Modes of action of rosemary and Debaryomyces hansenii against Aspergillus westerdijkiae in dry-cured meat matrix

Aspergillus westerdijkiae is an ochratoxin A (OTA) producer mould in dry-cured meat products. Natural strategies to control ochratoxigenic moulds using biocontrol agents (BCAs) are currently in the spotlight. The aim of this study was to test the potential antiochratoxigenic activity of rosemary leaves (R), rosemary essential oil (REO) and Debaryomyces hansenii FHSCC 253H (Dh) as BCAs against A. westerdijkiae in a dry-cured fermented sausage-based medium. The mechanisms involved in their effect were also analysed by Proteomics, using a Q-Exactive Plus. Three batches were carried out: a control without BCAs, another one with R+REO and one with Dh. R (2 g/kg) and Dh (100 μL of 10^6 cells/mL) were added to the medium and REO was added on the casing, which was put onto the medium surface to simulate the real product. Significant OTA reductions of 73.87 % and 88.26 % were provoked by R+REO and Dh, respectively. Proteomics revealed that the BCAs affected to proteins linked to OTA biosynthesis and the cell wall integrity pathway (CWI). Proteins from PKS ER domain, directly involved in mycotoxin biosynthesis, were diminished in abundance by both treatments (R+REO or Dh). R+REO altered the CWI by decreasing proteins related to the synthesis of cell surface polysaccharides and actin assembly, and increasing the cell wall protein PhiA, involved in conidiogenesis. Dh decreased the NRPS protein, indispensable for the formation of the OTB, an OTA precursor, and affected to the CWI by lowering the abundance of proteins associated with the actin binding, the synthesis of polysaccharides and the response against cell wall stress agents. Therefore, rosemary and D. hansenii FHSCC 253H are potentially useful to minimise the hazard posed by A. westerdijkiae in dry-cured fermented sausages within a HAPPCC framework.This research was funded by Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT/MCTES to CIMO, UIDB/00690/2020). Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional-“Una manera de hacer Europa” (GR18056). Grant PID2019-104260GB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033. Grant BES-2017-081340 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and by “ESF Investing in your future”. Grant UNEX-AE-3394 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe”. Date of PhD graduation: 14/12/2021info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Analysis of both the envelope sequence and the complete genome of a HIV-1 subtype f cluster of rapid expansion in Galicia: coreceptor use prediction and phylogeny

La epidemia por VIH-1 en España, al igual que en el resto de Europa occidental, está dominada por el subtipo B. Sin embargo, recientemente se ha descrito la rápida expansión de un cluster de subsubtipo F1 entre hombres que tienen relaciones sexuales con hombres en Galicia. Los objetivos de este trabajo son analizar la secuencia de la envoltura de los virus del mencionado cluster para predicción de utilización de correceptores y presencia de aminoácidos característicos, así como caracterizar secuencias de genomas completos, determinando las relaciones filogenéticas con virus de subtipo F de otros países. Los análisis filogenéticos permitieron determinar relaciones del cluster F con virus de Brasil, Suiza, Bélgica, Francia y Gran Bretaña. Por otra parte, se han encontrado posiciones características del cluster en la región V3, diferentes de otras cepas F1, así como en otras regiones de la envoltura. Aparte, se han identificado mutaciones características asociadas a tropismo X4. El cluster de VIH-1 de subtipo F recientemente expandido en Galicia procede de una variante ampliamente diseminada en Europa occidental. Los virus de dicho cluster presentan aminoácidos característicos en la envoltura, identificándose en algunos de ellos mutaciones asociadas a tropismo X4, de potencial relevancia biológicaThe HIV-1 epidemic in Spain, as in the rest of Western Europe, is dominated by subtype B. However, it has recently been reported that a subsubtype F1 cluster has rapidly expanded among men who have sex with men in Galicia. The objectives of this work are to analyze the virus envelope sequence of the aforementioned cluster to predict the use of coreceptors and to examine the presence of characteristic amino acids, as well as to characterize full-length genome sequences, determining the phylogenetic relations with subtype F viruses from other countries. The phylogenetic analyses allowed to determine the relation of the Galician F cluster with viruses from Brazil, Switzerland, Belgium, France and Great Britain. On the other hand, characteristic amino acid residues were found in the V3 loop of viruses of the cluster, differing from other F1 strains, as well as in other regions of the envelope. Additionally, characteristic mutations associated with X4 tropism were identified. The HIV-1 subtype F cluster recently expanded in Galicia derives from a variant widely disseminated in Western Europe. The viruses of the mentioned cluster show characteristic amino acids in the envelope, with mutations associated with X4 tropism having been identified in some of them, which are of potential biological relevance

Proposals for environmental impact decreasing in a suburban zone of limestone quarries: Southem Madrid Community, Spain

