COPD: can genetic Background inform about disease heterogeneity?

People with COPD vary substantially on their pulmonary (e.g., airway obstruction) and extra-pulmonary (e.g., symptoms, functional status) manifestations. The aim of this study was to relate this high heterogeneity to the patient’s genetic Background, namely focusing on polymorphisms associated with COPD and COPD-associated phenotypes and features. Summary statistics for COPD and COPD-associated phenotypes and features (emphysema, FEV1, FEV1/FVC, smoking, BMI, asthma, airway responsiveness, coronary heart disease, blood pressure, pulmonary artery enlargement, resting heart rate and resting oxygen saturation) were obtained from GWAS Catalog (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/gwas/ accessed in August 2021). A local COPD cohort was genotyped using Global Screening Arrays (GSA-Illumina) and polygenic risk scores were calculated per phenotype/feature. A cluster analysis was then carried out to determine how patients would group according to their assessed genetic risks. The study currently includes 255 participants with COPD (68 [61, 74] years old; 79.61% male; FEV1/FVC 53.02 [41.24, 61.94]). Our preliminary results show that people cluster into 3 main groups based on their genetic risk for emphysema, followed by COPD, whilst their clinical characteristics remained similar among groups. Future work is currently being conducted to further explore these clusters and perform their validation. This work was funded by FEDER funds through COMPETE 2020, Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalization (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-028806), CENTRO 2020 (CENTRO-01-0246-FEDER-000018; CENTRO-08-5864-FSE-000039) and by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (UI/BD/151337/2021). The iBiMED is supported by FCT funds under UIDP/04501/2020.publishe

Feeding ecology of the common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) in Western Iberian waters: has the decline in sardine (Sardina pilchardus) affected dolphin diet?

16 pages, 5 tables, 5 figuresPredator diet is expected to respond to changes in the abundance of important prey items. We investigated whether common dolphin diet has changed with changes in the pelagic fish community off the Iberian Peninsula in recent years, in particular with reference to the decline of sardine (Sardina pilchardus) and the increase of Atlantic chub mackerel (Scomber colias) and scads (Trachurus spp.), and estimated how much fish was removed by common dolphins in coastal waters of mainland Portugal. Based on analysis of stomach contents of stranded animals from 2010 to 2013 (n = 150), we related diet composition to sardine abundance, dolphin size and sex, season and region. Despite the decline in sardine stocks in recent years, sardines were the most important prey of common dolphins, as was previously reported in the 1990s, followed by chub mackerel and scads. However, small sardines have disappeared from the diet, consistent with recent poor recruitment to the stock. The relative importance of these pelagic species in the diet increased significantly with increasing dolphin length. The dietary importance of chub mackerel also varied regionally, with higher intake on the southern coast. Finally, we compared the estimated biomass of fish removed by dolphins with that taken by fisheries. We found that even with the severe quota restrictions on sardine catches, total biomass removed by fisheries was over five times greater than the estimated removal by common dolphins. Our results confirm the previously reported preference for energy-rich prey, especially sardine, suggesting that common dolphins in Portuguese waters specialise in feeding on this speciesThis work was funded by the projects SafeSea (EEA-Grants) and MarPro (European Commission Life Programme, NAT/PT/00038). This study received additional support from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through grants SFRH/BPD/64889/2009 to A. Marçalo, SFRH/BD/51416/2011 to L. Nicolau, and SFRH/BD/30240/2006 to M. Ferreira. J. Giménez was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, through the Severo Ochoa Program for Centers of Excellence in R + D + I (SEV-2012-0262).Peer reviewe

Diet of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) from the Gulf of Cadiz: Insights from stomach content and stable isotope analyses

The ecological role of species can vary among populations depending on local and regional differences in diet. This is particularly true for top predators such as the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), which exhibits a highly varied diet throughout its distribution range. Local dietary assessments are therefore critical to fully understand the role of this species within marine ecosystems, as well as its interaction with important ecosystem services such as fisheries. Here, we combined stomach content analyses (SCA) and stable isotope analyses (SIA) to describe bottlenose dolphins diet in the Gulf of Cadiz (North Atlantic Ocean). Prey items identified using SCA included European conger (Conger conger) and European hake (Merluccius merluccius) as the most important ingested prey. However, mass-balance isotopic mixing model (MixSIAR), using δ13C and δ15N, indicated that the assimilated diet consisted mainly on Sparidae species (e.g. seabream, Diplodus annularis and D. bellottii, rubberlip grunt, Plectorhinchus mediterraneus, and common pandora, Pagellus erythrinus) and a mixture of other species including European hake, mackerels (Scomber colias, S. japonicus and S. scombrus), European conger, red bandfish (Cepola macrophthalma) and European pilchard (Sardina pilchardus). These contrasting results highlight differences in the temporal and taxonomic resolution of each approach, but also point to potential differences between ingested (SCA) and assimilated (SIA) diets. Both approaches provide different insights, e.g. determination of consumed fish biomass for the management of fish stocks (SCA) or identification of important assimilated prey species to the consumer (SIA).The study was funded by Fundación Loro Parque, CEPSA (Compañía Española de Petroleos S.A.), EcoCet Project [CGL2011-25543], SafeSea EEA-Grants and European Commission’s Life Programme [MarPro NAT/PT/00038]. J.G. and R.dS. were funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R+D+I [SEV-2012-0262]. A.M. and L.N. were partly supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology [SFRH/BPD/64889/2009 and SFRH/BD/51416/2011]. Project ECOBOGUE-P11RNM7467 was funded by “Consejería de Economía, Innovación y Ciencia – Junta de Andalucía. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript