Biometric evaluation of morpho-agronomic traits in pepper lines and hybrids

Objetivou-se avaliar linhagens e h?bridos de pimenta (Capsicum chinense e C. annuum) afim de obter informa??es sobre o desempenho agron?mico, heterose, heterobeltiose, correla??es fenot?picas e dissimilaridade gen?tica. Foram avaliadas as linhagens PIM-030, BGH-433, BGH-4285, Numex Sweet, Numex Garnet e os h?bridos simples Numex Sweet x PIM-030, Numex Garnet x PIM-030 e BGH-4285 x BGH-433. O experimento foi conduzido com oito tratamentos e quatro repeti??es, em casa de vegeta??o, no campus JK da UFVJM. Foram avaliadas 22 caracter?sticas morfoagron?micas. No h?brido BGH-4285 x BGH-433 foi observado maior heterose e heterobeltiose para produtividade total de frutos e produtividade de massa seca total de frutos, sendo interessante aos futuros programas de melhoramento. Observa-se que plantas de maior porte tendem a ser mais produtivas com maiores massas fresca dos frutos e frutos com pericarpo mais espesso, frutos maiores com maiores pedicelos e com sementes mais densas, sendo importante para a produ??o de p?prica. As linhagens BGH-433, BGH-4285 e PIM-030 s?o as mais recomendadas para uso em programas de melhoramento.In this study, we aimed to evaluate pepper lines and hybrids (Capsicum chinense and C. annuum) in order to obtain information on agronomic performance, heterosis, heterobeltiosis, phenotypic correlations and genetic dissimilarity. We evaluated lines PIM-030, BGH-433, BGH-4285, Numex Sweet, Numex Garnet and simple hybrids Numex Sweet x PIM-030, Numex Garnet x PIM-030 and BGH-4285 x BGH-433. The research was conducted with eight treatments and four replications in a greenhouse, at campus JK of UFVJM. Twenty two agronomic traits were evaluated. The hybrid BGH-4285 x BGH-433 presents higher heterosis and heterobeltiosis for total fruit productivity and productivity of total fruit dry mass, information of great value for future breeding studies. The authors noticed that larger plants tend to be more productive and present higher fruit fresh mass and also fruits with thicker pericarp, as well as larger fruits having longer pedicels with denser seeds, important for production of paprika. Lines BGH-433, BGH-4285 and PIM-030 are the most recommended to be used in breeding programs

Clinical Epidemiology of Buruli ulcer from Benin (2005-2013): effect of time-delay to diagnosis on clinical forms and severe phenotypes

Buruli Ulcer (BU) is a neglected infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans that is responsible for severe necrotizing cutaneous lesions that may be associated with bone involvement. Clinical presentations of BU lesions are classically classified as papules, nodules, plaques and edematous infiltration, ulcer or osteomyelitis. Within these different clinical forms, lesions can be further classified as severe forms based on focality (multiple lesions), lesions' size (>15 cm diameter) or WHO Category (WHO Category 3 lesions). There are studies reporting an association between delay in seeking medical care and the development of ulcerative forms of BU or osteomyelitis, but the effect of time-delay on the emergence of lesions classified as severe has not been addressed. To address both issues, and in a cohort of laboratory-confirmed BU cases, 476 patients from a medical center in Allada, Benin, were studied. In this laboratory-confirmed cohort, we validated previous observations, demonstrating that time-delay is statistically related to the clinical form of BU. Indeed, for non-ulcerated forms (nodule, edema, and plaque) the median time-delay was 32.5 days (IQR 30.0-67.5), while for ulcerated forms it was 60 days (IQR 20.0-120.0) (p = 0.009), and for bone lesions, 365 days (IQR 228.0-548.0). On the other hand, we show here that time-delay is not associated with the more severe phenotypes of BU, such as multi-focal lesions (median 90 days; IQR 56-217.5; p = 0.09), larger lesions (diameter >15 cm) (median 60 days; IQR 30-120; p = 0.92) or category 3 WHO classification (median 60 days; IQR 30-150; p = 0.20), when compared with unifocal (median 60 days; IQR 30-90), small lesions (diameter =15 cm) (median 60 days; IQR 30-90), or WHO category 1+2 lesions (median 60 days; IQR 30-90), respectively. Our results demonstrate that after an initial period of progression towards ulceration or bone involvement, BU lesions become stable regarding size and focal/multi-focal progression. Therefore, in future studies on BU epidemiology, severe clinical forms should be systematically considered as distinct phenotypes of the same disease and thus subjected to specific risk factor investigation.The research leading to these results received funding from the Health Services of the Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkian under the grant Proc. No94776 LJ; from the Fundacao para a Ciecia e Tecnologia (FCT), cofunded by Programa Operacional Regional do Norte (ON.2-O Novo Norte); from the Quadro de Referencia Estrategico Nacional (QREN) through the Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) and from the Projeto Estrategico - LA 26 - 2013-2014 (PEst-C/SAU/LA0026/2013). A. G. Fraga received an individual FCT fellowship (SFRH/BPD/68547/2010) and J. Menino received an individual QREN fellowship (UMINHO/BPD/14/2014). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Rational Design and Synthesis of Large Stokes Shift 2,6-Sulphur-Disubstituted BODIPYs for Cell Imaging

