Fast UPLC/PDA determination of squalene in Sicilian P.D.O. pistachio from Bronte: optimization of oil extraction method and analytical characterization

A fast reversed-phase UPLC method was developed for squalene determination in Sicilian pistachio samples that entry in the European register of the products with P.D.O. In the present study the SPE procedure was optimized for the squalene extraction prior to the UPLC/PDA analysis. The precision of the full analytical procedure was satisfactory and the mean recoveries were 92.8 + 0.3 % and 96.6 + 0.1 % for 25 and 50 mg L-1 level of addition, respectively. Selected chromatographic conditions allowed a very fast squalene determination; in fact it was well separated in ~ 0.54 min with good resolution. Squalene was detected in all the pistachio samples analyzed and the levels ranged from 55.45 to 226.34 mg . kg-1. Comparing our results with those of other studies it emerges that squalene contents in P.D.O. Sicilian pistachio samples, generally, were higher than those measured for other samples of different geographic origins

Genetic deletion of osteopontin in TRAMP mice skews prostate carcinogenesis from adenocarcinoma to aggressive human-like neuroendocrine cancers

Osteopontin (OPN) is a secreted glycoprotein, that belongs to the non-structural extracellular matrix (ECM), and its over expression in human prostate cancer has been associated with disease progression, androgen independence and metastatic ability. Nevertheless, the pathophysiology of OPN in prostate tumorigenesis has never been studied. We crossed TRansgenic Adenocarcinoma of the Mouse Prostate (TRAMP) mice with OPN deficient (OPN-/-) mice and followed tumor onset and progression in these double mutants. Ultrasound examination detected the early onset of a rapidly growing, homogeneous and spherical tumor in about 60% of OPN-/- TRAMP mice. Such neoplasms seldom occurred in parental TRAMP mice otherwise prone to adenocarcinomas and were characterized for being androgen receptor negative, highly proliferative and endowed with neuroendocrine (NE) features. Gene expression profiling showed up-regulation of genes involved in tumor progression, cell cycle and neuronal differentiation in OPN-deficient versus wild type TRAMP tumors. Downregulated genes included key genes of TGFa pathway, including SMAD3 and Filamin, which were confirmed at the protein level. Furthermore, NE genes and particularly those characterizing early prostatic lesions of OPN-deficient mice were found to correlate with those of human prostate NE tumours. These data underscore a novel role of OPN in the early stages of prostate cancer growth, protecting against the development of aggressive NE tumors

Long-Term water stress and drought assessment of Mediterranean oak savanna vegetation using thermal remote sensing

Drought is a devastating natural hazard that is difficult to define, detect and quantify. The increased availability of both meteorological and remotely sensed data provides an opportunity to develop new methods to identify drought conditions and characterize how drought changes over space and time. In this paper, we applied the surface energy balance model, SEBS (Surface Energy Balance System), for the period 2001 2018, to estimate evapotranspiration and other energy fluxes over the dehesa area of the Iberian Peninsula, with a monthly temporal resolution and 0.05° pixel size. A satisfactory agreement was found between the fluxes modeled and the measurements obtained for 3 years by two flux towers located over representative sites (RMSD = 21 W m-2 and R2 = 0.76, on average, for all energy fluxes and both sites). The estimations of the convective fluxes (LE and H) showed higher deviations, with RMSD = 26 W m-2 on average, than Rn and G, with RMSD = 15 W m-2. At both sites, annual evapotranspiration (ET) was very close to total precipitation, with the exception of a few wet years in which intense precipitation events that produced high runoff were observed. The analysis of the anomalies of the ratio of ET to reference ET (ETo) was used as an indicator of agricultural drought on monthly and annual scales. The hydrological years 2004/2005 and 2011/2012 stood out for their negative values. The first one was the most severe of the series, with the highest impact observed on vegetation coverage and grain production. On a monthly scale, this event was also the longest and most intense, with peak negative values in January February and April May 2005, explaining its great impact on cereal production (up to 45 % reduction). During the drier events, the changes in the grasslands and oak trees ground cover allowed for a separate analysis of the strategies adopted by the two strata to cope with water stress. These results indicate that the drought events characterized for the period did not cause any permanent damage to the vegetation of dehesa systems. The approach tested has proven useful for providing insight into the characteristics of drought events over this ecosystem and will be helpful to identify areas of interest for future studies at finer resolutions

