Brasil y China en África : El caso de Angola.

Durante el Siglo XXI Brasil y China desarrollaron una activa política africana revalorizando a África por su enorme mercado de consumidores, su cantidad de materias primas, como poseedor de recursos naturales y, sobre todo, energéticos. Se privilegiaron las relaciones con Angola ya que allí encontraron respuesta a algunas de sus necesidades en tanto economías emergentes. Sin embargo, estos países eligieron modelos de relacionamiento diferentes; por lo que el presente artículo analiza comparativamente la relación de China y Brasil con África en general y con Angola en particular, teniendo en cuenta tres dimensiones: la políticodiplomática, la económico-comercial y la energética.Instituto de Relaciones Internacionales (IRI

Brasil y China en África : El caso de Angola.

Durante el Siglo XXI Brasil y China desarrollaron una activa política africana revalorizando a África por su enorme mercado de consumidores, su cantidad de materias primas, como poseedor de recursos naturales y, sobre todo, energéticos. Se privilegiaron las relaciones con Angola ya que allí encontraron respuesta a algunas de sus necesidades en tanto economías emergentes. Sin embargo, estos países eligieron modelos de relacionamiento diferentes; por lo que el presente artículo analiza comparativamente la relación de China y Brasil con África en general y con Angola en particular, teniendo en cuenta tres dimensiones: la políticodiplomática, la económico-comercial y la energética.Instituto de Relaciones Internacionales (IRI

The way to ultrafast, high-throughput enantioseparations of bioactive compounds in liquid and supercritical fluid chromatography

Until less than 10 years ago, chiral separations were carried out with columns packed with 5 or 3 μm fully porous particles (FPPs). Times to resolve enantiomeric mixtures were easily larger than 30 min, or so. Pushed especially by stringent requirements from medicinal and pharmaceutical industries, during the last years the field of chiral separations by liquid chromatography has undergone what can be defined a “true revolution”. With the purpose of developing ever faster and efficient method of separations, indeed, very efficient particle formats, such as superficially porous particles (SPPs) or sub-2 μm FPPs, have been functionalized with chiral selectors and employed in ultrafast applications. Thanks to the use of short column (1–2 cm long), packed with these extremely efficient chiral stationary phases (CSPs), operated at very high flow rates (5–8 mL/min), resolution of racemates could be accomplished in very short time, in many cases less than 1 s in normal-, reversed-phase and HILIC conditions. These CSPs have been found to be particularly promising also to carry out high-throughput separations under supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) conditions. The most important results that have been recently achieved in terms of ultrafast, high-throughput enantioseparations both in liquid and supercritical fluid chromatography with particular attention to the very important field of bioactive chiral compounds will be reviewed in this manuscript. Attention will be focused not only on the latest introduced CSPs and their applications, but also on instrumental modifications which are required in some cases in order to fully exploit the intrinsic potential of new generation chiral columns

Brasil y China en África : El caso de Angola.

Durante el Siglo XXI Brasil y China desarrollaron una activa política africana revalorizando a África por su enorme mercado de consumidores, su cantidad de materias primas, como poseedor de recursos naturales y, sobre todo, energéticos. Se privilegiaron las relaciones con Angola ya que allí encontraron respuesta a algunas de sus necesidades en tanto economías emergentes. Sin embargo, estos países eligieron modelos de relacionamiento diferentes; por lo que el presente artículo analiza comparativamente la relación de China y Brasil con África en general y con Angola en particular, teniendo en cuenta tres dimensiones: la políticodiplomática, la económico-comercial y la energética.Instituto de Relaciones Internacionales (IRI

Insulin secretory granules labelled with phogrin-fluorescent proteins show alterations in size, mobility and responsiveness to glucose stimulation in living β-cells

The intracellular life of insulin secretory granules (ISGs) from biogenesis to secretion depends on their structural (e.g. size) and dynamic (e.g. diffusivity, mode of motion) properties. Thus, it would be useful to have rapid and robust measurements of such parameters in living β-cells. To provide such measurements, we have developed a fast spatiotemporal fluctuation spectroscopy. We calculate an imaging-derived Mean Squared Displacement (iMSD), which simultaneously provides the size, average diffusivity, and anomalous coefficient of ISGs, without the need to extract individual trajectories. Clustering of structural and dynamic quantities in a multidimensional parametric space defines the ISGs’ properties for different conditions. First, we create a reference using INS-1E cells expressing proinsulin fused to a fluorescent protein (FP) under basal culture conditions and validate our analysis by testing well-established stimuli, such as glucose intake, cytoskeleton disruption, or cholesterol overload. After, we investigate the effect of FP-tagged ISG protein markers on the structural and dynamic properties of the granule. While iMSD analysis produces similar results for most of the lumenal markers, the transmembrane marker phogrin-FP shows a clearly altered result. Phogrin overexpression induces a substantial granule enlargement and higher mobility, together with a partial de-polymerization of the actin cytoskeleton, and reduced cell responsiveness to glucose stimulation. Our data suggest a more careful interpretation of many previous ISG-based reports in living β-cells. The presented data pave the way to high-throughput cell-based screening of ISG structure and dynamics under various physiological and pathological conditions