Over 30 Mm3 of limestones are extracted at least 100 quarries in southem part ofMadrid, its environmental impact is described in this paper. Three main reclamation areas are distinguished: surrounding of quarries, faces or highwalls of quarries and the floor. For soil reclamation in the environs of quarries we suggest to sow it with forage of fast growth plants (Lupinus, Tripho/ium ... ), in the floor of quarries is possible a spontaneous revegetation or even may be reclaimed for agricultural uses. For quarried rocks faces previous blasting and/or wider benchs are proposed. In opinion of the authors it is necessary to concentrate the limestone extraction in two or three Iarge quarries that allows a best policy and reclamation

Fibrohistiocitoma maligno óseo tras degeneración de enfermedad de Paget Caso clínico y revisión de la literatura

El fibrohistiocitoma maligno óseo es un tumor de estirpe mesenquimal poco frecuente, pero de alta agresividad. Se suele presentar de forma primaria, aunque a veces lo hace sobre lesiones previas en el hueso. Puede ser difícil de diferenciar histológicamente de otros tumores, pero es una entidad propia desde el punto de vista anatomopatológico. Presentamos un paciente con enfermedad de Paget que desarrolló un fibrohistiocitoma maligno óseo en el fémur sobre el hueso pagético. Fue tratado mediante desarticulación de cadera. No se usó quimioterapia como tratamiento coadyuvante debido a su avanzada edad y situación basal. A los 18 meses se encuentra asintomático y sin signos de recurrencia. Se hace una revisión de la literatura acerca de este tumor.Malignant fibrous histiocytoma of bone is a rare but highly agressive mesenchimal tumor. It usually arises as a primary tumor but sometimes it can be associated with pre-existing bone abnormalities. Histologically it can be missdiagnosed with other tumors. We report a case of malignant fibrous histiocytoma of bone in the femur in a patient with Paget's disease treated by hip desarticulation. We didn't use chemotherapy because his elderly status. At 18 months follow up, the patient is symptom-free and neither local recurrence nor metastasis have been found. A review of the literature has been carried out

Papel de los equipos de atención primaria en la hospitalización infantil de los niños menores de 2 años

ObjetivoDeterminar si la conformación de los equipos de atención primaria con la realización del programa de salud del niño sano da lugar a una disminución del riesgo de hospitalización en los niños menores de 2 años, respecto al sistema sanitario tradicional de consultorio o ambulatorio.DiseñoEstudio epidemiológico de casos-referencia.Casos40% de los niños hospitalizados menores de 24 meses en plantas de hospitalización pediátricas o neonatal del Hospital Universitario Marqués de Valdecilla.Referencia15% de los recién nacidos vivos en dicho hospital. Recogida de información mediante entrevista personal y consulta de la tarjeta sanitaria.Período de estudioabril de 1995 a mayo de 1996.ResultadosLos niños menores de 2 años controlados habitualmente por un médico perteneciente a un equipo de atención primaria presentan una disminución del riesgo de hospitalización para todos los diagnósticos clínicos de 0,57 (IC del 95%, 0,35–0,93), tras haber ajustado por diferentes factores de confusión como educación materna, clase social, etnia, edad materna, consumo de tabaco materno, lactancia natural al nacimiento, ingreso al nacimiento. Se observó una disminución del riesgo de hospitalización por fiebre sin localización aparente en aquellos niños controlados habitualmente por un médico de equipo (RR ajustado, 0,41; IC del 95%, 0,19–0,90).ConclusiónLas ventajas de la reforma en la asistencia sanitaria en el ámbito pediátrico, con la conformación de los equipos de atención primaria y la realización de las actividades que ello conlleva, se traduce en una disminución del riesgo de hospitalización para aquellos niños menores de 2 años cuyo control habitual es realizado por un pediatra perteneciente a un equipo de atención primaria.ObjectiveTo determine whether the structure of primary care teams on carrying out the healthy child health programme leads to a drop in the risk of admission to hospital of children under two, in comparison with the traditional clinic or out-clinic health system.DesignCase-reference epidemiological study.Cases40% of the children under 24 months admitted to paediatric or neonate floors of the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital.Reference15% of the recently born children alive in this hospital. Information was gathered through face-to-face interview and by examining health cards. The study ran from April 1995 to May 1996.ResultsChildren under two monitored habitually by a doctor belonging to a primary care team showed a drop in risk of hospital admission for all clinical diagnoses of 0.57 (95% CI, 0.35–0.93), after adjustment due to various confusion factors such as maternal education, social class, ethnic background, mother's age, mother's tobacco consumption, natural breast-feeding at birth, admission at birth. There was a drop of risk of hospital admission for high temperature without apparent cause in those children monitored habitually by a team doctor (adjusted RR = 0.41; 95% CI, 0.19–0.90).ConclusionsThe advantages of the paediatric health care reform with the structuring of the primary care teams and the accompanying activities performed lead to a drop in the risk of hospital admission of those children under two years old who are habitually monitored by a doctor belonging to a primary care team

