Evolution Shapes the Gene Expression Response to Oxidative Stress

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) play a key role in cell physiology and function. ROS represents a potential source of damage for many macromolecules including DNA. It is thought that daily changes in oxidative stress levels were an important early factor driving evolution of the circadian clock which enables organisms to predict changes in ROS levels before they actually occur and thereby optimally coordinate survival strategies. It is clear that ROS, at relatively low levels, can serve as an important signaling molecule and also serves as a key regulator of gene expression. Therefore, the mechanisms that have evolved to survive or harness these effects of ROS are ancient evolutionary adaptations that are tightly interconnected with most aspects of cellular physiology. Our understanding of these mechanisms has been mainly based on studies using a relatively small group of genetic models. However, we know comparatively little about how these mechanisms are conserved or have adapted during evolution under different environmental conditions. In this review, we describe recent work that has revealed significant species-specific differences in the gene expression response to ROS by exploring diverse organisms. This evidence supports the notion that during evolution, rather than being highly conserved, there is inherent plasticity in the molecular mechanisms responding to oxidative stress

Evolution Shapes the Gene Expression Response to Oxidative Stress

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) play a key role in cell physiology and function. ROS represents a potential source of damage for many macromolecules including DNA. It is thought that daily changes in oxidative stress levels were an important early factor driving evolution of the circadian clock which enables organisms to predict changes in ROS levels before they actually occur and thereby optimally coordinate survival strategies. It is clear that ROS, at relatively low levels, can serve as an important signaling molecule and also serves as a key regulator of gene expression. Therefore, the mechanisms that have evolved to survive or harness these effects of ROS are ancient evolutionary adaptations that are tightly interconnected with most aspects of cellular physiology. Our understanding of these mechanisms has been mainly based on studies using a relatively small group of genetic models. However, we know comparatively little about how these mechanisms are conserved or have adapted during evolution under different environmental conditions. In this review, we describe recent work that has revealed significant species-specific differences in the gene expression response to ROS by exploring diverse organisms. This evidence supports the notion that during evolution, rather than being highly conserved, there is inherent plasticity in the molecular mechanisms responding to oxidative stress

nickel removal by zero valent iron lapillus mixtures in column systems

Abstract The remediation of contaminated groundwater, through permeable reactive barrier (PRB) technology, has raised strong interest in the field of environmental geotechnics. The use of granular mixtures composed of zero valent iron (ZVI) together with an inert and/or porous material is a new strategy for preventing the decrease in hydraulic conductivity of PRBs composed of pure ZVI alone. In this paper, granular mixtures composed of ZVI and lapillus in different weight ratios were tested for nickel removal through column tests. The newly proposed material, lapillus, is a low-cost material (a by-product of pumice mining), readily available and efficient for nickel removal, as is shown by the benchmark column tests carried out in this paper. The weight ratio between ZVI and lapillus, the flow velocity and the initial contaminant concentration were the factors investigated in this paper since they can strongly influence the long-term removal efficiency and hydraulic behaviour of a PRB. The column tests results were analysed in terms of hydraulic conductivity, nickel removal efficiency and the distribution of the removed nickel along the column over time. The test results clearly showed the great potential of the proposed ZVI/lapillus granular mixtures in terms of both removal efficiency and long-term hydraulic conductivity

Investigation on genetically modified soybean (RoundUp Ready) in goat nutrition: DNA detection in suckling kids

The presence of plant DNA fragments in blood, kidney, hearth, liver, spleen and muscle tissue from suckling kids was investigated by using PCR approach. Fragments of high copy number chloroplast and low copy soybean lectin genes were found in several samples of kids whose mother were fed diet containing conventional (control) or transgenic soybean (treated). Only in treated group, fragments of 35S and CP4 epsps soybean genes were found in several samples

In vitro fermentation of ten cultivars of barley silage.

The fermentation characteristics of whole-crop barley silages from ten different cultivars were evaluated by the in vitro gas production technique. The organic matter degradability of barley silage (62.9% in average) was comparable to those reported in our previous trials for oat (59.7%) and sorghum silages (65.5%); while the maximum gas production rate (5.38 ml/h in average) was slightly lower respect to oat (6.71 ml/h) and sorghum silage (6.74 ml/h). The mean nutritive value (4.00 MJ/kg DM) calculated on the basis of both chemical composition and in vitro fermentation data was comparable to that (4.16 MJ/kg DM) obtained in our previous research performed on corn silage, from crop sowed in the same area

Divertor currents optimization procedure for JET-ILW high flux expansion experiments

This paper deals with a divertor coil currents optimized procedure to design High Flux Expansion (HFE) configurations in the JET tokamak aimed to study the effects of flux expansion variation on the radiation fraction and radiated power re-distribution. A number of benefits of HFE configuration have been experimentally demonstrated on TCV, EAST, NSTX and DIII-D tokamaks and are under investigation for next generation devices, as DEMO and DTT. The procedure proposed here exploits the linearized relation between the plasma-wall gaps and the Poloidal Field (PF) coil currents. Once the linearized model is provided by means of CREATE-NL code, the divertor coils currents are calculated using a constrained quadratic programming optimization procedure, in order to achieve HFE configuration. Flux expanded configurations have been experimentally realized both in ohmic and heated plasma with and without nitrogen seeding. Preliminary results on the effects of the flux expansion variation on total power radiation increase will be also briefly discussed.EURATOM 63305