Remote sensing of water use and water stress in the African savanna ecosystem at local scale – Development and validation of a monitoring tool

Savannas are among the most productive biomes of Africa, where they comprise half of its surface. They support wildlife, livestock, rangelands, crops, and livelihoods, playing an important socioeconomic role in rural areas. These water-limited ecosystems with seasonal water availability are highly sensitive to changes in both climate conditions, and in land-use/management practices. Although monitoring programs for African savanna water use have been established in certain areas, most of them are largely restricted to point based measurements or coarse scales, and are not fully capable to provide distributed timely information for planning purposes. In this study we develop a mechanism for monitoring the water used by African savanna from fine scale (meters) to watershed scale, integrating the effects of the water stress. Our hypothesis is that the Ecosystem Stress Index (ESI) is a valuable tool to downscale estimates of actual evapotranspiration at coarse scale, to high resolutions. To monitor savanna water fluxes in a semi-continuous way this study integrates two different ET-estimation approaches: KC-FAO56 model, integrating reflectance-based “crop” coefficients (SPOT 4 & 5 satellites), is used to derive unstressed savanna evapotranspiration (with high spatial resolution), and the two-source surface energy balance model -TSEB, integrating radiometric surface temperature (AATSR satellites) allows the determination of water stress across savannas (ESI, with low spatial resolution). The difference between estimated and observed surface fluxes derived from TSEB (RMSDLE = 53 Wm-2, RMSDH = 50 Wm-2, RMSDRn = 60 Wm-2, RMSDG = 21 Wm-2) were of the same magnitude as the uncertainties derived from the flux measurement system, being sufficiently accurate to be employed in a distributed way and on a more regular basis. The approach of ESI to downscale ET proved to be useful, and errors between estimated and observed daily ET (RMSD 0.6 mmday−1) were consistent with the results of other studies in savanna ecosystems. The modelling framework proposed provided an accurate representation of the natural landscape heterogeneity and local conditions, with the potential of providing information suitable from local to broader scales.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Use of canopy coefficients obtained from satellite data to estimate evapotranspiration over high mountain Mediterranean watersheds

This work explores the dynamics of the water consumed by the vegetation in two Mediterranean watersheds of Sierra Nevada Mountains (Southern Spain). This region has experienced an increase in the demand of water in the last years due to the growth of irrigated areas, and a new water resources plan is required. The evapotranspiration (ET) of irrigated horticultural crops and natural communities were monitored for the hydrological years 2013/14 and 2014/15, using an approach based on the concept of reference evapotranspiration (ETo) and canopy coefficients derived from the computation of vegetation indices (VIs), which we will call the VI-ETo approach. A set of Landsat-8 and MODIS images has been used as remote input data. The results were used for the spatial analysis of water consumption in terms of the main land cover types in the area. The annual runoff obtained with a simple surface water balance, using the ET values estimated by the VI-ETo approach, was comparable to that obtained by the HBV (Hydrologiska Byrans Vattenbalansavdelning) model, a precipitation-runoff generation model that reproduces the observed river discharge at the outlet of the watershed.</p

Evaluation of Hungarian Wines for Resveratrol by Overpressured Layer Chromatography

A method, including solid phase extraction sample preparation, overpressured layer chromatographic separation and subsequent densitometric evaluation, was developed for measurement of total resveratrol (cis- and trans-isomers) content of wine. The amount of resveratrol was determined in wine samples from different winemaking regions of Hungary. The total resveratrol was high in Hungarian red wines (3.6–11 mg/L), and much lower in white ones (0.04–1.5 mg/L)

Effect of the water stress on gross primary production modeling of a Mediterranean oak savanna ecosystem

Dehesa ecosystem consists of widely-spaced oak trees combined with crops, pasture and Mediterranean shrubs. It is located in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula, where water scarcity is recurrent, severely affecting the multiple productions and services of the ecosystem. Upscaling in situ Gross Primary Production (GPP) estimates in these areas is challenging for regional and global studies, given the significant spatial variability of plant functional types and the vegetation stresses usually present. The estimation of GPP is often addressed using light use efficiency models (LUE-models). Under soil water deficit conditions, biomass production is reduced below its potential rate. This work investigates the effect of different parameterizations to account for water stress on GPP estimates and their agreement with observations. Ground measurements of GPP are obtained using an Eddy Covariance (EC) system installed over an experimental site located in Córdoba, Spain. GPP is estimated with a LUE-model in the footprint of the EC tower using several approaches: a fixed value taken from previous literature; a fixed value modified by daily weather conditions; and both formulations modified by an additional coefficient to explicitly consider the vegetation water stress. The preliminary results obtained during two hydrological years (2015/2016 and 2016/2017) are compared, focusing on specific wet and dry periods.</p

