The repetitive cytoskeletal protein H49 of Trypanosoma cruzi is a calpain-like protein located at the flagellum attachment zone

Paracoccidioides brasiliensis causes paracoccidioidomycosis, a systemic mycosis in Latin America. Formamidases hydrolyze formamide, putatively plays a role infungal nitrogen metabolism. An abundant 45-kDa protein was identified as the P. brasiliensis formamidase. In this study, recombinant formamidase was over-expressed in bacteria and a polyclonal antibody to this protein was produced. Weidentified a 180-kDa protein species reactive to the antibody produced in miceagainst the P. brasiliensis recombinant purified formamidase of 45 kDa. The180-kDa purified protein yielded a heat-denatured species of 45 kDa. Both protein species of 180 and 45 kDa were identified as formamidase by peptide massfinger printing using MS. The identical mass spectra generated by the 180 and the45-kDa protein species indicated that the fungal formamidase is most likely homotetrameric in its native conformation. Furthermore, the purified formami-dase migrated as a protein of 191 kDa in native polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, thus revealing that the enzyme forms a homotetrameric structure in its native state. This enzyme is present in the fungus cytoplasm and the cell wall. Use of a yeast two-hybrid system revealed cell wall membrane proteins, in addition to cytosolic proteins interacting with formamidase. These data provide new insights intoformamidase structure as well as potential roles for formamidase and its interaction partners in nitrogen metabolism

Taxonomia da Ciência Aberta: revisada e ampliada

Objective: review the terminologies and applications of the Open Science taxonomy to build a more comprehensive version that represents the knowledge surrounding the topic theme, in accordance with the current scenario of scholarly communication and the recommendations of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco). Method: his is exploratory research with a deductive approach. The first step was the revision of the taxonomies, with the 12 researchers, who met weekly, for conceptual and epistemological discussions related to Open Science and methodological and procedural definitions for the realization of the study. Results: as a result of the analyses, a taxonomy was developed to be evaluated by the experts. For this, a questionnaire with open questions about each main axis of the taxonomy was sent to 68 specialists. We obtained 21 answers that cooperated with the modeling and exposition of the terms of the new taxonomy proposal. The new taxonomy has 10 main level facets and a total of 96 labels. Conclusions: the perception of the experts brought to light a panorama congruent with Unesco recommendations and the current scenario of Open Science

Taxonomía de la ciencia abierta: revisada y ampliada

Objetivo: revisar as terminologias e aplicações da taxonomia de Ciência Aberta para a construção de uma versão mais abrangente, que represente o conhecimento em volta do tema, em conformidade com o cenário atual da comunicação científica e com as recomendações da Organização das Nações Unidas para a Educação, a Ciência e a Cultura (Unesco). Método: trata-se de uma pesquisa do tipo exploratória com abordagem dedutiva. A primeira etapa foi a revisão das taxonomias, com 12 pesquisadores1 que se reuniram, semanalmente, para discussões conceituais e epistemológicas relacionadas à Ciência Aberta, e definições metodológicas e procedimentais para a realização do estudo. Resultados: como resultado das análises, foi desenvolvida uma taxonomia para ser avaliada pelos especialistas. Para isso, foi enviado um questionário com perguntas abertas, sobre cada eixo principal da taxonomia, para 68 especialistas. Foram obtidas 21 respostas que cooperaram com a modelagem e exposição dos termos para a nova taxonomia. A taxonomia oriunda desse processo de revisão tem 10 facetas de nível principal e o total de 96 rótulos. Conclusões: a percepção dos especialistas trouxe à tona um panorama congruente com as recomendações da Unesco e do atual cenário da Ciência Aberta.Objective: review the terminologies and applications of the Open Science taxonomy to build a more comprehensive version that represents the knowledge surrounding the topic theme, in accordance with the current scenario of scholarly communication and the recommendations of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco). Method: his is exploratory research with a deductive approach. The first step was the revision of the taxonomies, with the 12 researchers, who met weekly, for conceptual and epistemological discussions related to Open Science and methodological and procedural definitions for the realization of the study. Results: as a result of the analyses, a taxonomy was developed to be evaluated by the experts. For this, a questionnaire with open questions about each main axis of the taxonomy was sent to 68 specialists. We obtained 21 answers that cooperated with the modeling and exposition of the terms of the new taxonomy proposal. The new taxonomy has 10 main level facets and a total of 96 labels. Conclusions: the perception of the experts brought to light a panorama congruent with Unesco recommendations and the current scenario of Open Science.Objetivo: revisar las terminologías y aplicaciones de la taxonomía de la Ciencia Abierta, para construir una versión más completa, que represente el conocimiento en torno al tema, de acuerdo con el escenario actual de la comunicación científica y las recomendaciones de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura (Unesco). Método: se trata de una investigación exploratoria con un enfoque deductivo. El primer paso fue la revisión de las taxonomías, con las 12 personas dedicadas a la investigación, que se reunieron semanalmente, para las discusiones conceptuales y epistemológicas relacionadas con la Ciencia Abierta y las definiciones metodológicas y de procedimiento para la realización del estudio. Resultados: como resultado de los análisis, se elaboró una taxonomía para ser evaluada por las personas expertas. Para ello, se envió a 68 personas expertas un cuestionario con preguntas abiertas sobre cada eje principal de la taxonomía. Se obtuvieron 21 respuestas que cooperaron con la modelización y exposición de los términos de la nueva propuesta de taxonomía. La nueva taxonomía tiene 10 facetas de nivel principal y un total de 96 etiquetas. Conclusiones: la percepción de los expertos puso de manifiesto un panorama congruente con las recomendaciones de la Unesco y el escenario actual de la Ciencia Abierta