Five new disubstituted 2,6-thioaryl-BODIPY dyes were synthesized via selective aromatic electrophilic substitution from commercially available thiophenols. The analysis of the photophysical properties via absorption and emission spectroscopy showed unusually large Stokes shifts for BODIPY fluorophores (70–100 nm), which makes them suitable probes for bioimaging. Selected compounds were evaluated for labelling primary immune cells as well as different cancer cell lines using confocal fluorescence microscopy

Agronomic performance and genetic parameters of sweet potato genotypes

O presente trabalho teve por objetivo avaliar o desempenho agron?mico em gen?tipos de batata-doce e estimar par?metros gen?ticos. O experimento foi composto por 65 variedades (clones do banco de germoplasma de batata-doce da Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri), instalado num delineamento em blocos ao acaso com tr?s repeti??es e 15 plantas por parcela. Foram avaliadas a produtividade de massa verde das ramas (MV), produtividade total das ra?zes (PT), peso m?dio das ra?zes totais (PMT), produtividade de ra?zes comerciais (PC), peso m?dio das ra?zes comerciais (PMC), formato das ra?zes (FORM) e resist?ncia a insetos (RI). Considerando-se os ganhos de sele??o estimados para estas caracter?sticas, infere-se que a sele??o de clones pode levar a progressos gen?ticos signifcativos. Os caracteres PT, PMT, PC, e PMC est?o positivamente correlacionados, logo, a sele??o em qualquer um deles acarreta ganhos gen?ticos nos demais. A sele??o para produ??o de ra?zes pode ser conduzida no car?ter PT, pois sua avalia??o ? mais simples e correlaciona-se com a produ??o comercial, que ? de maior import?ncia. A sele??o no car?ter MV promove aumento nas caracter?sticas PMT e PMC e n?o causa efeitos nas demais. Para a maioria das caracter?sticas houve predomin?ncia dos efeitos ambientais sobre os gen?ticos. Os gen?tipos BD-15, BD-42 e BD-67 apresentaram melhor desempenho agron?mico.Funda??o de Amparo ? Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG)Empresa de Pesquisa Agropecu?ria de Minas Gerais (EPAMIG)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico e Tecnol?gico (CNPq)Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior (CAPES)The present study aimed to evaluate the agronomic performance of sweet potato genotypes and estimating genetic parameters. The experiment consisted of 65 varieties (clones) of the sweet potato germplasm bank from the Federal University of the Jequitinhonha and Mucuri Valley, installed in the design of randomized blocks with three replications and 15 plants per plot. Were evaluated green mass of branches (MV), total productivity of roots (PT), average weight of total roots (PMT), commercial yield (PC), the average weight of marketable roots (PMC), shape of roots (FORM) and insect resistance (IR). Considering the gains of selection for these characteristics, we infer that clone selection can lead to significant genetic progress. The characters PT, PMT, PC and PMC are positively correlated, so selecting any of them carries genetic gains in others. Selection for root production can be conducted in the character PT because its evaluation is simpler and correlates with the commercial production, which is of utmost importance. The selection promotes increases in MV character in PMC and PMT and causes no effects in others. For most traits were prevalent environmental effects on genetic. The BD-15, BD-42 and BD-67 genotypes showed better agronomic performance

Development of Inhalable Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles (SPIONs) in microparticulate system for antituberculosis drug delivery

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease which affects millions of people worldwide. Inhalable polymeric dry powders are promising alternatives as anti-TB drug carriers to the alveoli milieu and infected macrophages, with potential to significantly improve the therapeutics efficiency. Here, the development of a magnetically responsive microparticulate system for pulmonary delivery of an anti-TB drug candidate (P3) is reported. Microparticles (MPs) are developed based on a cast method using calcium carbonate sacrificial templates and incorporate superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles to concentrate MPs in alveoli and enable drug on demand release upon actuation of an external alternate magnetic field (AMF). The MPs are shown to be suitable for P3 delivery to the lower airways and for alveolar macrophage phagocytosis. The developed MPs reveal unique and promising features to be used as an inhalable dry powder allowing the AMF control over dosage and frequency of drug delivery anticipating improved TB treatments.The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for the postdoctoral grant of M.S.M. (SFRH/BPD/110868/2015) and R.M.A.D (SFRH/BPD/112459/2015), FCT grant of E.T. (IF/01390/2014) and Recognize project (UTAP-ICDT/CTM-BIO/0023/2014). This article is also a result of the project “Accelerating tissue engineering and personalized medicine discoveries by the integration of key enabling nanotechnologies, marine-derived biomaterials and stem cells,” supported by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The authors acknowledge the financial support from the European Union Framework Programme for Research and Innovation HORIZON 2020, under the TEAMING Grant Agreement No. 739572 – The Discoveries CTR.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Genetic variation in autophagy-related genes influences the risk and phenotype of Buruli ulcer

Introduction Buruli ulcer (BU) is a severe necrotizing human skin disease caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans. Clinically, presentation is a sum of these diverse pathogenic hits subjected to critical immune-regulatory mechanisms. Among them, autophagy has been demonstrated as a cellular process of critical importance. Since microtubules and dynein are affected by mycolactone, the critical pathogenic exotoxin produced by M. ulcerans, cytoskeleton-related changes might potentially impair the autophagic process and impact the risk and progression of infection. Objective Genetic variants in the autophagy-related genes NOD2, PARK2 and ATG16L1 has been associated with susceptibility to mycobacterial diseases. Here, we investigated their association with BU risk, its severe phenotypes and its progression to an ulcerative form. Methods Genetic variants were genotyped using KASPar chemistry in 208 BU patients (70.2% with an ulcerative form and 28% in severe WHO category 3 phenotype) and 300 healthy endemic controls. Results The rs1333955 SNP in PARK2 was significantly associated with increased susceptibility to BU [odds ratio (OR), 1.43; P = 0.05]. In addition, both the rs9302752 and rs2066842 SNPs in NOD2 gee significantly increased the predisposition of patients to develop category 3 (OR, 2.23; P = 0.02; and OR 12.7; P = 0.03, respectively, whereas the rs2241880 SNP in ATG16L1 was found to significantly protect patients from presenting the ulcer phenotype (OR, 0.35; P = 0.02). Conclusion Our findings indicate that specific genetic variants in autophagy-related genes influence susceptibility to the development of BU and its progression to severe phenotypes.The research leading to these results received funding from the Health Services of the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian under the grant Proc.N°94776 LJ; from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), cofunded by Programa Operacional Regional do Norte (ON.2—O Novo 267 Norte); from the Quadro de Referência Estratégico Nacional (QREN) through the Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) and from the Projeto Estratégico – LA 26 – 2013–2014 (PEst-C/SAU/LA0026/2013). JFM received an individual QREN fellowship (UMINHO/BPD/14/2014); CCu and AGF received an individual FCT fellowship (SFRH/BPD/96176/2013 and SFRH/BPD/68547/2010, respectively); and AC received an FCT contract (IF/00735/2014). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Sudden cardiac death multiparametric classification system for Chagas heart disease's patients based on clinical data and 24-hours ECG monitoring

About 6.5 million people are infected with Chagas disease (CD) globally, and WHO estimates that $ > million people worldwide suffer from ChHD. Sudden cardiac death (SCD) represents one of the leading causes of death worldwide and affects approximately 65% of ChHD patients at a rate of 24 per 1000 patient-years, much greater than the SCD rate in the general population. Its occurrence in the specific context of ChHD needs to be better exploited. This paper provides the first evidence supporting the use of machine learning (ML) methods within non-invasive tests: patients' clinical data and cardiac restitution metrics (CRM) features extracted from ECG-Holter recordings as an adjunct in the SCD risk assessment in ChHD. The feature selection (FS) flows evaluated 5 different groups of attributes formed from patients' clinical and physiological data to identify relevant attributes among 57 features reported by 315 patients at HUCFF-UFRJ. The FS flow with FS techniques (variance, ANOVA, and recursive feature elimination) and Naive Bayes (NB) model achieved the best classification performance with 90.63% recall (sensitivity) and 80.55% AUC. The initial feature set is reduced to a subset of 13 features (4 Classification; 1 Treatment; 1 CRM; and 7 Heart Tests). The proposed method represents an intelligent diagnostic support system that predicts the high risk of SCD in ChHD patients and highlights the clinical and CRM data that most strongly impact the final outcome

