Notes on the diet of seven terrestrial frogs in three agroecosystems and forest remnants in Northwestern São Paulo State, Brazil.

Anurans are predators of a great diversity of invertebrates, but studies on agroecosystems are very scarce. Herein we described the diet composition of seven species of terrestrial anurans captured in three different agroecosystems (corn, soybean and rubber tree) and in forest remnants of the Northwestern region of São Paulo state, Brazil. Ten prey categories were identified in the stomachs of 80 specimens belonging to the families Bufonidae, Leptodactylidae and Microhylidae. Hymenoptera (Formicidae) was consumed by all species. Coleoptera was the most frequent item, consumed by six of the even species followed by Araneae and Isoptera. Isoptera was the most abundant item followed by Formicidae, Coleoptera and Araneae. Adults and juveniles of Physalaemus nattereri, the most abundant species in our study, consumed Formicidae and Isoptera more than other food items and there is not a significant difference in the abundance of consumed prey items between the age categories. In summary, the majority of the studied species can be considered generalists predators and, probably, consumed the prey items available in the environment. The most abundant species found in our study can be considered here as having a specialized diet, by consuming social insects in great frequency.Published online on 12 August 2015

Management of Vesicouterine fistulae during fistulae surgical caravan in Cote d'Ivoire

Background: The urogenital fistula (UGF) which designate a solution of continuity between the urinary and genital tracts in women, are divided into several entities of variable gravity. The objective of this study was to describe the epidemiological, clinical and therapeutic characteristics of patients treated for vesicouterine fistula during ‘fistulas surgical caravans’.Methods: This was a prospective and descriptive study on a cohort of 34 patients treated for Vesico-uterine fistulae during ‘‘fistulas surgical caravans '' from 1st January 2012 to 31st December 2016.Results: Vesico uterine fistulae represented 2.1% of all urogenital fistulae treated. At the time of occurrence of fistulas, the average age of the patients stay was 33.3 years, and the majority was not educated (88.2%), lived in rural areas without occupations (73.5%). All the fistulae were secondary to childbirth, the majority of which took place on a scarred uterus (67.6%). And this childbirth responsible for the fistula was done by caesarean section in 97.7% of cases. Then the average duration of the fistula before management was 6 years. Finally, all the patients were operated by the same surgical technique, made by abdominal extra peritoneal transvesical way. The cure rate after this surgical technique was 97.1% (33 patients). The only case of failure required a second operation by another technique which permitted the healing of the patient.Conclusions: The vesicouterine fistulae were rare and the satisfactory results of their management invite us to sustain these surgical caravans and ensure their widespread

Altered tumor formation and evolutionary selection of genetic variants in the human MDM4 oncogene

A large body of evidence strongly suggests that the p53 tumor suppressor pathway is central in reducing cancer frequency in vertebrates. The protein product of the haploinsufficient mouse double minute 2 (MDM2) oncogene binds to and inhibits the p53 protein. Recent studies of human genetic variants in p53 and MDM2 have shown that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) can affect p53 signaling, confer cancer risk, and suggest that the pathway is under evolutionary selective pressure (1–4). In this report, we analyze the haplotype structure of MDM4, a structural homolog of MDM2, in several different human populations. Unusual patterns of linkage disequilibrium (LD) in the haplotype distribution of MDM4 indicate the presence of candidate SNPs that may also modify the efficacy of the p53 pathway. Association studies in 5 different patient populations reveal that these SNPs in MDM4 confer an increased risk for, or early onset of, human breast and ovarian cancers in Ashkenazi Jewish and European cohorts, respectively. This report not only implicates MDM4 as a key regulator of tumorigenesis in the human breast and ovary, but also exploits for the first time evolutionary driven linkage disequilibrium as a means to select SNPs of p53 pathway genes that might be clinically relevant

Altered tumor formation and evolutionary selection of genetic variants in the human MDM4 oncogene

A large body of evidence strongly suggests that the p53 tumor suppressor pathway is central in reducing cancer frequency in vertebrates. The protein product of the haploinsufficient mouse double minute 2 (MDM2) oncogene binds to and inhibits the p53 protein. Recent studies of human genetic variants in p53 and MDM2 have shown that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) can affect p53 signaling, confer cancer risk, and suggest that the pathway is under evolutionary selective pressure (1–4). In this report, we analyze the haplotype structure of MDM4, a structural homolog of MDM2, in several different human populations. Unusual patterns of linkage disequilibrium (LD) in the haplotype distribution of MDM4 indicate the presence of candidate SNPs that may also modify the efficacy of the p53 pathway. Association studies in 5 different patient populations reveal that these SNPs in MDM4 confer an increased risk for, or early onset of, human breast and ovarian cancers in Ashkenazi Jewish and European cohorts, respectively. This report not only implicates MDM4 as a key regulator of tumorigenesis in the human breast and ovary, but also exploits for the first time evolutionary driven linkage disequilibrium as a means to select SNPs of p53 pathway genes that might be clinically relevant

Caffeoylquinic Acids Biosynthesis and Accumulation in Cynara cardunculus: State of the Art

Plant secondary metabolites are highly evolved compounds performing different functions, and have been widely exploited from food to medicine. A constant supply of phenols, a class of secondary metabolites, provides preventive and defensive mechanisms to reduce the risk of chronic diseases in human beings; among them mono- and di-caffeoylquinic acids (monoCQAs, diCQAs) have attracted a growing academic and industrial interest in recent years. In Cynara cardunculus L. the biosynthetic pathway of chlorogenic acid (CGA, 5-O-caffeoylquinic acid) has been the subject of our several recent studies. Here, we report the state of the art on the isolation and in vitro functional characterization of the genes involved in the biosynthetic pathway of the CGA: HCT (hydroxycinnamoyl-CoA shikimate/quinate hydroxycinnamoyl-transferase), HQT (hydroxycinnamoyl-CoA quinate hydroxyl-cinnamoyl-transferase), two HQT-like genes, we named Acyltransf_1 and Acyltransf_2, and C3’H (p-coumaroyl ester 3’-hydroxylase). Plant phenolics are known to be involved in the plant stress response and we found out that in globe artichoke the exposure to UV-C induces the production of diCQAs. In UV-C treated globe artichoke leaves, the expression level of C3´H, HCT, HQT, Acyltransf_1, Acyltransf_2 genes was strongly increased, thus confirming their involvement in the synthesis of chlorogenic acid. The development of DNA-based markers for the isolated genes made it possible to locate them within the previously developed genetic maps of the species

Location of chlorogenic acid biosynthesis pathway and polyphenol oxidase genes in a new interspecific anchored linkage map of eggplant

© Gramazio et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2014. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated