Characterisation of the probiotic potential of Lactiplantibacillus plantarum K16 and its ability to produce the postbiotic metabolite γ-aminobutyric acid

Lactiplantibacillus plantarum has been widely studied due to its beneficial effects on health such as protect against pathogens, enhance the immune system, or produce metabolites like γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA). The objective of this study was the evaluation of the GABA-producer L. plantarum K16 isolated from kimchi. The safety and probiotic characterisation of this strain was performed by analysing carbohydrates fermentation, enzymatic activity, antibiotics susceptibility, and haemolytic and antimicrobial activity. Likewise, GABA production was optimised following a one-factor-at-a-time procedure by changing relevant fermentation parameters like incubation temperature, yeast extract concentration and fermentation time. The results indicated that L. plantarum K16 has the potential to stimulate the digestion and absorption of several nutrients and it could have an inhibitory effect against pathogenic bacteria. The best results for GABA production by this strain was around 1000 mg/L, using 12 g/L of yeast extract, 34 °C of incubation temperature and 96 h of fermentation time.This work was supported by the Basque government (grant ELKARTEK – KK-2019/00034)

Biosynthesis of gamma-aminobutyric acid by Lactiplantibacillus plantarum K16 as an alternative to revalue agri-food by-products

Probiotic metabolites, known as postbiotics, have received attention due to their wide variety of promoting health effects. One of the most exciting postbiotic is gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), widely produced by lactic acid bacteria, due to its benefits in health. In addition, the performance of the biosynthesis of GABA by Lactiplantibacillus plantarum could be modulated through the modification of fermentation parameters. Due to their high nutritional value, agri-food by-products could be considered a useful fermentation source for microorganisms. Therefore, these by-products were proposed as fermentation substrates to produce GABA in this study. Previously, several experiments in Man Rogosa Sharpe (MRS) broth were performed to identify the most critical parameters to produce GABA using the strain Lactiplantibacillus plantarum K16. The percentage of inoculum, the initial pH, and the concentration of nutrients, such as monosodium glutamate or glucose, significantly affected the biosynthetic pathway of GABA. The highest GABA yield was obtained with 500 mM of monosodium glutamate and 25 g/L of glucose, and an initial pH of 5.5 and 1.2% inoculum. Furthermore, these investigated parameters were used to evaluate the possibility of using tomato, green pepper, apple, or orange by-products to get GABA-enriched fermented media, which is an excellent way to revalorise them.This work was supported by the Basque government (grant ELKARTEK – KK-2019/00034)

The role of probiotics in nutritional health: probiotics as nutribiotics

The gut microbiota has gained importance through the years due to its significant influences on the maintenance of human health. A wide variety of microorganisms shape this gut microbiota, which preserves health with the modulation of the immune system, enhancement of the nutrients absorption, or the protection against pathogens’ colonization. The disruption of this microenvironment triggers the development of health problems leading to several diseases, such as nutritional health problems. The preservation and restoration of this microbiota is a key factor to maintain the natural body homeostasis. According to nutritional health problems, a long list of probiotics and postmiotic has been classified as nutribiotics due to their potential to improve the nutritional status of people. Likewise, nutribiotics should be properly protected and supply using an adequate encapsulation technique. Furthermore, the rising interest in this kind of products is producing the expansion of the current market and opening multiple business opportunities.ELKARTEK KK-2019/0003

Gamma-aminobutyric acid and probiotics: Multiple health benefits and their future in the global functional food and nutraceuticals market

Probiotics have attracted growing interest in recent decades due to their multiple health benefits. The synergistic relationship between probiotics and prebiotics can enhance the production of metabolites called postbiotics, which are gaining increasing importance because of their beneficial functions in the gastrointestinal tract and their influence on different organs and tissues. Notable among the postbiotics is gamma-aminobutyric acid, which plays an essential role in the prevention of neural disease, type 1 diabetes, cancer, immunological disorders and asthma. Generally, gamma-aminobutyric acid is produced by lactic acid bacteria, which under certain conditions can produce a high amount of this amino acid. The food industry has leveraged this capacity to develop functional foods enriched with gamma-aminobutyric acid.This work was supported by the Basque government (grant ELKARTEK–KK-2019/00034

