Cardiopulmonary resuscitation in small animals

PósterThere are several differences among incidence, causes and survival rate from cardiopulmonary arrest in human and veterinary medicine. In veterinary, the incidence of cardiac arrest is unknown and asystole is the most detected arrest rhythm. Main causes are: hypotension, hypoxia, metabolic and electrolyte disorders. The survival rate are significantly different between humans and animals. In small animals it is placed in percentages from 4-9.6%, while human it is twice

Intrusismo laboral

Treball presentat a l'assignatura d'Ètica i Legislació. Gestió empresarial (102680)No es extraño oír hablar hoy en día de profesionales de dudosa legalidad que actúan sin licencia para ejercer, de profesionales no colegiados cuando dicha colegiación es obligatoria, incluso de personas que trabajan en ámbitos en los que no tienen la formación adecuada. Todos habremos formado una opinión hacia dichos individuos pero en más de una ocasión habremos obviado que detrás de estas actuaciones hay una violación de la ley, una infracción conocida como intrusismo laboral. El intrusismo laboral se puede definir académicamente, según la Real Academia Española, como: Ejercicio de actividades profesionales por persona no autorizada para ello. Puede constituir delito. También encontramos una definición legal. Según la Ley 7/2006, de 31 de mayo, del ejercicio de profesiones tituladas y de los colegios profesionales, es: "La realización de actuaciones profesionales sin el cumplimiento de los requisitos establecidos legalmente para el ejercicio de la profesión, y es actuación profesional irregular la que vulnera las normas deontológicas, se ejerce sin la debida diligencia profesional o incurre en competencia desleal." De esta manera, podemos concluir que el intrusismo laboral es toda acción profesional realizada por una persona no cualificada legalmente para ello

Extra-virgin olive oil contains a metabolo-epigenetic inhibitor of cancer stem cells

We are grateful to Custodio Borrego for giving us free use of the photograph he took of EVOO and olive trees in Granada (Spain), which have been included in Figure 7. This work has been awarded with the IV Premio Internacional Castillo de Canena de Investigación Oleícola ‘LUIS VAÑÓ’(IV Edition of Castillo de Canena LUIS VAÑÓ Award for Research on Olive Cultivation and Olive Oil; UC Davis Olive Center, Castillo de Canena, and Universidad de Jaén).The authors would like to thank Dr Kenneth McCreath for editorial support. We are greatly indebted to Prof Robert A. Weinberg (Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, MA) for providing the HMLERshCntrol/HMLERshEcad cells used in this work.Targeting tumor-initiating, drug-resistant populations of cancer stem cells (CSC) with phytochemicals is a novel paradigm for cancer prevention and treatment. We herein employed a phenotypic drug discovery approach coupled to mechanism-of-action profiling and target deconvolution to identify phenolic components of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) capable of suppressing the functional traits of CSC in breast cancer (BC). In vitro screening revealed that the secoiridoid decarboxymethyl oleuropein aglycone (DOA) could selectively target subpopulations of epithelial-like, aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH)-positive and mesenchymal-like, CD44+CD24−/low CSC. DOA could potently block the formation of multicellular tumorspheres generated from single-founder stem-like cells in a panel of genetically diverse BC models. Pretreatment of BC populations with noncytotoxic doses of DOA dramatically reduced subsequent tumor-forming capacity in vivo. Mice orthotopically injected with CSC-enriched BC-cell populations pretreated with DOA remained tumor-free for several months. Phenotype microarray-based screening pointed to a synergistic interaction of DOA with the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin and the DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) inhibitor 5-azacytidine. In silico computational studies indicated that DOA binds and inhibits the ATP-binding kinase domain site of mTOR and the S-adenosyl-l-methionine (SAM) cofactorbinding pocket of DNMTs. FRET-based Z-LYTE™ and AlphaScreen-based in vitro assays confirmed the ability of DOA to function as an ATP-competitive mTOR inhibitor and to block the SAM-dependent methylation activity of DNMTs. Our systematic in vitro, in vivo and in silico approaches establish the phenol-conjugated oleoside DOA as a dual mTOR/DNMT inhibitor naturally occurring in EVOO that functionally suppresses CSC-like states responsible for maintaining tumorinitiating cell properties within BC populations.This work was supported by grants from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Grant SAF2016-80639-P to J.A.M.), Plan Nacional de I+D+I, Spain, the Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR; Grant 2014 SGR229 to J.A.M.), Departament d’Economia i Coneixement, Catalonia, Spain, the Andalusian Regional Government Council of Innovation and Science (Grant P11-CTS-7625 to A.S.-C.), the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Spain (Grants AGL2015- 67995-C2-3-R and AGL2015-67995-C3-1-R to A.S.-C. and V.M.) and Conselleria d’Educació, Investigació, Cultura I Esport, Generalitat Valenciana, Spain (Grant PROMETEO/2016/006 to V.M). E.C. is supported by the Sara Borrell post doctoral contract (CD15/00033) from the Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo, Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria (FIS), Spain

The Epigenetic Regulation in Plant Specialized Metabolism: DNA Methylation Limits Paclitaxel in vitro Biotechnological Production