Valorisation of tomato dried peels powder as thickening agent in tomato purees.

Tomato pomade, consisting of peels and seeds, represents 3-4% of fresh fruit weight. If it remains a waste, it gives rise to disposal problems and aggravate environmental pollution. Our aim was to evaluate the potential of dried peels powder as thickening ingredient in commercial tomato purées. Dried peels were ground in fine and rough sizes and physic-chemically characterized. Samples of creamy and rustic purées with tomato fine and rough dried peels powders at different percentages (0.5-5.0%) were prepared and tested for rheological properties and organoleptic characteristics (colour and flavour). The addiction of 3.0% of fine and 1.0% of rough dried peels powder to rustic purees, and 2.0% of fine dried peels powder to creamy purees resulted as the best combination to reduce the impact of industrial evaporation. The proposed approach could transform a waste in a value-added product to be reused, even in the producer’s supply chain itself

Biomarkers of Chronic Inflammatory State in Uremia and Cardiovascular Disease

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the general population; traditional risk factors seem inadequate to explain completely the remarkable prevalence of cardiovascular mortality and morbidity observed in the uremic population. A role for chronic inflammation has been well established in the development of atherosclerotic disease, and, on the basis of these observations, atherosclerosis might be considered an inflammatory disease. Inflammation has been implicated in the etiology of coronary artery disease in the general population, and traditional inflammatory biomarkers such as C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) have been shown to predict cardiovascular events in both symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals as well as those in the uremic population. Later on, new nontraditional markers were related to the risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in general and in uremic population. As a consequence of the expanding research base and availability of assays, the number of inflammatory marker tests ordered by clinicians for cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk prediction has grown rapidly and several commercial assays have become available. So, up to now we can consider that several new nontraditional markers as CD40-CD40 ligand system and pentraxin-3 seem to be significant features of cardiovascular disease in general and in ESRD population

Optical Nanoscopy of Cytokine-Induced Structural Alterations of the Endoplasmic Reticulum and Golgi Apparatus in Insulin-Secreting Cells

first_pagesettingsOrder Article Reprints Open AccessArticle Optical Nanoscopy of Cytokine-Induced Structural Alterations of the Endoplasmic Reticulum and Golgi Apparatus in Insulin-Secreting Cells by Licia Anna Pugliese 1,*,Valentina De Lorenzi 1ORCID,Marta Tesi 2,Piero Marchetti 2 andFrancesco Cardarelli 1,*ORCID 1 NEST Laboratory—Scuola Normale Superiore, Piazza San Silvestro 12, 56127 Pisa, Italy 2 Islet Cell Laboratory, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy * Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2024, 25(19), 10391; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms251910391 Submission received: 9 August 2024 / Revised: 20 September 2024 / Accepted: 25 September 2024 / Published: 27 September 2024 (This article belongs to the Section Molecular Biology) Downloadkeyboard_arrow_down Browse Figures Versions Notes Abstract Pro-inflammatory cytokines play a role in the failure of β cells in type 1 and type 2 diabetes. While existing data from ‘omics’ experiments allow for some understanding of the molecular mechanisms behind cytokine-induced dysfunction in β cells, no report thus far has provided information on the direct imaging of the β cell landscape with nanoscale resolution following cytokine exposure. In this study, we use Airyscan-based optical super-resolution microscopy of Insulinoma 1E (INS-1E) cells to investigate the structural properties of two subcellular membranous compartments involved in the production, maturation and secretion of insulin-containing granules, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and the Golgi apparatus (GA). Our findings reveal that exposure of INS-1E cells to IL-1β and IFN-γ for 24 h leads to significant structural alterations of both compartments. In more detail, both the ER and the GA fragment and give rise to vesicle-like structures with markedly reduced characteristic area and perimeter and increased circularity with respect to the original structures. These findings complement the molecular data collected thus far on these compartments and their role in β cell dysfunction and lay the groundwork for future optical microscopy-based ex vivo and in vivo investigations