The role of two acidophilic algae as ecological indicators of acid mine drainage sites

Acidic effl uents, emerging from four abandoned mines (Valdarcas, Carris, Adoria and Cerquido) in Northern Portugal were analyzed regarding physical-chemical, mineralogical and ecological characteristics. Such effl uents present distinct properties since they were mobilized from wastes of different primary ores and mining procedures. Results show that acidophilic algal colonization is dominated by Euglena mutabilis and Klebsormidium sp.. Abundance and distribution of both algae are related to different intensity of acid mine drainage (AMD) at each mining site. Mineral-alga interactions infl uence metal deposition at Valdarcas and probably contribute to iron mineral precipitation. Euglena mutabilis displayed a preference for schwertmannite-rich AMD precipitates, which may suggest a mineralogical control on algal colonization. Spatial distribution of E. mutabilis can be used to qualitatively assess water quality improvements along the effluent channel.Las aguas residuales ácidas que emergen de cuatro minas abandonadas (Valdarcas, Carris, Adoria y Cerquido) en el norte de Portugal fueron analizadas según sus características físico-químicas, mineralógicas y ecológicas. Estas aguas residuales presentan distintas características ya que se desplazaron desde escombreras con estériles de diferentes tipos genéticos de depósitos minerales y procedimientos de minería. Los resultados muestran que la colonización de algas acidófi las está dominada por Euglena mutabilis y Klebsormidium sp.. La abundancia y la distribución de ambas algas está relacionada con la diversa intensidad de los drenajes ácidos de mina (AMD) en cada sitio de explotación minera. Las interacciones de tipo mineral-alga influyen en la deposición metálica en Valdarcas y probablemente contribuyen para la precipitación de minerales del hierro. Euglena mutabilis muestra una preferencia por los precipitados ricos en schwertmannite, que puede sugerir un control mineralógico en la colonización de algas. La distribución espacial de E. mutabilis puede servir para evaluar cualitativamente las mejoras en la calidad del agua a lo largo del canal receptor de AMD

Mining for peaks in lc-hrms datasets using finnee - a case study with exhaled breath condensates from healthy, asthmatic, and copd patients

This work was financially supported by the projects: (i) UID/ EQU/00511/2019 - Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy − LEPABE funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC); (ii) POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029702 and POCI-01-0145-FEDER031297 funded by FEDER funds through COMPETE2020 − Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalizaca̧ õ (POCI) and by national funds (PIDDAC) through FCT/ MCTES; (iii) AstraZeneca − Projecto OLDER (CEDOC/ 2015/59); (iv) iNOVA4Health - UID/Multi/04462/2013, financially supported by FCT/Ministerio da Educação e Ciência, and co-funded by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement.Separation techniques hyphenated to high-resolution mass spectrometry are essential in untargeted metabolomic analyses. Due to the complexity and size of the resulting data, analysts rely on computer-assisted tools to mine for features that may represent a chromatographic signal. However, this step remains problematic, and a high number of false positives are often obtained. This work reports a novel approach where each step is carefully controlled to decrease the likelihood of errors. Datasets are first corrected for baseline drift and background noise before the MS scans are converted from profile to centroid. A new alignment strategy that includes purity control is introduced, and features are quantified using the original data with scans recorded as profile, not the extracted features. All the algorithms used in this work are part of the Finnee Matlab toolbox that is freely available. The approach was validated using metabolites in exhaled breath condensates to differentiate individuals diagnosed with asthma from patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. With this new pipeline, twice as many markers were found with Finnee in comparison to XCMS-online, and nearly 50% more than with MS-Dial, two of the most popular freeware for untargeted metabolomics analysis.publishersversionpublishe

Wave profile and tide monitoring system for scalable implementation

Apresentação de Poster em conferência Nacional.Presentation of a wave profile and tide monitoring system, with low-cost and low-power pressure sensors connected to a datalogger in a wired or acustic network

A versatile capillary gel electrophoresis methodology for in-process and final product characterization of virus-based targets

