Papel de NFkB como posible biomarcador en el desarrollo de cáncer de pulmón en pacientes previamente diagnosticados de EPOC

Comunicaciones a congreso

Bonchoalveolar lavage fluid sample preparation for diverse proteomic approaches in pulmonary diseases

Comunicaciones a congreso

Discards from a deep-sea shrimp fishery in Angolan waters (SW Africa)

A programme of observers on board Spanish shrimp trawlers in Angola was initiated by IEO in 2018 in order to improve the scientific information required by Sustainable Management of External Fishing Fleets (SMEFF Regulation of the EU). In this context, discard studies are considered very relevant, both for assessment purposes and for obtaining information on adverse ecological impacts in marine ecosystems. Most fishing hauls performed during the observed period November 2018 to December 2019 were carried out at depths between 384 and 649 m, with classic bottom otter trawl targeting the striped red shrimp Aristeus varidens. Discards accounted for 60% of the total catch during the analysed period. The estimated global discard rate for 2019 (2.2 discard/retained catch) indicates that 1915 tonnes of retained catch produced 4213 tonnes of discards, of which a small amount is of commercial species, as A. varidens (3.8 tonnes) and Merluccius polli (153 tonnes). A total of 131 discarded species were identified, with the highest group contribution being fish (70%), followed by crustaceans (20%). The most abundant species in discard weight were Ariomma melanum, Lamprogrammus exutus, Chaunax pictus, Centroscymnus owstonii, Hoplostethus cadenati, Lophius vaillanti, Yarrella blackfordi and Ariomma bondi (all together accounting for 55% of discards). The most frequent species were H. cadenati and L. exutus, discarded in 95% of the analysed fishing hauls. Discards estimations of commercial species obtained through a long-term observers program might result in improving the assessments of main commercial species from Angolan deep sea waters

Effect of the mother tree age and acorn weight in the regenerative characteristics of Quercus faginea

[EN] The establishment of oak trees is often a slow and difficult process. Hence, it is necessary to determine the characteristics that can lead to improving their regeneration. In this genus, seed size is highly variable both at the interspecific and intraspecific levels, and the effects of intrapopulation variability are not well understood, being even less so for Quercus faginea. In this study, the effects of the age of the mother tree, seed weight and the interaction between these two factors on seed germination, emergence and growth (biomass) were analysed. For this purpose, 16 trees—8 young and 8 old—were selected with the intent to cover the entire range of acorn weights produced in this population. Among the main results, it should be noted that: (1) in older trees, it is easier to find larger acorns; (2) the percentage and the speed of germination of the acorns of young trees is greater than that of old trees; (3) the percentage and the speed of seedling emergence of young trees is greater than that of old trees; and (4) cotyledon weight is the variable that most influences biomass, quite often in a positive way. Therefore, maintaining intrapopulation variability seems to be an approach that most favours the persistence of these populations

Growth of the deep water rose shrimp Parapenaeus longirostris in Mauritanian waters (NW Africa)

The deep water rose shrimp Parapenaeus longirostris is the main target species of a Spanish fleet of shrimp bottom trawlers operating in the Mauritanian EEZ. The life history of this species is well known in north eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean waters, while the information is quite limited for the eastern central Atlantic. Biological samplings of the species were conducted by scientific observers onboard this fleet, from catches obtained during 17 fishing trips performed between March 2014 and June 2019. The carapace lengths (CL) of 91662 specimens (54% females and 46% males) were grouped in 33 monthly length frequency distributions. For the study of the length–age relationship, the Von Bertalanffy Growth Function (VBGF) was fit to the monthly length distributions by using the ELEFAN I routine followed by separating the frequency histograms into normal components through the Bhattacharya’s method and the NORMSEP routine. These analyses were carried out separately for males, females, and combined sexes, using the FISAT II automatic calculation program. CL of females and males ranged from 11.6 to 39.2 mm and 10.5 to 30.5 mm, respectively. Three and five modal components (annual cohorts) were identified for females and males, respectively. The growth function estimated parameters were CL∞=41.74, k=0.51 for combined sexes, CL∞= 41.67, k= 0.51 for females and CL∞= 32.24, k=0.84 for males. Estimated growth performance indices were around 2.95 for combined sexes, females and males. The estimated parameters may be used as input to test length-based methodologies for the assessment of this data-limited stock, for which only production models have been used so far

Weather and rail delays: Analysis of metropolitan rail in Dublin

With changes in the global climate, the occurrence of severe weather events appears to be becoming ever more frequent. As a result of this, vital transport networks are becoming increasingly exposed to disruption or disablement due to weather related incidents. In order to adapt to these changing conditions it is important to gain an understanding of how weather currently impacts transport systems. This paper presents the results of a statistical analysis of the impact of weather conditions on the performance of metropolitan commuter rail based upon observations made on the Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART) rail system. Utilising a dataset comprising daily performance observations for 30 train services operating across the DART network, this research applies a number of multiple regression models to gain an understanding of the role of weather, temporal effects, and resulting interactions, on delays experienced by the network. While research in this area has traditional focused on the impact of single events, this study presents an examination of the role of multiple factors and their interactions. With regard to temporal effects, the largest delays are observed in the last third of the year, with peak delays occurring in November. Delays due to adverse weather conditions are observed, with rain being the primary factor related to poor performance. Interactions between different weather conditions, particularly wind and rain, as well as between weather conditions and the month in which a journey took place were also observed to be significant and resulting in delays to services

The curse of the uncultured fungus

The international DNA sequence databases abound in fungal sequences not annotated beyond the kingdom level, typically bearing names such as “uncultured fungus”. These sequences beget low-resolution mycological results and invite further deposition of similarly poorly annotated entries. What do these sequences represent? This study uses a 767,918-sequence corpus of public full-length fungal ITS sequences to estimate what proportion of the 95,055 “uncultured fungus” sequences that represent truly unidentifiable fungal taxa – and what proportion of them that would have been straightforward to annotate to some more meaningful taxonomic level at the time of sequence deposition. Our results suggest that more than 70% of these sequences would have been trivial to identify to at least the order/family level at the time of sequence deposition, hinting that factors other than poor availability of relevant reference sequences explain the low-resolution names. We speculate that researchers’ perceived lack of time and lack of insight into the ramifications of this problem are the main explanations for the low-resolution names. We were surprised to find that more than a fifth of these sequences seem to have been deposited by mycologists rather than researchers unfamiliar with the consequences of poorly annotated fungal sequences in molecular repositories. The proportion of these needlessly poorly annotated sequences does not decline over time, suggesting that this problem must not be left unchecked

HIV envelope trimer-elicited autologous neutralizing antibodies bind a region overlapping the N332 glycan supersite

To date, immunization studies of rabbits with the BG505 SOSIP.664 HIV envelope glycoprotein trimers have revealed the 241/289 glycan hole as the dominant neutralizing antibody epitope. Here, we isolated monoclonal antibodies from a rabbit that did not exhibit glycan hole–dependent autologous serum neutralization. The antibodies did not compete with a previously isolated glycan hole–specific antibody but did compete with N332 glycan supersite broadly neutralizing antibodies. A 3.5-Å cryoEM structure of one of the antibodies in complex with the BG505 SOSIP.v5.2 trimer demonstrated that while the epitope recognized overlapped the N332 glycan supersite by contacting the GDIR motif at the base of V3, primary contacts were located in the variable V1 loop. These data suggest that strain-specific responses to V1 may interfere with broadly neutralizing responses to the N332 glycan supersite and vaccine immunogens may require engineering to minimize these off-target responses or steer them toward a more desirable pathway