Cancer Stem Cell-Like Cells Derived from Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumors

This study aims to examine whether or not cancer stem cells exist in malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNST). Cells of established lines, primary cultures and freshly dissected tumors were cultured in serum free conditions supplemented with epidermal and fibroblast growth factors. From one established human MPNST cell line, S462, cells meeting the criteria for cancer stem cells were isolated. Clonal spheres were obtained, which could be passaged multiple times. Enrichment of stem cell-like cells in these spheres was also supported by increased expression of stem cell markers such as CD133, Oct4, Nestin and NGFR, and decreased expression of mature cell markers such as CD90 and NCAM. Furthermore, cells of these clonal S462 spheres differentiated into Schwann cells, smooth muscle/fibroblast and neurons-like cells under specific differentiation-inducing cultural conditions. Finally, subcutaneous injection of the spheres into immunodeficient nude mice led to tumor formation at a higher rate compared to the parental adherent cells (66% versus 10% at 2.5×105). These results provide evidence for the existence of cancer stem cell-like cells in malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors

The roses ocean and human health chair: A new way to engage the public in oceans and human health challenges

Involving and engaging stakeholders is crucial for studying and managing the complex interactions between marine ecosystems and human health and wellbeing. The Oceans and Human Health Chair was founded in the town of Roses (Catalonia, Spain, NW Mediterranean) in 2018, the fruit of a regional partnership between various stakeholders, and for the purpose of leading the way to better health and wellbeing through ocean research and conservation. The Chair is located in an area of the Mediterranean with a notable fishing, tourist, and seafaring tradition and is close to a marine reserve, providing the opportunity to observe diverse environmental conditions and coastal and maritime activities. The Chair is a case study demonstrating that local, collaborative, transdisciplinary, trans-sector, and bottom-up approaches offer tremendous opportunities for engaging coastal communities to help support long-lasting solutions that benefit everyone, and especially those living by the sea or making their living from the goods and services provided by the sea. Furthermore, the Chair has successfully integrated most of its experts in oceans and human health from the most prestigious institutions in Catalonia. The Chair focuses on three main topics identified by local stakeholders: Fish and Health; Leisure, Health, and Wellbeing; and Medicines from the Sea. Led by stakeholder engagement, the Chair can serve as a novel approach within the oceans and human health field of study to tackle a variety of environmental and public health challenges related to both communicable and non-communicable diseases, within the context of sociocultural issues. Drawing on the example provided by the Chair, four principles are established to encourage improved participatory processes in the oceans and human health field: bottom-up, “think local”, transdisciplinary and trans-sectorial, and “balance the many voices”.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Roses Ocean and Human Health Chair: A New Way to Engage the Public in Oceans and Human Health Challenges

Involving and engaging stakeholders is crucial for studying and managing the complex interactions between marine ecosystems and human health and wellbeing. The Oceans and Human Health Chair was founded in the town of Roses (Catalonia, Spain, NW Mediterranean) in 2018, the fruit of a regional partnership between various stakeholders, and for the purpose of leading the way to better health and wellbeing through ocean research and conservation. The Chair is located in an area of the Mediterranean with a notable fishing, tourist, and seafaring tradition and is close to a marine reserve, providing the opportunity to observe diverse environmental conditions and coastal and maritime activities. The Chair is a case study demonstrating that local, collaborative, transdisciplinary, trans-sector, and bottom-up approaches offer tremendous opportunities for engaging coastal communities to help support long-lasting solutions that benefit everyone, and especially those living by the sea or making their living from the goods and services provided by the sea. Furthermore, the Chair has successfully integrated most of its experts in oceans and human health from the most prestigious institutions in Catalonia. The Chair focuses on three main topics identified by local stakeholders: Fish and Health; Leisure, Health, and Wellbeing; and Medicines from the Sea. Led by stakeholder engagement, the Chair can serve as a novel approach within the oceans and human health field of study to tackle a variety of environmental and public health challenges related to both communicable and non-communicable diseases, within the context of sociocultural issues. Drawing on the example provided by the Chair, four principles are established to encourage improved participatory processes in the oceans and human health field: bottom-up, "think local", transdisciplinary and trans-sectorial, and "balance the many voices"

The involvement of matrix metalloproteinases in the repair of the peripheral nervous system

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DXN057467 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Effects of seasonal closures on benthic communities from two Mediterranean trawling grounds