Detection of plant species-specific dna (barley and soybean) in blood, muscle tissue, organs and gastrointestinal contents of rabbit

The aim of this study was to detect plant DNA sequences from low copy number genes of barley grain and soybean meal, the latter being subjected to solvent extraction process, in blood, liver, kidney, spleen, muscle tissue and digesta (duodenum, caecum and faeces from rectal ampulla) of rabbits. For fattening, Hyla rabbits (20 males and 20 females) were fed a diet including barley grain (15%) and soybean meal (12%). Animals were slaughtered at 74 d of age (2 ± 0.2 kg live weight) and samples collected from each animal. The quality of each DNA sample was verified using the UNIV P/Q primers used to amplify a mammalian specifi c portion of mtDNA 16S rRNA gene. The presence of plant DNA was subsequently ascertained on the same DNA samples, as well as on barley and soybean (control). Two classes of plant DNA sequences were monitored via real-time PCR, using SYBR(R) Green I Dye: a high copy number chloroplast gene (trnl) and a low copy number specific for barley (metal-dependent hydrolase-like protein) and soybean (lectin) genes. Melting curve analysis was used to identify the PCR products. The chloroplast fragment detection frequency was higher (P<0.01) in muscle (90%), liver (80%), kidney (80%) and spleen (80%) than in blood (40%) and digesta samples. In the latter, chloroplast DNA was found in 40 and 30% of duodenum and caecum contents respectively, and in 30% of faeces. The specificity of the amplicons obtained was checked by sequencing and annotation. In the samples positive for chloroplast fragments, the frequency of detection of barley specific sequence was higher (P<0.01) in liver (62.5%), kidney (62.5%), spleen (62.5%) and digesta (100%) than in blood (25%) and muscle (22.2%) samples. The soybean lectin gene was not detected in animal samples, although it was seen in plant samples. Results confirm that, except for gastrointestinal tract (GIT), plant single copy genes are more difficult to identify in animal samples.Tudisco, R.; Calabrò, S.; Bovera, F.; Cutrignelli, M.; Nizza, A.; Piccolo, V.; Infascelli, F. (2010). Detection of plant species-specific dna (barley and soybean) in blood, muscle tissue, organs and gastrointestinal contents of rabbit. World Rabbit Science. 18(2). doi:10.4995/WRS.2010.18.1118

Urinary excretion of purine derivatives in dry buffalo and Fresian cows

Aim of this paper was to compare urinary purine derivatives (PD) excretion in Italian Mediterranean dairy buffaloes and Fresian dairy cows during dry period. Six buffalo and six dairy cows at about 60 days to delivery were housed in individual cages and fed the same diet. Feed intake was monitored daily. After a period of adaptation, total daily urine was collected, weighed, sampled in test-tubes and frozen up to HPLC analysis. During the urine recovery period the daily feed intake was higher for dairy cows (kg/DM 9.0 vs 7.6) even if differences were not significant due to the high individual variability. Urine excretion was significantly (P<0.01) higher in buffaloes than in cow. Total urinary excretion of PD in buffalo was 11% of that of dairy cow (23.707 mmol/l vs 2.711 mmo/l in dairy and buffalo cows, respectively), however the incidence of uric acid was similar in both species. In order to explain the low concentrations of PD in the urine of buffaloes, we investigated also the presence of allantoic acid, final product of purine degradation in several fish species. However it was not detected

The Bright and Dark Sides of High-Redshift starburst galaxies from {\it Herschel} and {\it Subaru} observations

We present rest-frame optical spectra from the FMOS-COSMOS survey of twelve $z \sim 1.6$ \textit{Herschel} starburst galaxies, with Star Formation Rate (SFR) elevated by $\times$8, on average, above the star-forming Main Sequence (MS). Comparing the H$\alpha$ to IR luminosity ratio and the Balmer Decrement we find that the optically-thin regions of the sources contain on average only $\sim 10$ percent of the total SFR whereas $\sim90$ percent comes from an extremely obscured component which is revealed only by far-IR observations and is optically-thick even in H$\alpha$. We measure the [NII]$_{6583}$/H$\alpha$ ratio, suggesting that the less obscured regions have a metal content similar to that of the MS population at the same stellar masses and redshifts. However, our objects appear to be metal-rich outliers from the metallicity-SFR anticorrelation observed at fixed stellar mass for the MS population. The [SII]$_{6732}$/[SII]$_{6717}$ ratio from the average spectrum indicates an electron density $n_{\rm e} \sim 1,100\ \mathrm{cm}^{-3}$, larger than what estimated for MS galaxies but only at the 1.5$\sigma$ level. Our results provide supporting evidence that high-$z$ MS outliers are the analogous of local ULIRGs, and are consistent with a major merger origin for the starburst event.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter