Evaluation of the transport properties of copper ions through a heterogeneous ion-exchange membrane in etidronic acid solutions by chronopotentiometry

[EN] The transport properties of copper chelates across an anion-exchange membrane were investigated by means of chronopotentiometry. Several solutions containing etidronic acid, copper sulfate and potassium chloride were evaluated. Tests were accomplished in a three-compartment reactor using a heterogeneous membrane containing quaternary ammonium functional groups. Results showed a strong relation between the amount of chelated anions and the limiting current density, the electrical resistance and the concentration polarization. An increase in the anionic equivalent charge of the solutions modified the three regions of the current-voltage curves. The acid medium was found to be less favorable because of the possibility of the formation of non-charged species in overlimiting regions. The presence of chloride anions increased the limiting current density, especially when the chloride concentration exceeded the etidronic acid concentration.Authors would like to thank the Institute for Technological Research (IPT), the Institute for Technological Research Foundation (FIPT), to the São Paulo Research Foundation (Fapesp - processes 2012/51871-9, 2014/21943-3 and 2014/13351-9) and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development.Scarazzato, T.; Panossian, Z.; García Gabaldón, M.; Ortega Navarro, EM.; Tenório, J.; Pérez-Herranz, V.; Espinosa, D. (2017). Evaluation of the transport properties of copper ions through a heterogeneous ion-exchange membrane in etidronic acid solutions by chronopotentiometry. Journal of Membrane Science. 535:268-278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.memsci.2017.04.048S26827853

Influence of the co-ions on the transport of sulfate through anion exchange membranes

[EN] The increasing demand for clean industrial processes has intensified the use of electrodialysis (ED) in the treatment of metal containing effluents from plating processes. Nickel rinsewater is a multicomponent solution that can be treated by ED in order to recover chemicals and reuse water. The investigation of the different phenomena involved in the transport of anions through anion-exchange membranes in this wastewater has been performed in different synthetic solutions by chronopotentiometry. Parameters like the limiting current density (i(lim)), the plateau length (Delta U-m), the resistance of the ohmic region (R-ohm) and the resistance of the overlimiting region (R-3) were also determined. Even though an anion exchange membrane (AEM), the limiting current density was affected by the proton leakage phenomena, indicated that the proton H+ has a greater effect than the other co-ions (Ni2+, Mg2+ and Na+). Ohmic resistances were reduced and plateau lengths were increased in the presence of protons. For salts solutions (without acid) the highest diffusion coefficients and lowest co-ion hydrated radii gave the highest plateau lengths and i(lim), but the lowest R-ohm.This study was financially supported by Erasmus Brazilian Windows Plus (EBW+), CAPES, CNPq, BNDES, FINEP, SCIT and FAPERGS.Benvenuti, T.; García Gabaldón, M.; Ortega Navarro, EM.; Rodrigues, M.; Bernardes, A.; Pérez-Herranz, V.; Zoppas-Ferreira, J. (2017). Influence of the co-ions on the transport of sulfate through anion exchange membranes. Journal of Membrane Science. 542:320-328. doi:10.1016/j.memsci.2017.08.021S32032854

Eel sperm cryopreservation: an overview

[EN] The eels are teleost fishes from the order Anguilliformes that includes several species with high commercial value. Due to the high interest for aquaculture production of some eel species and for the need to restore eel species that are endangered, several research groups have directed their research toward developing protocols to cryopreserve the spermatozoa of Japanese eel (Anguilla japonica) and European eel (Anguilla anguilla). In this review, we provide an overview on the different protocols that have been developed so far. The first developed protocols used DMSO as cryoprotectant in both species with good success, obtaining sperm motilities of over 45% in Japanese eel and over 35% in European eel. Moreover, sperm cryopreserved using DMSO was successfully used in fertilization trials, although with low fertilization rates. However, recent studies show that DMSO produce epigenetic changes in eel sperm and therefore, the last developed protocols used methanol as cryoprotectant instead. Cryopreservation protocols using methanol as cryoprotectant, showed improved motility values in both Japanese and European eel. In addition, the latest protocols have been adapted to cryopreserve larger volumes of sperm of up to 5¿mL, which is useful for larger scale fertilization trials. The present study introduces the state of the art and future perspectives of the eel sperm cryopreservation to be applied in aquaculture and biological conservation programs.Funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement N 642893 (IMPRESS), including the JGHJ and CR pre-doctoral contracts. MM has a postdoc grant from the UPV (PAID -10-18). VG has a postdoc grant from the MICIU (Juan de la CiervaIncorporacion; IJCI-2017-34200). This research was supported by the Higher Education Institutional Excellence Program (1783-3/2018/FEKUTSRAT) awarded by the Ministry of Human Capacities of Hungary within the framework of water related researches of Szent Istvan University as well as the EFOP-3.6.3-VEKOP-16-2017-00008 project co-financed by the European Union and the European Social Fund.Herranz-Jusdado, JG.; Gallego Albiach, V.; Morini, M.; Rozenfeld, C.; Pérez Igualada, LM.; Müller, T.; Horváth, Á.... (2019). Eel sperm cryopreservation: an overview. Theriogenology. 133:210-215. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.theriogenology.2019.03.033S21021513

Comparison of European eel sperm cryopreservation protocols with standardization as a target

[EN] The critical situation of the European eel (Anguilla anguilla) has urged the development of sperm cryopreservation protocols for reproduction in captivity and cryobanking. In the last years, two research groups have developed their own protocols in Spain and Hungary with positive results, but difficult to compare. Here, a series of experiments were conducted to test the quality of thawed sperm after using both protocols, determining which of them produce the best results and aiming for standardization. The quality of thawed sperm was assessed by studying the motility and kinetic values of thawed sperm from both cryopreservation protocols using a computer-assisted sperm analysis (CASA-Mot) system. In addition, a viability analysis was performed using flow cytometry to test if the cryoprotectants or the freezing-thawing process led to a reduction in spermatozoa survival. Furthermore, since during cryopreservation the sperm was treated with methylated cryoprotectants (DMSO or methanol) that may induce epigenetic changes in the sperm DNA (cytosine methylation) and could affect the offspring, we conducted a luminometric methylation assay (LUMA) to study the DNA methylation levels induced by both protocols. In this work, all the above-mentioned parameters were analyzed in fresh and frozen-thawed sperm samples. Our results showed that thawed sperm samples from both protocols presented lower sperm motility and velocity, and lower percentage of live cells than those shown in fresh sperm samples. Furthermore, sperm samples from the methanol based protocol showed significantly higher motility, velocity and percentage of live spermatozoa than the same sperm samples treated with the DMSO based protocol. In addition, the DMSO based protocol induced a hypomethylation of sperm DNA compared to fresh samples whereas the methanol based protocol did not alter sperm DNA methylation level. Our results indicate that the methanol based protocol is a more suitable protocol that preserves better the motility and genetic qualities of the European eel sperm.Funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement N 642893 (IMPRESS), including the JGHJ and CR predoctoral contracts, the French CRB Anim project "Investissements d'avenir", ANR-11-INBS-0003, as well as the Hungarian EFOP 3.6.3.-VEKOP 16.-2017-00008 project, and by the Higher Education Institutional Excellence Program (1783-3/2018/FEKUTSRAT) awarded by the Ministry of Human Capacities within the framework of water related researches of Szent Istvan University. MM, EK, TK and AH were granted with Short Term Scientific Missions by the COST Office (COST Action FA1205: AQUAGAMETE).Herranz-Jusdado, JG.; Gallego Albiach, V.; Morini, M.; Rozenfeld, C.; Pérez Igualada, LM.; Kása, E.; Kollár, T.... (2019). Comparison of European eel sperm cryopreservation protocols with standardization as a target. Aquaculture. 498:539-544. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2018.09.00653954449

A complex scenario of glacial survival in Mediterranean and continental refugia of a temperate continental vole species (Microtus arvalis) in Europe