Anchuelo. Propuestas bioclimáticas en el espacio público

Anchuelo. Propuestas bioclimáticas en el espacio público. Publicación digital de los trabajos elaborados por los estudiantes del curso 2021/22 de la asignatura La Ciudad y el Medio de la Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Muestra una serie de propuestas elaboradas en la asignatura para mejorar bioclimáticamente diferentes espacios públicos municipales en el marco del acuerdo realizado entre el Departamento de Urbanística y Ordenación del Territorio y el Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Anchuelo (Madrid)

Discovering HIV related information by means of association rules and machine learning

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is still one of the main health problems worldwide. It is therefore essential to keep making progress in improving the prognosis and quality of life of affected patients. One way to advance along this pathway is to uncover connections between other disorders associated with HIV/AIDS-so that they can be anticipated and possibly mitigated. We propose to achieve this by using Association Rules (ARs). They allow us to represent the dependencies between a number of diseases and other specific diseases. However, classical techniques systematically generate every AR meeting some minimal conditions on data frequency, hence generating a vast amount of uninteresting ARs, which need to be filtered out. The lack of manually annotated ARs has favored unsupervised filtering, even though they produce limited results. In this paper, we propose a semi-supervised system, able to identify relevant ARs among HIV-related diseases with a minimal amount of annotated training data. Our system has been able to extract a good number of relationships between HIV-related diseases that have been previously detected in the literature but are scattered and are often little known. Furthermore, a number of plausible new relationships have shown up which deserve further investigation by qualified medical experts

La vuelta al día en 24 mundos

El trabajo obtuvo un Premio Tomás García Verdejo a las buenas prácticas educativas en la Comunidad Autónoma de Extremadura para el curso académico 2015/2016. Modalidad ASe presenta un proyecto llevado a cabo entre varios centros educativos de la provincia de Cáceres que consistió en hacer actividades de fomento y animación a la lectura ligadas a los continentes del globo terrestre. Los objetivos del proyecto fueron: fomentar la relación y convivencia entre los centros; promover el trabajo colaborativo; propiciar ambientes que fomenten valores como la responsabilidad, el esfuerzo, la igualdad entre géneros y el respesto; conocer y disfrutar las diferentes formas literarias como relatos, poemas y obras dramáticas a través de la lectura, la escucha y la propia creación y recreación; comprender y respetar las diferentes culturas y las diferencias entre las personas; iniciarse en el uso de las nuevas tecnologías desarrollando un espíritu crítico ante los mensajes que reciben y elaboran y utilizar diferentes representaciones y expresiones artísticas e iniciarse en la construcción de propuestas visuales y audiovisualesExtremaduraES

Effects of pre-operative isolation on postoperative pulmonary complications after elective surgery: an international prospective cohort study an international prospective cohort study

We aimed to determine the impact of pre-operative isolation on postoperative pulmonary complications after elective surgery during the global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. We performed an international prospective cohort study including patients undergoing elective surgery in October 2020. Isolation was defined as the period before surgery during which patients did not leave their house or receive visitors from outside their household. The primary outcome was postoperative pulmonary complications, adjusted in multivariable models for measured confounders. Pre-defined sub-group analyses were performed for the primary outcome. A total of 96,454 patients from 114 countries were included and overall, 26,948 (27.9%) patients isolated before surgery. Postoperative pulmonary complications were recorded in 1947 (2.0%) patients of which 227 (11.7%) were associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Patients who isolated pre-operatively were older, had more respiratory comorbidities and were more commonly from areas of high SARS-CoV-2 incidence and high-income countries. Although the overall rates of postoperative pulmonary complications were similar in those that isolated and those that did not (2.1% vs 2.0%, respectively), isolation was associated with higher rates of postoperative pulmonary complications after adjustment (adjusted OR 1.20, 95%CI 1.05–1.36, p = 0.005). Sensitivity analyses revealed no further differences when patients were categorised by: pre-operative testing; use of COVID-19-free pathways; or community SARS-CoV-2 prevalence. The rate of postoperative pulmonary complications increased with periods of isolation longer than 3 days, with an OR (95%CI) at 4–7 days or ≥ 8 days of 1.25 (1.04–1.48), p = 0.015 and 1.31 (1.11–1.55), p = 0.001, respectively. Isolation before elective surgery might be associated with a small but clinically important increased risk of postoperative pulmonary complications. Longer periods of isolation showed no reduction in the risk of postoperative pulmonary complications. These findings have significant implications for global provision of elective surgical care. We aimed to determine the impact of pre-operative isolation on postoperative pulmonary complications after elective surgery during the global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. We performed an international prospective cohort study including patients undergoing elective surgery in October 2020. Isolation was defined as the period before surgery during which patients did not leave their house or receive visitors from outside their household. The primary outcome was postoperative pulmonary complications, adjusted in multivariable models for measured confounders. Pre-defined sub-group analyses were performed for the primary outcome. A total of 96,454 patients from 114 countries were included and overall, 26,948 (27.9%) patients isolated before surgery. Postoperative pulmonary complications were recorded in 1947 (2.0%) patients of which 227 (11.7%) were associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Patients who isolated pre-operatively were older, had more respiratory comorbidities and were more commonly from areas of high SARS-CoV-2 incidence and high-income countries. Although the overall rates of postoperative pulmonary complications were similar in those that isolated and those that did not (2.1% vs 2.0%, respectively), isolation was associated with higher rates of postoperative pulmonary complications after adjustment (adjusted OR 1.20, 95%CI 1.05–1.36, p = 0.005). Sensitivity analyses revealed no further differences when patients were categorised by: pre-operative testing; use of COVID-19-free pathways; or community SARS-CoV-2 prevalence. The rate of postoperative pulmonary complications increased with periods of isolation longer than 3 days, with an OR (95%CI) at 4–7 days or ≥ 8 days of 1.25 (1.04–1.48), p = 0.015 and 1.31 (1.11–1.55), p = 0.001, respectively. Isolation before elective surgery might be associated with a small but clinically important increased risk of postoperative pulmonary complications. Longer periods of isolation showed no reduction in the risk of postoperative pulmonary complications. These findings have significant implications for global provision of elective surgical care

Global variation in postoperative mortality and complications after cancer surgery: a multicentre, prospective cohort study in 82 countries

© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licenseBackground: 80% of individuals with cancer will require a surgical procedure, yet little comparative data exist on early outcomes in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). We compared postoperative outcomes in breast, colorectal, and gastric cancer surgery in hospitals worldwide, focusing on the effect of disease stage and complications on postoperative mortality. Methods: This was a multicentre, international prospective cohort study of consecutive adult patients undergoing surgery for primary breast, colorectal, or gastric cancer requiring a skin incision done under general or neuraxial anaesthesia. The primary outcome was death or major complication within 30 days of surgery. Multilevel logistic regression determined relationships within three-level nested models of patients within hospitals and countries. Hospital-level infrastructure effects were explored with three-way mediation analyses. This study was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03471494. Findings: Between April 1, 2018, and Jan 31, 2019, we enrolled 15 958 patients from 428 hospitals in 82 countries (high income 9106 patients, 31 countries; upper-middle income 2721 patients, 23 countries; or lower-middle income 4131 patients, 28 countries). Patients in LMICs presented with more advanced disease compared with patients in high-income countries. 30-day mortality was higher for gastric cancer in low-income or lower-middle-income countries (adjusted odds ratio 3·72, 95% CI 1·70–8·16) and for colorectal cancer in low-income or lower-middle-income countries (4·59, 2·39–8·80) and upper-middle-income countries (2·06, 1·11–3·83). No difference in 30-day mortality was seen in breast cancer. The proportion of patients who died after a major complication was greatest in low-income or lower-middle-income countries (6·15, 3·26–11·59) and upper-middle-income countries (3·89, 2·08–7·29). Postoperative death after complications was partly explained by patient factors (60%) and partly by hospital or country (40%). The absence of consistently available postoperative care facilities was associated with seven to 10 more deaths per 100 major complications in LMICs. Cancer stage alone explained little of the early variation in mortality or postoperative complications. Interpretation: Higher levels of mortality after cancer surgery in LMICs was not fully explained by later presentation of disease. The capacity to rescue patients from surgical complications is a tangible opportunity for meaningful intervention. Early death after cancer surgery might be reduced by policies focusing on strengthening perioperative care systems to detect and intervene in common complications. Funding: National Institute for Health Research Global Health Research Unit