The biopharmaceutical industry is approaching a turning point where new therapeutic modalities such as virus-based biopharmaceuticals are used in several applications such as vaccination, gene therapy and oncolytic therapy. However, the bioprocess of functional viruses still presents challenges, namely due to the availability of suitable analytics for downstream processing monitoring or characterization of the final product. Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is a versatile technique that enables the determination of intact or reduced particle number and the quantification of several product-related impurities, such as host cell DNA and host cell proteins. Although this f platform is commonly used for purity profiling of monoclonal antibodies in the pharmaceutical industry by ultraviolet (UV) detection, it requires a large amount of product, making it not suitable for virus-based pharmaceuticals, where total protein concentration (dose) is relatively low. This work presents a highly sensitive CE methodology for monitoring different bioprocess steps and final product characterization of several viral vectors. A fluorescence labelling procedure using the (3-(2-furoyl) quinoline-2-carboxaldehyde dye was used, enabling the detection of the viral proteins through Sodium dodecyl sulfate-capillary gel electrophoresis (CE-SDS) method coupled to a laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) detector. Please click Download on the upper right corner to see the full abstract

Complement in reproductive white adipose tissue characterizes the obese preeclamptic-like BPH/5 mouse prior to and during pregnancy

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Preeclampsia (PE) is a serious hypertensive disorder of pregnancy characterized by abnormal placental development with an unknown etiology. To better understand which women will develop PE, a number of maternal risk factors have been identified, including obesity. Visceral white adipose tissue (WAT) contains inflammatory mediators that may contribute to PE. To explore this, we utilized the blood pressure high (BPH)/5 mouse model of superimposed PE that spontaneously recapitulates the maternal PE syndrome. We hypothesized that BPH/5 visceralWAT adjacent to the female reproductive tract (reproductiveWAT) is a source of complement factors that contribute to the inflammatory milieu and angiogenic imbalance at the maternal-fetal interface in this model and in preeclamptic women. To test our hypothesis, we calorie-restricted BPH/5 females for two weeks prior to pregnancy and the first seven days of pregnancy, which attenuated complement component 3 (C3) but not complement factor B, nor complement factor D, (adipsin) in the reproductiveWAT or the implantation site in BPH/5. Furthermore, calorie restriction during pregnancy restored vascular endothelial and placental growth factor mRNA levels in the BPH/5 implantation site. These data show maternal reproductive WAT may be a source of increased C3 during pregnancy, which is increased at the maternal-fetal interface in preeclamptic BPH/5 mice. It also suggests that calorie restriction could regulate inflammatory mediators thought to contribute to placental dysfunction in PE. Future studies are necessary to examine the e_ect of calorie restriction on C3 throughout pregnancy and the role of maternal obesity in PE

Evidence Of Chemotaxis By Quantitative Measurement Of The Force Vectors Of Trypanossoma Cruzi In The Vicinity Of The Rhodnius Prolixus Midgut Wall Cell