Los autores de la UAM pertenecen al grupo Terrestrial Ecology Group (TEG)"This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research 58.1 (2020): 459-474, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/jzs.12323. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions"The role of glacial refugia in shaping contemporary species distribution is a long-standing question in phylogeography and evolutionary ecology. Recent studies are questioning previous paradigms on glacial refugia and postglacial recolonization pathways in Europe, and more flexible phylogeographic scenarios have been proposed. We used the widespread common vole Microtus arvalis as a model to investigate the origin, locations of glacial refugia, and dispersal pathways, in the group of “Continental” species in Europe. We used a Bayesian spatiotemporal diffusion analysis (relaxed random walk model) of cytochrome b sequences across the species range, including newly collected individuals from 10 Iberian localities and published sequences from 68 localities across 22 European countries. Our data suggest that the species originated in Central Europe, and we revealed the location of multiple refugia (in both southern peninsulas and continental regions) for this continental model species. Our results confirm the monophyly of Iberian voles and the pre-LGM divergence between Iberian and European voles. We found evidence of restricted postglacial dispersal from refugia in Mediterranean peninsulas. We inferred a complex evolutionary and demographic history of M. arvalis in Europe over the last 50,000 years that does not adequately fit previous glacial refugial scenarios. The phylogeography of M. arvalis provides a paradigm of ice-age survival of a temperate continental species in western and eastern Mediterranean peninsulas (sources of endemism) and multiple continental regions (sources of postglacial spread). Our findings also provide support for a major role of large European river systems in shaping geographic boundaries of M. arvalis in Europ

Planck intermediate results. XXXVIII. E- and B-modes of dust polarization from the magnetized filamentary structure of the interstellar medium

Interstellar and circumstellar matter.-- et al.The quest for a B-mode imprint from primordial gravity waves on the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) requires the characterization of foreground polarization from Galactic dust. We present a statistical study of the filamentary structure of the 353 GHz Planck Stokes maps at high Galactic latitude, relevant to the study of dust emission as a polarized foreground to the CMB. We filter the intensity and polarization maps to isolate filaments in the range of angular scales where the power asymmetry between E-modes and B-modes is observed. Using the Smoothed Hessian Major Axis Filament Finder (SMAFF), we identify 259 filaments at high Galactic latitude, with lengths larger or equal to 2° (corresponding to 3.5 pc in length for a typical distance of 100 pc). Thesefilaments show a preferred orientation parallel to the magnetic field projected onto the plane of the sky, derived from their polarization angles. We present mean maps of the filaments in Stokes I, Q, U, E, and B, computed by stacking individual images rotated to align the orientations of the filaments. Combining the stacked images and the histogram of relative orientations, we estimate the mean polarization fraction of the filaments to be 11%. Furthermore, we show that the correlation between the filaments and the magnetic field orientations may account for the E and B asymmetry and the CℓTE/CℓEE ratio, reported in the power spectra analysis of the Planck353 GHz polarization maps. Future models of the dust foreground for CMB polarization studies will need to take into account the observed correlation between the dust polarization and the structure of interstellar matter.The Planck Collaboration acknowledges the support of: ESA; CNES, and CNRS/INSU-IN2P3-INP (France); ASI, CNR, and INAF (Italy); NASA and DoE (USA); STFC and UKSA (UK); CSIC, MINECO, JA and RES (Spain); Tekes, AoF, and CSC (Finland); DLR and MPG (Germany); CSA (Canada); DTU Space (Denmark); SER/SSO (Switzerland); RCN (Norway); SFI (Ireland); FCT/MCTES (Portugal); ERC and PRACE (EU). The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007−2013)/ERC grant agreement No. 267934.Peer Reviewe

NLRP3 inflammasome activation and symptom burden in KRAS-mutated CMML patients is reverted by IL-1 blocking therapy

Chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML) is frequently associated with mutations in the rat sarcoma gene (RAS), leading to worse prognosis. RAS mutations result in active RAS-GTP proteins, favoring myeloid cell proliferation and survival and inducing the NLRP3 inflammasome together with the apoptosis-associated speck-like protein containing a caspase recruitment domain (ASC), which promote caspase-1 activation and interleukin (IL)-1(3 release. Here, we report, in a cohort of CMML patients with mutations in KRAS, a constitutive activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome in monocytes, evidenced by ASC oligomerization and IL-1(3 release, as well as a specific inflammatory cytokine signature. Treatment of a CMML patient with a KRASG12D mutation using the IL-1 receptor blocker anakinra inhibits NLRP3 inflammasome activation, reduces monocyte count, and improves the patient's clinical status, enabling a stem cell transplant. This reveals a basal inflammasome activation in RAS-mutated CMML patients and suggests potential therapeutic applications of NLRP3 and IL-1 blockers