Sulfadiazine, sulfamethazine and sulfachloropyridazine removal using three different porous materials: Pine bark, “oak ash” and mussel shell

This work focuses on studying the efficacy of three different by-products to adsorb three antibiotics (sulfadiazine, SDZ; sulfamethazine, SMT; sulfachloropyridazine, SCP). These antibiotics can be considered pollutants of the environment when they reach water, as well as in cases where they are spread on soils through irrigation or contained in sewage sludge or livestock manure. In this study, batch-type adsorption/desorption experiments were performed for each of the three sulfonamides, adding 7 different concentrations of the antibiotics, going from 1 to 50 μmol L−1, and with contact time of 24 h. The results indicate that pine bark is the most efficient bioadsorbent among those studied, as it adsorbs up to 95% of the antibiotics added, while desorption is always less than 11%. However, for “oak ash” and mussel shell the adsorption is always lower than 45 and 15%, respectively, and desorption is high, reaching up to 49% from “oak ash” and up to 81% from mussel shell. Adsorption data showed good fitting to the Linear and Freundlich models, with R2 values between 0.98 and 1.00 in both cases. Kd and KF adsorption parameters showed similar values for the same sorbent materials but were much higher for pine bark than for the other two bioadsorbents. The Freundlich's n parameter showed values in the range 0.81–1.28. The highest KF values (and therefore the highest adsorption capacities) were obtained for the antibiotic SCP in pine bark. Pine bark showed the highest capacity to adsorb each of the antibiotics, increasing as a function of the concentration added. When the concentration of sulfonamide added was 50 μM, the amounts adsorbed were 780 μmol kg−1 for SDZ, 890 μmol kg−1 for SMT, and 870 μmol kg−1 for SCP. “Oak ash” and mussel shell have low adsorption capacity for all three sulfonamides, showing values always lower than 150 μmol kg−1 (oak ash) and 20 μmol kg−1 (mussel shell) when a concentration of 50 μmol L−1 of antibiotic is added. The results of this study could aid to make an appropriate management of the by-products studied, in order to facilitate their valorization and recycling in the treatment of environmental compartments polluted with sulfonamide antibiotics.Agencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. RTI2018-099574-B-C21Agencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. RTI2018-099574-B-C2

FAS system deregulation in T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma

The acquisition of resistance towards FAS-mediated apoptosis may be required for tumor formation. Tumors from various histological origins exhibit FAS mutations, the most frequent being hematological malignancies. However, data regarding FAS mutations or FAS signaling alterations are still lacking in precursor T-cell lymphoblastic lymphomas (T-LBLs). The available data on acute lymphoblastic leukemia, of precursor origin as well, indicate a low frequency of FAS mutations but often report a serious reduction in FAS-mediated apoptosis as well as chemoresistance, thus suggesting the occurrence of mechanisms able to deregulate the FAS signaling pathway, different from FAS mutation. Our aim at this study was to determine whether FAS-mediated apoptotic signaling is compromised in human T-LBL samples and the mechanisms involved. This study on 26 T-LBL samples confirms that the FAS system is impaired to a wide extent in these tumors, with 57.7% of the cases presenting any alteration of the pathway. A variety of mechanisms seems to be involved in such alteration, in order of frequency the downregulation of FAS, the deregulation of other members of the pathway and the occurrence of mutations at FAS. Considering these results together, it seems plausible to think of a cumulative effect of several alterations in each T-LBL, which in turn may result in FAS/FASLG system deregulation. Since defective FAS signaling may render the T-LBL tumor cells resistant to apoptotic cell death, the correct prognosis, diagnosis and thus the success of anticancer therapy may require such an in-depth knowledge of the complete scenario of FAS-signaling alterations.S