Parâmetros genéticos e análise de trilha para o florescimento precoce e características agronômicas da alface

The objective of this study was to evaluate the genetic parameters of agronomic traits and of tolerance to early flowering of eleven cultivars of lettuce, as well as to verify the existence of an association between the characteristics. The experiment was carried out in a protected environment, in a randomized complete block design, with four replicates, and twelve plants per plot. Forty‑five days after seedling transplanting, the following traits were measured: total shoot fresh mass, marketable shoot fresh mass, marketable dry shoot weight, fresh and dry weight of roots, diameter and circumference of head, plant height, number of leaves per plant, and number of days until anthesis. There was genetic variability between cultivars for all variables, except for circumference of plant and fresh weight of root. The cultivars Regina 500, Lívia and Atração were superior for number of days to flowering and also for the other characteristics. The selection against early flowering caused gain of all the characteristics, but did not affect root dry matter. Fresh matter of shoots and head diameter are indicated for indirect selection against early flowering.O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar os parâmetros genéticos das características agronômicas e de tolerância ao florescimento precoce de onze cultivares de alface, bem como verificar a existência de associação entre as características. O experimento foi realizado em ambiente protegido, em delineamento de blocos ao acaso, com quatro repetições e doze plantas por parcela. Quarenta e cinco dias após o transplantio das mudas, foram mensuradas as seguintes características: massa de matéria fresca total e “comercial” da parte aérea, massa de matéria seca “comercial” da parte aérea, massa de matéria fresca e seca da raiz, diâmetro e circunferência da cabeça, altura de planta, número de folhas por planta e número de dias até a antese. Há variabilidade genética entre as cultivares, em todas as variáveis, exceto quanto à circunferência de planta e matéria fresca da raiz. As cultivares Regina 500, Lívia e Atração foram superiores quanto ao número de dias para o florescimento e também para as demais características avaliadas. A seleção contra o florescimento precoce ocasionou ganho em todas as características; porém, não interferiu na matéria seca da raiz. A matéria fresca da parte aérea e o diâmetro de cabeça são indicadas para a seleção indireta contra o florescimento precoce

Genetic divergence and importance of morphological characters in genotypes of kale

A caracteriza??o morfol?gica de gen?tipos de couve ? necess?ria bem como as estimativas da diverg?ncia gen?tica entre os mesmos. O presente trabalho teve como objetivos estudar os caracteres morfol?gicos dos gen?tipos de couve oriundos do banco de germoplasma da UFVJM, a diverg?ncia gen?tica existente entre os gen?tipos e a import?ncia destes caracteres nas estimativas da diverg?ncia. O experimento foi conduzido no Setor de Olericultura da UFVJM, Diamantina-MG, utilizando-se o delineamento experimental em blocos casualizados com trinta gen?tipos e quatro repeti??es, constitu?das por cinco plantas. Para a caracteriza??o morfol?gica avaliaram-se em cada planta quarenta e quatro caracter?sticas. Verifcou-se que h? gen?tipos com grande diverg?ncia gen?tica entre si, sendo os gen?tipos UFLA-6 e UFVJM-24 os mais divergentes em rela??o aos demais, contudo, a maioria dos gen?tipos ? similar. Verifcou-se tamb?m que h? caracter?sticas importantes que podem ser usadas nas estimativas da diverg?nciaFunda??o de Amparo ? Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG)Empresa de Pesquisa Agropecu?ria de Minas Gerais (EPAMIG)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico e Tecnol?gico (CNPq)Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior (CAPES)The morphological characterization of genotypes of kale is needed as well as the estimates of genetic divergence between them. We studied the morphological characters of kale genotypes originated from the germplasm bank of UFVJM, the genetic divergence among the genotypes and the importance of these characters in the estimates of divergence. The experiment was carried out in the Department of Horticulture of UFVJM, Diamantina, Minas Gerais state, Brazil, using the randomized complete block design with four replications and thirty genotypes, consisting of five plants. Forty-four traits were evaluated on each plant for morphological evaluations. Some genotypes showed high genetic divergence, such as the genotypes UFLA-6 and 24-UFVJM, which were the most divergent compared to the others. Most of the genotypes, however, were similar to each other. It was also observed that there are important characteristics that can be used in the estimation of divergence