REGULATION OF PROSTAGLANDIN GENERATION IN CARRAGEENAN-INDUCED PLEURISY BY INDUCIBLE NITRIC OXIDE SYNTHASE IN KNOCKOUT MICE

In the present study, by comparing the responses in wild-type mice (iNOSWT) and mice lacking (iNOSKO) the inducible (or type 2) nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), we investigated the correlation between endogenous nitric oxide (NO) and prostaglandin (PG) generation in carrageenan-induced pleurisy. The inflammatory response in iNOSKO mice was significantly reduced in respect to iNOSWT animals, as demonstrated by the exudate volume (-63%) and numbers of infiltrating cells (-62%). The levels of NOx in the pleural exudate from carrageenan-treated mice were significantly (p < 0.01) decreased in iNOSKO mice (16 ± 7.6 nmoles/mice) compared to iNOSWT animals (133 ± 9 nmoles/mice). Similarly, the amounts of PGE2 in the pleural exudates of carrageenan-treated animals were significantly (p < 0.01) lower in iNOSKO compared to iNOSWT mice (120 ± 20 pg/mice vs. 308 ± 51 pg/mice). Also the amounts of 6-keto-PGF1α produced by lungs from carrageenan-treated iNOSKO mice (1.01 ± 0.10 ng/tissue mg) were significantly (p < 0.01) reduced compared to iNOSWT carrageenan-treated mice (2.1 ± 0.09 ng/tissue mg). In conclusion our results confirm, by the use of iNOSKO mice that in carrageenan-induced pleurisy NO positively modulates PG biosynthesis

Development of minimal fermentation media supplementation for ethanol production using two Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains

Ethanol production by fermentation is strongly dependent on media composition. Specific nutrients, such as trace elements, vitamins and nitrogen will affect the physiological state and, consequently, the fermentation performance of the micro-organism employed. The purpose of this study has been to assess the highest ethanol production by a minimal medium, instead of the more complex nutrients supplementation used during alcoholic fermentation. All fermentation tests were carried out using a microwell plate reader to monitor the processes. Two Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains (NCYC 2826 and NCYC 3445) were tested using three nitrogen sources, supplied with different vitamin and salts. The results show that solutions made of urea phosphate, KCl, MgSO4·7H2O, Ca-panthothenate, biotin allowed an ethanol yield of 22.9 and 23.4 g/L for strain NCYC 2826 and NCYC 3445, respectively, representing 90 and 92% of the theoretical yield. All tests were carried out using glucose as common reference carbon source

Cancer Associated Fibroblasts and Senescent Thyroid Cells in the Invasive Front of Thyroid Carcinoma

Thyroid carcinoma (TC) comprises several histotypes with different aggressiveness, from well (papillary carcinoma, PTC) to less differentiated forms (poorly differentiated and anaplastic thyroid carcinoma, PDTC and ATC, respectively). Previous reports have suggested a functional role for cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) or senescent TC cells in the progression of PTC. In this study, we investigated the presence of CAFs and senescent cells in proprietary human TCs including PTC, PDTC, and ATC. Screening for the driving lesions BRAFV600E and N/H/KRAS mutations, and gene fusions was also performed to correlate results with tumor genotype. In samples with unidentified drivers, transcriptomic profiles were used to establish a BRAF- or RAS-like molecular subtype based on a gene signature derived from The Cancer Genome Atlas. By using immunohistochemistry, we found co-occurrence of stromal CAFs and senescent TC cells at the tumor invasive front, where deposition of collagen (COL1A1) and expression of lysyl oxidase (LOX) enzyme were also detected, in association with features of local invasion. Concurrent high expression of CAFs and of the senescent TC cells markers, COL1A1 and LOX was confirmed in different TC histotypes in proprietary and public gene sets derived from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) repository, and especially in BRAF mutated or BRAF-like tumors. In this study, we show that CAFs and senescent TC cells co-occur in various histotypes of BRAF-driven thyroid tumors and localize at the tumor invasive front