Planck intermediate results: XXVIII. Interstellar gas and dust in the Chamaeleon clouds as seen by Fermi LAT and Planck

Fermi Collaborations et al.The nearby Chamaeleon clouds have been observed in γ rays by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) and in thermal dust emission by Planck and IRAS. Cosmic rays and large dust grains, if smoothly mixed with gas, can jointly serve with the H i and 12CO radio data to (i) map the hydrogen column densities, NH, in the different gas phases, in particular at the dark neutral medium (DNM) transition between the H i-bright and CO-bright media; (ii) constrain the CO-to-H2 conversion factor, XCO; and (iii) probe the dust properties per gas nucleon in each phase and map their spatial variations across the clouds. We have separated clouds at local, intermediate, and Galactic velocities in H i and 12CO line emission to model in parallel the γ-ray intensity recorded between 0.4 and 100 GeV; the dust optical depth at 353 GHz, τ353; the thermal radiance of the large grains; and an estimate of the dust extinction, AVQ, empirically corrected for the starlight intensity. The dust and γ-ray models have been coupled to account for the DNM gas. The consistent γ-ray emissivity spectra recorded in the different phases confirm that the GeV–TeV cosmic rays probed by the LAT uniformly permeate all gas phases up to the 12CO cores. The dust and cosmic rays both reveal large amounts of DNM gas, with comparable spatial distributions and twice as much mass as in the CO-bright clouds. We give constraints on the H i-DNM-CO transitions for five separate clouds. CO-dark H2 dominates the molecular columns up to AV ≃ 0.9 and its mass often exceeds the one-third of the molecular mass expected by theory. The corrected AVQ extinction largely provides the best fit to the total gas traced by the γ rays. Nevertheless, we find evidence for a marked rise in AVQ/NH with increasing NH and molecular fraction, and with decreasing dust temperature. The rise in τ353/NH is even steeper. We observe variations of lesser amplitude and orderliness for the specific power of the grains, except for a coherent decline by half in the CO cores. This combined information suggests grain evolution. We provide average values for the dust properties per gas nucleon in the different phases. The γ rays and dust radiance yield consistent XCO estimates near 0.7 × 1020 cm-2 K-1 km-1 s. The AVQ and τ353 tracers yield biased values because of the large rise in grain opacity in the CO clouds. These results clarify a recurrent disparity in the γ-ray versus dust calibration of XCO, but they confirm the factor of 2 difference found between the XCO estimates in nearby clouds and in the neighbouring spiral arms.The development of Planck has been supported by: ESA; CNES and CNRS/INSU-IN2P3-INP (France); ASI, CNR, and INAF (Italy); NASA and DoE (USA); STFC and UKSA (UK); CSIC, MICINN, J.A., and RES (Spain); Tekes, AoF, and CSC (Finland); DLR and MPG (Germany); CSA (Canada); DTU Space (Denmark); SER/SSO (Switzerland); RCN (Norway); SFI (Ireland); FCT/MCTES (Portugal); and PRACE (EU).Peer Reviewe

Planck intermediate results. XXIII. Galactic plane emission components derived from Planck with ancillary data

