacity of aqueous extract obtained after SSF of all wastes respect to unfermented wastes. The SSF showed to be a potential clean technology to extract antioxidant compounds.José Manuel Salgado was supported by grant CEB/N2020 – INV/01/2016 from Project “BIOTECNORTE - Underpinning Biotechnology to foster the north of Portugal bioeconomy” (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004). This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145FEDER-006684) and BioTec-Norte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020 - Programa Operacional Regional do Norte.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

COVID-19 Infection Triggered Juvenile Systemic Lupus Erythematosus-Like Disease

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