Environmental conditions are key factors in the modulation of the epigenetic mechanisms regulating gene expression in plants. Specifically, the maintenance of cell cultures in optimal in vitro conditions alters methylation patterns and, consequently, their genetic transcription and metabolism. Paclitaxel production in Taxus x media cell cultures is reduced during its maintenance in in vitro conditions, compromising the biotechnological production of this valuable anticancer agent. To understand how DNA methylation influences taxane production, the promoters of three genes (GGPPS, TXS, and DBTNBT) involved in taxane biosynthesis have been studied, comparing the methylation patterns between a new line and one of ~14 years old. Our work revealed that while the central promoter of the GGPPS gene is protected from cytosine methylation accumulation, TXS and DBTNBT promoters accumulate methylation at different levels. The DBTNBT promoter of the old line is the most affected, showing a 200 bp regulatory region where all the cytosines were methylated. This evidence the existence of specific epigenetic regulatory mechanisms affecting the last steps of the pathway, such as the DBTNBT promoter. Interestingly, the GGPPS promoter, a regulatory sequence of a non-specific taxane biosynthetic gene, was not affected by this mechanism. In addition, the relationship between the detected methylation points and the predicted transcription factor binding sites (TFBS) showed that the action of TFs would be compromised in the old line, giving a further explanation for the production reduction in in vitro cell cultures. This knowledge could help in designing novel strategies to enhance the biotechnological production of taxanes over time

The epigenetic regulation in plant specialized metabolism: DNA methylation limits paclitaxel in vitro biotechnological production

Environmental conditions are key factors in the modulation of the epigenetic mechanisms regulating gene expression in plants. Specifically, the maintenance of cell cultures in optimal in vitro conditions alters methylation patterns and, consequently, their genetic transcription and metabolism. Paclitaxel production in Taxus x media cell cultures is reduced during its maintenance in in vitro conditions, compromising the biotechnological production of this valuable anticancer agent. To understand how DNA methylation influences taxane production, the promoters of three genes (GGPPS, TXS, and DBTNBT) involved in taxane biosynthesis have been studied, comparing the methylation patterns between a new line and one of ~14 years old. Our work revealed that while the central promoter of the GGPPS gene is protected from cytosine methylation accumulation, TXS and DBTNBT promoters accumulate methylation at different levels. The DBTNBT promoter of the old line is the most affected, showing a 200 bp regulatory region where all the cytosines were methylated. This evidence the existence of specific epigenetic regulatory mechanisms affecting the last steps of the pathway, such as the DBTNBT promoter. Interestingly, the GGPPS promoter, a regulatory sequence of a non-specific taxane biosynthetic gene, was not affected by this mechanism. In addition, the relationship between the detected methylation points and the predicted transcription factor binding sites (TFBS) showed that the action of TFs would be compromised in the old line, giving a further explanation for the production reduction in in vitro cell cultures. This knowledge could help in designing novel strategies to enhance the biotechnological production of taxanes over time.This work has been carried out at the Plant Physiology Laboratory (Universitat de Barcelona). It was financially supported by the Spanish PID2020-113438RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and the Generalitat de Catalunya 2017SGR242. AE was supported by a fellowship from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Polyploidy as a strategy to increase taxane production in yew cell cultures: Obtaining and characterizing a Taxus baccata tetraploid cell line

Novel approaches to optimize the production of plant specialized metabolites are crucial to reach maximum productivity of plant biofactories. Plant polyploidization frequently enhances protein synthesis and thereby increases the biosynthesis of specialized metabolites. Paclitaxel is a valuable anticancer agent scarcely produced in nature. Therefore, plant biofactories represent a sustainable alternative source of this compound and related taxanes. With the aim of improving the productivity of Taxus spp. cell cultures, we induced polyploidy in vitro by treating immature embryos of Taxus baccata with colchicine. To obtain the polyploid cell lines, calli were induced from T. baccata plantlets previously treated with colchicine and ploidy levels were accurately identified using flow cytometry. In terms of cell morphology, tetraploid cells were about 3-fold bigger than the diploid cells. The expression of taxane pathway genes was higher in the tetraploid cell line compared to the diploid cells. Moreover, taxane production was 6.2-fold higher and the production peak was achieved 8 days earlier than in the diploid cell line, indicating a higher productivity. The obtained tetraploid cell line proved to be highly productive, constituting a step forward towards the development of a bio-sustainable production system for this chemotherapeutic drug.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, with project number PID2020–113438RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. Ainoa Escrich was supported by a fellowship from the University Pompeu Fabra

Genetic approaches in improving biotechnological production of taxanes: An update

Paclitaxel (PTX) and its derivatives are diterpene alkaloids widely used as chemotherapeutic agents in the treatment of various types of cancer. Due to the scarcity of PTX in nature, its production in cell cultures and plant organs is a major challenge for plant biotechnology. Although significant advances have been made in this field through the development of metabolic engineering and synthetic biology techniques, production levels remain insufficient to meet the current market demand for these powerful anticancer drugs. A key stumbling block is the difficulty of genetically transforming the gymnosperm Taxus spp. This review focuses on the progress made in improving taxane production through genetic engineering techniques. These include the overexpression of limiting genes in the taxane biosynthetic pathway and transcription factors involved in its regulation in Taxus spp. cell cultures and transformed roots, as well as the development and optimization of transformation techniques. Attempts to produce taxanes in heterologous organisms such as bacteria and yeasts are also described. Although promising results have been reported, the transfer of the entire PTX metabolic route has not been possible to date, and taxane biosynthesis is still restricted to Taxus cells and some endophytic fungi. The development of a synthetic organism other than Taxus cells capable of biotechnologically producing PTX will probably have to wait until the complete elucidation of its metabolic pathway.This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, with project number PID2020-113438RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033