Galactic structure, stellar clusters and populations.-- et al.Planck data when combined with ancillary data provide a unique opportunity to separate the diffuse emission components of the inner Galaxy. The purpose of the paper is to elucidate the morphology of the various emission components in the strong star-formation region lying inside the solar radius and to clarify the relationship between the various components. The region of the Galactic plane covered is l = 300° → 0° → 60° wherestar-formation is highest and the emission is strong enough to make meaningful component separation. The latitude widths in this longitude range lie between 1° and 2°, which correspond to FWHM z-widths of 100−200 pc at a typical distance of 6 kpc. The four emission components studied here are synchrotron, free-free, anomalous microwave emission (AME), and thermal (vibrational) dust emission. These components are identified by constructing spectral energy distributions (SEDs) at positions along the Galactic plane using the wide frequency coverage of Planck (28.4−857 GHz) in combination with low-frequency radio data at 0.408−2.3 GHz plus WMAP data at 23−94 GHz, along with far-infrared (FIR) data from COBE-DIRBE and IRAS. The free-free component is determined from radio recombination line (RRL) data. AME is found to be comparable in brightness to the free-free emission on the Galactic plane in the frequency range 20−40 GHz with a width in latitude similar to that of the thermal dust; it comprises 45 ± 1% of the total 28.4 GHz emission in the longitude range l = 300° → 0° → 60°. The free-free component is the narrowest, reflecting the fact that it is produced by current star-formation as traced by the narrow distribution of OB stars. It is the dominant emission on the plane between 60 and 100 GHz. RRLs from this ionized gas are used to assess its distance, leading to a free-free z-width of FWHM ≈ 100 pc. The narrow synchrotron component has a low-frequency brightness spectral index βsynch ≈ −2.7 that is similar to the broad synchrotron component indicating that they are both populated by the cosmic ray electrons of the same spectral index. The width of this narrow synchrotron component is significantly larger than that of the other three components, suggesting that it is generated in an assembly of older supernova remnants that have expanded to sizes of order 150 pc in 3 × 105 yr; pulsars of a similar age have a similar spread in latitude. The thermal dust is identified in the SEDs with average parameters of Tdust = 20.4 ± 0.4 K, βFIR = 1.94 ± 0.03 (> 353 GHz), and βmm = 1.67 ± 0.02 (< 353 GHz). The latitude distributions of gamma-rays, CO, and the emission in high-frequency Planck bands have similar widths, showing that they are all indicators of the total gaseous matter on the plane in the inner Galaxy.The development of Planck has been supported by: ESA; CNES and CNRS/INSU-IN2P3-INP (France); ASI, CNR, and INAF (Italy); NASA and DoE (USA); STFC and UKSA (UK); CSIC, MICINN, JA and RES (Spain); Tekes, AoF and CSC (Finland); DLR and MPG (Germany); CSA (Canada); DTU Space (Denmark); SER/SSO (Switzerland); RCN (Norway); SFI (Ireland); FCT/MCTES (Portugal); and PRACE (EU). The research leading to these results has received funding from an STFC Consolidated Grant (No. ST/L000768/1), as well as the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement Nos. 267934 and 307209.Peer Reviewe

The new multi-frequency instrument (MFI2) for the QUIJOTE facility in Tenerife

The QUIJOTE (Q-U-I joint Tenerife) experiment combines the operation of two radio-telescopes and three instruments working in the microwave bands 10?20 GHz, 26-36 GHz and 35-47 GHz at the Teide Observatory, Tenerife, and has already been presented in previous SPIE meetings (Hoyland, R. J. et al, 2012; Rubiño-Martín et al., 2012). The Cosmology group at the IAC have designed a new upgrade to the MFI instrument in the band 10-20 GHz. The aim of the QUIJOTE telescopes is to characterise the polarised emission of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), as well as galactic and extra-galactic sources, at medium and large angular scales. This MFI2 will continue the survey at even higher sensitivity levels. The MFI2 project led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) consists of five polarimeters, three of them operating in the sub-band 10?15 GHz, and two in the sub-band 15-20 GHz. The MFI2 instrument is expected to be a full two-three times more sensitive than the former MFI. The microwave complex correlator design has been replaced by a simple correlator design with a digital back-end based on the latest Xilinx FPGAs (ZCU111). During the first half of 2019 the manufacture of the new cryostat was completed and since then the opto-mechanical components have been designed and manufactured. It is expected that the cryogenic front-end will be completed by the end of 2022 along with the FPGA acquisition and observing system. This digital system has been employed to be more robust against stray ground-based and satellite interference, having a frequency resolution of 1 MHz.The MFI2 instrument is being developed by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), with an instrumental participation from the Universidad Politecnica de Cartagena (UPCT). Partial financial support is provided by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN), under the projects AYA2017-84185-P, IACA15-BE-3707, EQC2018-004918-P and the FEDER Agreement INSIDE-OOCC (ICTS-2019-03-IAC-12). We also acknowledge financial support of the Severo Ochoa Programs SEV-2015-0548 and CEX2019-000920-S