Caos: Una breve revisión conceptual

La Teoría del Caos (TC) y la Geometría Fractal (GF) revolucionaron el pensamiento científico en la segunda mitad del pasado siglo XX. Y aún continúan haciéndolo, como indica la incesante repercusión mediática que mantienen. En cuanto que su aplicación, además de universal (desde la Física a la Ingeniería, Medicina, Economía, o el Arte), aporta novedosas perspectivas a problemas tan diversos como el origen de la vida o la evolución de la bolsa. En el presente artículo revisaremos algunas cuestiones conceptuales que nacen de la propia Naturaleza interdisciplinar de las misma

Un análisis del Caos: Evolución y ubicuidad

Una de las propiedades del Caos más inquietantes es su ubicuidad. La dinámica caótica y los entes que muestran comportamiento complejo son ubicuos en nuestro mundo. En este ensayo pretendemos explicar este hecho sobre una base evolutiva universal, que obliga a revisar sucintamente el estado actual de conocimiento sobre la generación de planetas similares a la Tierra, y el origen de la vida como fenómeno emergent

Obesidad, inmunidad y vacunación

Las vacunas constituyen una herramienta fundamental en la prevención de las enfermedades infecciosas. Tras la vacunación tiene lugar una compleja interacción entre el producto vacunal y el sistema inmunitario del receptor, cuyo resultado es la protección frente a la enfermedad. Se observa una elevada variabilidad en las respuestas inmunitarias a la vacunación tanto individuales como poblacionales; en la actualidad, estas diferencias no son bien comprendidas. Se conocen algunos factores del receptor bien estudiados como la edad, el sexo, la genética, el historial inmunológico… sin embargo, otros como el sobrepeso y la obesidad son menos conocidos. Existe evidencia de que un índice de masa corporal muy alto es un factor de riesgo importante para las infecciones en general, y de que el tejido graso tiene un papel claro en la modulación del sistema inmunitario; también se han observado niveles subóptimos de seroconversión vacunal en personas obesas. A lo largo del documento se ha revisado la inmunidad y la protección inducidas por diversas vacunas en personas con sobrepeso. Se estudia también la reactogenicidad a las vacunas en personas. Finalmente se expone la relación entre microbioma, inmunidad y obesidad que es motivo de recientes investigaciones.Publicacion en OpenAccess financiada por la Universidad de Málaga Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga / CBU

Boletín NUESTRA AMÉRICA XXI - Desafíos y alternativas, num.12, octubre 2017

Una excelente iniciativa del Grupo de Trabajo Crisis y economía mundial, coordinado por María Josefina Morales y Gabriela Roffinelli

Environmental Assessment of Olive Mill Solid Waste Valorization via Anaerobic Digestion Versus Olive Pomace Oil Extraction

Anaerobic digestion is a promising alternative to valorize agrifood wastes, which is gaining interest under an environmental sustainability overview. The present research aimed to compare anaerobic digestion with olive pomace oil extraction, by using life cycle assessment, as alternatives for the valorization of the olive mill solid waste generated in the centrifugation process with a two-outlet decanter from oil mills. In the case of olive pomace oil extraction, two cases were defined depending on the type of fuel used for drying the wet pomace before the extraction: natural gas or a fraction of the generated extracted pomace. The anaerobic digestion alternative consisted of the production of biogas from the olive mill solid waste, heat and electricity cogeneration by the combustion of the generated biogas, and composting of the anaerobic digestate. The life cycle assessment showed that anaerobic digestion was the best alternative, with a global environmental impact reduction of 88.1 and 85.9% respect to crude olive pomace oil extraction using natural gas and extracted pomace, respectively, as fuel.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad CTM2014-55095-

Secretory Profile of Adipose-Tissue-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells from Cats with Calicivirus-Positive Severe Chronic Gingivostomatitis

The feline calicivirus (FCV) causes infections in cats all over the world and seems to be related to a broad variety of clinical presentations, such as feline chronic gingivostomatitis (FCGS), a severe oral pathology in cats. Although its etiopathogeny is largely unknown, FCV infection is likely to be a main predisposing factor for developing this pathology. During recent years, new strategies for treating FCGS have been proposed, based on the use of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) and their regenerative and immunomodulatory properties. The main mechanism of action of MSC seems to be paracrine, due to the secretion of many biomolecules with different biological functions (secretome). Currently, several pathologies in humans have been shown to be related to functional alterations of the patient’s MSCs. However, the possible roles that altered MSCs might have in different diseases, including virus-mediated diseases, remain unknown. We have recently demonstrated that the exosomes produced by the adipose-tissue-derived MSCs (fAd-MSCs) from cats suffering from FCV-positive severe and refractory FCGS showed altered protein contents. Based on these findings, the goal of this work was to analyze the proteomic profile of the secretome produced by feline adipose-tissue-derived MSCs (fAd-MSCs) from FCV-positive patients with FCGS, in order to identify differences between them and to increase our knowledge of the etiopathogenesis of this disease. We used high-resolution mass spectrometry and functional enrichment analysis with Gene Ontology to compare the secretomes produced by the fAd-MSCs of healthy and calicivirus-positive FCGS cats. We found that the fAd-MSCs from cats with FCGS had an increased expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and an altered proteomic profile compared to the secretome produced by cells from healthy cats. (...)This research was funded by Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Red TerCel), grant number “RD16/0011/0022”; Consejería de Economía, Innovación, Ciencia y Empleo, Junta de Andalucía, grant number “UMA18-FEDERJA-133”; Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red en Bioingeniería, Biomateriales y Nanomedicina, grant number “VI National R&D&I Plan 2008–2011”; Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, grant number “PEJ2018-004785-A”. Partial funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málag