In this work we used a methodology to study chemotaxis of Trypanossoma cruzi (T. Cruzi) in real time using an Optical Tweezers system. Trapped beads were used as a force transducer for measuring forces of the same order of magnitude as typical forces induced by flagellar motion. Optical Tweezers allowed real time measurements of the force vectors, strength and direction, of living parasites under chemical or other kinds of gradients. This seems to be the ideal tool to perform observations of taxis response of cells and microorganisms with high sensitivity to capture instantaneous responses to a given stimulus. We applied this methodology to investigate the T. cruzi under distinct situations: the parasite alone and in the presence of its insect-vector Rhodnius prolixus (R. prolixus). © 2009 SPIE.7400http://www.who.int/tdr/diseases/chagas/diseaseinfo.htmlAnna, B., Carole, A.P., Eukaryotic chemotaxis at a glance (2008) J. Cell Science, 121, pp. 2621-2624Laszlo, K., Chemotaxis: The proper physiological response to evaluate phylogeny of signal molecules (1999) Acta Biol Hung, 50, pp. 375-394Law, A.M.J., Aitken, M.D., Continuous-flow capillary assay for measuring bacterial chemotaxis (2005) Appl. Environ. Microbiol., 71, pp. 3137-3143Khan, S., Jain, S., Reid, G.P., Trentham, D.R., The fast tumble signal in bacterial chemotaxis (2004) Biophys. J., 86, pp. 4049-4058Neuman, K.C., Chadd, E.H., Liou, G.F., Bergman, K., Block, S.M., Characterization of photodamage to escherichia coli in optical traps (1999) Biophys. J., 77, pp. 2856-2863Bleul, C.C., Farzan, M., Choe, H., Parolin, C., Clark-Lewis, I., Sodroski, J., Springer, T.A., The lymphocyte chemoattractant SDF-1 is a ligand for LESTR/fusin and blocks HIV-1 entry (1996) Nature, 382 (6594), pp. 829-833. , DOI 10.1038/382829a0Nagasawa, T., Hirota, S., Tachibana, K., Takakura, N., Nishikawa, S., Kitamura, Y., Yoshida, N., Kishimoto, T., Defects of B-cell lymphopoiesis and bone-marrow myelopoiesis in mice lacking the CXC chemokine PBSF/SDF- 1 (1996) Nature, 382, pp. 635-638Nelson, R.D., Quie, P.G., Simmons, R.L., Spontaneous migration of human polymorphonuclear leukocytes and monocytes, chemotaxis under agarose-new and simple method for measuring chemotaxis and (1975) J. Immunol., 115, pp. 1650-1656Blair, D.F., How bacteria sense and swim (1999) Annu. Rev. Microbiol, 49, pp. 489-522Rao, C.V., Glekas, G.D., Ordal, G.W., The three adaptation systems of bacillus subtilis chemotaxis (2008) Trends Microbiol, 16, pp. 480-487Barros, V.C., Oliveira, J.S., Melo, M.N., Gontijo, N.F., Leishmania amazonensis: Chemotaxic and osmotaxic responses in promastigotes and their probable role in development in the phlebotomine gut (2006) Exp. Parasitol., 112, pp. 152-157Pfeffer, W., (1888) Unters. Botan. Inst., 2, pp. 582-661. , TubingenAdler, J., A method for measuring chemotaxis and use of the method to determine optimum conditions for chemotaxis by escherichia coli (1973) J. Gen. Microbiol., 74, pp. 77-91Alves, C.R., Albuquerque-Cunha, J.M., Mello, C.B., Nogueira, E.S.G.D.N.F., Bourguingnon, S.C., Souza, W.D., Azambuja, P., Gonzalez, M.S., Trypanosoma cruzi: Attachment to perimicrovillar membrane glycoproteins of rhodnius prolixus (2007) Experimental Parasitology, 116, pp. 44-52Fontes, A., Giorgio, S., De Castro Jr., A.B., Neto, V.M., De Pozzo, L.Y., Marques, G.P., Barbosa, L.C., Cesar, C.L., Determination of Femto Newton forces and fluid viscosity using optical tweezers - Application to Leishmania amazonensis (2005) Progress in Biomedical Optics and Imaging - Proceedings of SPIE, 5699, pp. 419-425. , DOI 10.1117/12.586427, 59, Imaging, Manipulation, and Analysis of Biomolecules and Cells: Fundamentals and Applications II

A 46,XX testicular disorder of sex development caused by a Wilms’ tumour Factorâ 1 (WT1) pathogenic variant

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146930/1/cge13459_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146930/2/cge13459.pd

BMP-SMAD Signaling Regulates Lineage Priming, but Is Dispensable for Self-Renewal in Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells

Naive mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) are in a metastable state and fluctuate between inner cell mass- and epiblast-like phenotypes. Here, we show transient activation of the BMP-SMAD signaling pathway in mESCs containing a BMP-SMAD responsive reporter transgene. Activation of the BMP-SMAD reporter transgene in naive mESCs correlated with lower levels of genomic DNA methylation, high expression of 5-methylcytosine hydroxylases Tet1/2 and low levels of DNA methyltransferases Dnmt3a/b. Moreover, naive mESCs, in which the BMP-SMAD reporter transgene was activated, showed higher resistance to differentiation. Using double Smad1;Smad5 knockout mESCs, we showed that BMP-SMAD signaling is dispensable for self-renewal in both naive and ground state. These mutant mESCs were still pluripotent, but they exhibited higher levels of DNA methylation than their wild-type counterparts and had a higher propensity to differentiate. We showed that BMP-SMAD signaling modulates lineage priming in mESCs, by transiently regulating the enzymatic machinery responsible for DNA methylation