Fatigue in Women with Fibromyalgia: A Gene-Physical Activity Interaction Study

Fatigue is a cardinal symptom in fibromyalgia. Fatigue is assumed to be the result of genetic susceptibility and environmental factors. We aimed at examining the role of genetic susceptibility for fatigue in southern Spanish women with fibromyalgia, by looking at single nucleotide polymorphisms in 34 fibromyalgia candidate-genes, at the interactions between genes, and at the gene-physical activity interactions. We extracted DNA from saliva of 276 fibromyalgia women to analyze gene-polymorphisms. Accelerometers registered physical activity and sedentary behavior. Fatigue was assessed with the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory. Based on the Bonferroni's and False Discovery Rate values, we found that the genotype of the rs4453709 polymorphism (sodium channel protein type 9 subunit alpha, SCN9A, gene) was related to reduced motivation (AT carriers showed the highest reduced motivation) and reduced activity (AA carriers showed the lowest reduced activity). Carriers of the heterozygous genotype of the rs1801133 (methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase, MTHFR, gene) or rs4597545 (SCN9A gene) polymorphisms who were physically active reported lower scores on fatigue compared to their inactive counterparts. Highly sedentary carriers of the homozygous genotype of the rs7607967 polymorphism (AA/GG genotype; SCN9A gene) presented more reduced activity (a dimension of fatigue) than those with lower levels of sedentary behavior. Collectively, findings from the present study suggest that the contribution of genetics and gene-physical activity interaction to fatigue in fibromyalgia is modest

In vitro Digestibility of Whole Forage Re-Shoots from Two New Sugar Cane Cultivars (Saccharum spp. C97-366 and C99-374).

In vitro digestibility of two new sugar cane cultivars for animal forage was determined. Three runs were made using gas from cattle feces as inoculum. The plant's integral fraction was studied at 6, 8, and 11 months of re-shoot. Forage cultivar My5514 was used as witness. The Ørskov and McDonald´s model (1979), transformed by Correa (2004), was used to determine the parameters. Simple variance analyses were carried out, and the differences between the means for P < 0.05, were determined by Tukey. The results showed that the two new cultivars produced similar in vitro gas volumes, and even higher (8 and 11 months of age) than the My5514 forage cultivar. At 8 months, the new cultivars had the best in vitro gas production values. The values achieved for the in vitro gas production, speed (0.011 h -1-0.033h -1), and gas production potential (32.7 ml-52.1 ml), were high. Moreover, the lag had low values (2.10 h-4.57 h)

Obtaining lipids and carbohydrates from microalgae via design of selective culture media

La producción sostenible de biorrefinerías a partir de microalgas presenta varias complicaciones técnicas a diferentes niveles, entre los que se encuentra la maximización de la productividad de bloques energéticos, como carbohidratos y lípidos, que sean materia prima para biodiesel y bioetanol. Una alternativa para aumentar la productividad de bloques energéticos es el uso de cultivos alternativos a los medios químicos tradicionales, los cuales se han basado en fuentes de carbono, fosforo, nitrógeno y microelementos. Este trabajo presenta el diseño de dos medios de cultivo mixotrófico con diferentes fuentes de carbono, nitrógeno y fósforo, a fin de evaluar la producción de carbohidratos y lípidos a partir de Chlorella vulgaris. Los medios de cultivo se diseñaron a diferentes concentraciones de nitrato de sodio, fosfato de potasio y acetato de sodio/carbonato de amonio como fuente de carbono. Además, se realizaron diagramas de Pareto y Superficies de Respuesta utilizando el software estadístico STATISTICA 7.0, a fin de conocer la influencia significativa de las variables de estudio sobre la producción de metabolitos. Los resultados mostraron que la concentración de los nutrientes en los cultivos mixotroficos afecta la producción de metabolitos, para el caso de la obtención de carbohidratos, el acetato, el carbonato y el fosfato ejercieron un efecto positivo en su producción. Para la producción de lípidos, cuando el medio de cultivo contenía acetato, no se presentó variable alguna que influyera significativamente, mientras que, para el cultivo con carbonato de amonio, el nitrato y las interacciones carbonato-fosfato, nitrato-fosfato ejercieron una influencia significativa en la producción de este metabolito.Sustainable production of microalgae biorefineries presents several technical bottlenecks in different levels, including maximization of productivity of energy blocks as carbohydrates and lipids, which can be used as feedstocks for biodiesel and bioethanol production. An alternative for increasing productivity of energy blocks is the use of alternative crops to traditional chemical media, which are based on carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen sources and microelements. This work presents the design of two mixotrophic crops were designed at different concentrations of carbon, nitrogen and phosphate sources with the aim of evaluating the carbohydrates and lipids production from Chlorella vulgaris. The culture media were designed at different concentrations of sodium nitrate, potassium phosphate and sodium acetate / ammonium carbonate as carbon source. In addition, Pareto charts and Response Surface were performed using the statistical software STATISTICA 7.0, in order to know the significant influence of study variables on metabolites production. Results showed that the concentration of nutrients in the mixotrophic cultures affect the production of metabolites, for the case of carbohydrates production, acetate, carbonate and phosphate had a positive effect on it. Regarding lipids production, when the culture media contained acetate, there was not any variable that influenced significantly, whereas for the cultivation with ammonium carbonate, nitrate and interactions carbonate-phosphate, nitrate-phosphate had a significant influence on production of this metabolite