Social distancing measures to control the COVID-19 pandemic: potential impacts and challenges in Brazil.

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged researchers and policy makers to identify public safety measures forpreventing the collapse of healthcare systems and reducingdeaths. This narrative review summarizes the available evidence on the impact of social distancing measures on the epidemic and discusses the implementation of these measures in Brazil. Articles on the effect of social distancing on COVID-19 were selected from the PubMed, medRXiv and bioRvix databases. Federal and state legislation was analyzed to summarize the strategies implemented in Brazil. Social distancing measures adopted by the population appear effective, particularly when implemented in conjunction with the isolation of cases and quarantining of contacts. Therefore, social distancing measures, and social protection policies to guarantee the sustainability of these measures, should be implemented. To control COVID-19 in Brazil, it is also crucial that epidemiological monitoring is strengthened at all three levels of the Brazilian National Health System (SUS). This includes evaluating and usingsupplementary indicators to monitor the progression of the pandemic and the effect of the control measures, increasing testing capacity, and making disaggregated notificationsand testing resultstransparentand broadly available

Subdominant/Cryptic CD8 T Cell Epitopes Contribute to Resistance against Experimental Infection with a Human Protozoan Parasite

During adaptive immune response, pathogen-specific CD8+ T cells recognize preferentially a small number of epitopes, a phenomenon known as immunodominance. Its biological implications during natural or vaccine-induced immune responses are still unclear. Earlier, we have shown that during experimental infection, the human intracellular pathogen Trypanosoma cruzi restricts the repertoire of CD8+ T cells generating strong immunodominance. We hypothesized that this phenomenon could be a mechanism used by the parasite to reduce the breath and magnitude of the immune response, favoring parasitism, and thus that artificially broadening the T cell repertoire could favor the host. Here, we confirmed our previous observation by showing that CD8+ T cells of H-2a infected mice recognized a single epitope of an immunodominant antigen of the trans-sialidase super-family. In sharp contrast, CD8+ T cells from mice immunized with recombinant genetic vaccines (plasmid DNA and adenovirus) expressing this same T. cruzi antigen recognized, in addition to the immunodominant epitope, two other subdominant epitopes. This unexpected observation allowed us to test the protective role of the immune response to subdominant epitopes. This was accomplished by genetic vaccination of mice with mutated genes that did not express a functional immunodominant epitope. We found that these mice developed immune responses directed solely to the subdominant/cryptic CD8 T cell epitopes and a significant degree of protective immunity against infection mediated by CD8+ T cells. We concluded that artificially broadening the T cell repertoire contributes to host resistance against infection, a finding that has implications for the host-parasite relationship and vaccine development

Educomunicação e diversidade: múltiplas abordagens

Esta coletânea de capítulos intitulada “Educomunicação e Diversidade: múltiplas abordagens” reúne estudos apresentados no VI Encontro Brasileiro de Educomunicação e III EducomSul, realizado em Porto Alegre em 2015. Nessa obra, percebe-se que as dimensões interculturais, transversais e cidadãs suscitadas pela educomunicação vêm contribuindo para o aumento de intervenções comunicacionais diversas, em termos de linguagens e de conteúdos, em práticas educativas formais e não formais. Denotando a diversidade como uma área em expansão na educomunicação

2018 Research & Innovation Day Program

A one day showcase of applied research, social innovation, scholarship projects and activities.https://first.fanshawec.ca/cri_cripublications/1005/thumbnail.jp

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016