Zoonotic parasites in playgrounds in southern Spain: a one health approach

Zoonotic parasitic diseases are considered a global threat to public health. In this sense, canines and felines may be infected by different cosmopolitan parasites, with playgrounds serving as an important focus of infection for humans, as well as domestic or wild animals. Knowledge of the epidemiological situation of parasites in animal reservoirs integrated into the environment, identifying the spread pathways, is a key element for an effective response to this threat. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess the frequency of intestinal parasites with zoonotic potential in 120 playgrounds in the Malaga province (Spain). Samples were processed and analysed following standard parasitological procedures. Some 36.7% of playgrounds were parasite-positive with one or more zoonotic parasites. The most common parasites recovered were nematodes (60.0%), followed by protozoan species (33.3%) and cestodes (6.7%). In the parasite-positive playgrounds, Toxocara spp. (17.0 ± 3.5%) and Giardia duodenalis (17.0 ± 3.4%) were the most predominant parasites. In addition, 34.1% of playgrounds were infected with multiple parasites. Our results show a high presence of parasitic forms with zoonotic potential in playgrounds in Malaga, Spain. Due to the close contact between pets and humans in playgrounds, the potential zoonotic risk may increase if prevention and control measures are not designed.Partial funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málag

Mannose-binding lectin promoter polymorphisms and gene variants in pulmonary tuberculosis patients from Cantabria (northern Spain)

Mannose-binding lectin is a central molecule of the innate immune system. Mannose-binding lectin 2 promoter polymorphisms and structural variants have been associated with susceptibility to tuberculosis. However, contradictory results among different populations have been reported, resulting in no convincing evidence of association between mannose-binding lectin 2 and susceptibility to tuberculosis. For this reason, we conducted a study in a well genetically conserved Spanish population in order to shed light on this controversial association. We analysed the six promoter and structural mannose-binding lectin 2 gene variants in 107 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis and 441 healthy controls. Only D variant and HYPD haplotype were significantly more frequents in controls which would indicate that this allele could confer protection against pulmonary tuberculosis, but this difference disappeared after statistical correction. Neither the rest of alleles nor the haplotypes were significantly associated with the disease. These results would indicate that mannose-binding lectin promoter polymorphisms and gene variants would not be associated with an increased risk to pulmonary tuberculosis. Despite the slight trend of the D allele and HYPD haplotype in conferring protection against pulmonary tuberculosis, susceptibility to this disease would probably be due to other genetic factors, at least in our population

CD5 and CD6 as immunoregulatory biomarkers in non-small cell lung cancer

Background: The study of immune surveillance in the tumour microenvironment is leading to the development of new biomarkers and therapies. The present research focuses on the expression of CD5 and CD6 - two lymphocyte surface markers involved in the fine tuning of TCR signaling - as potential prognostic biomarkers in resectable stages of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: CD5 and CD6 gene expression was analysed by reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RTqPCR) in 186 paired fresh frozen tumour and normal tissue samples of resected NSCLC. Results: Patients with higher CD5 expression had significantly increased overall survival (OS, 49.63 vs. 99.90 months, p=0.013). CD5 expression levels were correlated to CD4 infiltration and expression levels, and survival analysis showed that patients with a higher CD5/CD4+ ratio had significantly improved prognosis. Multivariate analysis established CD5 expression as an independent prognostic biomarker for OS in early stages of NSCLC [HR=0.554; 95% CI, 0.360-0.853; p=0.007]. Further survival analysis of NSCLC cases (n=97) from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, confirmed the prognostic value of both CD5 and CD6 expression¸ although CD6 expression alone did not reach significant prognostic value in our NSCLC training cohort. Conclusions: Our data support further studies on CD5 and CD6 as novel prognostic markers in resectable NSCLC and other cancer types (i.e., melanoma), as well as a role for these receptors in immune surveillance

Teoria da Aprendizagem Desenvolvimental (TAD): diálogo com Gloria Fariñas León a respeito de P. Ya. Galperin (In Memoriam)

Esta entrevista com a Professora Doutora Gloria Fariñas León foi realizada em julho de 2022, por ocasião do 120° aniversário de nascimento de P. Ya. Galperin, de quem foi aluna de doutorado. Durante sua vida acadêmica, Gloria realizou diversas pesquisas com base na Teoria da Formação Planejada das Ações Mentais e dos Conceitos, de autoria de Galperin, uma das bases da aprendizagem desenvolvimental. A entrevista objetivou conhecer da professora suas vivências e opiniões sobre esse renomado psicólogo. Na primeira parte, Gloria fala sobre como chegou a ser orientanda de Galperin e suas impressões sobre esse homem da ciência. Na segunda, revela os lados humano, pessoal e profissional de seu orientador. Gloria responde sobre sua compreensão da teoria de Galperin, do processo da aprendizagem e dos desafios na apropriação da teoria, como processo complexo, dialético, de leitura, releituras, contextualização e inferências dos textos produzidos pelo autor, que se caracterizava pelo poder de síntese e pela profundidade, o que exige determinadas formas de se aprender com ele. Ela reflete sobre os aspectos sistêmicos da teoria, com destaque para o subsistema da orientação que o sujeito elabora sobre as ações que deve realizar para aprender e o dos parâmetros das ações pelas quais se aprende, que caracterizam a relação entre aprendizagem e desenvolvimento intelectual dos estudantes. Enfatiza, ainda, a importância de se aprofundar, no contexto da teoria, as relações entre comunicação e atividade. Para finalizar, destaca o potencial e os desafios da teoria como referência para se pensar a escola no século XXI