38th CIESM Congress, Istanbul, Turkey.-- 1 page, 2 figuresSeasonal closures in trawling grounds are generally considered a useful management tool, but there is a lack of knowledge on theirbenefits for benthic communities. Two trawling grounds located in the Catalan and Adriatic seas, which are regulated by a two-monthfishing closure, were surveyed to monitor changes in the benthos during the trawling cessation. Results suggest that closures are too shortto detect a response of benthic communitie

Effects of pigment epithelium derived factor (PEDF) on malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumours (MPNSTs)

Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is an inherited genetic disease affecting 1 in 3,500 individuals. A prominent feature of NF1 is the formation of benign tumours of the peripheral nerve sheath (neurofibromas). However, these can become malignant and form highly metastatic malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumours (MPNST), which are usually fatal despite aggressive surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. Recent studies have shown that pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF) can induce differentiation and inhibit angiogenesis in several kinds of tumours. The present study was designed to determine the in vitro and in vivo effects of PEDF on MPNST angiogenesis and tumour growth. PEDF inhibited proliferation and augmented apoptosis in S462 MPNST cells after 48 h of treatment in culture. In xenografts of S462 MPNST cells in athymic nude mice, PEDF suppressed MPNST tumour burden, due mainly to inhibition of angiogenesis. These results demonstrate for the first time inhibitory effects of PEDF on the growth of human MPNST via induction of anti-angiogenesis and apoptosis. Our results suggest that PEDF could be a novel approach for future therapeutic purposes against MPNST. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York.N

Hierarchical segmentation-based software for cover classification analyses of seabed images (Seascape)

9 pages, 3 figures, 3 tablesAn important aspect of marine research is to quantify the areal coverage of benthic communities. It is technically feasible to efficiently obtain images of marine environments at different depths and benthic habitats over large spatial and temporal scales. Currently, there is a large and growing library of digital images to analyze, representing a valuable benthic ecological archive. Benthic coverage is the basis of studies on biodiversity, characterization of communities and evaluation of changes over temporal and spatial scales. However, there is still a lack of automatic or semi-automatic analytical methods for deriving ecologically relevant data from these images. We introduce a software program named Seascape to obtain semi-automatically segmented images (patch outlines) from underwater photographs of benthic communities, where each individual patch (species/categories) is routinely associated to its area cover and perimeter. Seascape is an analog to the classical and better known discipline of landscape ecology approach, which focuses on the concept that communities can be observed as a patch mosaic at any scale. The process starts with a hierarchical segmentation, using a color space criteria adapted to the problem of segmenting complex benthic images. As an endproduct, we obtain a set of images ­segmented into classified homogenous regions at different resolution levels (hierarchical seg­mentation). To illustrate the versatility and capacity of Seascape, we analyzed 4 digital images from different habitats and depths: coral reefs (Pacific Ocean), coralligenous communities (NW Mediterranean Sea), deep-water coral reefs (NW Mediterranean Sea) and the Antarctic continental shelf (Weddell Sea). The development of this semi-automatic outline tool and its use for classification constitute an important step ­forward in the analysis and processing time of underwater seabed images at any scaleThis work was funded by the Medchange project (Agence National de la Recherche, France), the Marie Curie Reintegration Grant Mechanisms (FP7- No.207632), the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (CTM2009-06027-E/MAR) and TOTAL Foundation (MedDiversa Project). N.T. was partially funded by I3P-CSIC and Beatriu Pinós contracts (2009-BP-B-00263). The authors thank Dr. J. Smith, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and IFMGEOMAR for the shallow and deep-water coral reef images, respectivelyPeer reviewe

The red shrimp Aristeus antennatus (Risso, 1816) fishery and biology in the Balearic Islands, Western Mediterranean

The present study updates the information on the red shrimp fishery in the waters of the Balearic Islands in the middle of the Western Mediterranean, from its beginning to the present. Also, the development of the fishery and the biology of the shrimp population exploited from 1992 to 1997 is analysed. The red shrimp (Aristeus antennatus) is one of the most important resources of bottom trawling in the Balearic Islands. It is fished on the slope between depths of 400 to 800 m. In biomass, it represents an average of 5% of the overall catches, but its economic value is 30% of the total earnings of the fishery. From 1948 to 1997, the landing increased at an average rate of 3405 kg per year. However, this increment was not constant for the whole period, and has been decreasing in the last five years. The engine power of boats fishing on the slope of the Balearic Islands doubled from the 1970s until the end of the study. At the moment, the number of fishing units is decreasing, although the power of the individual boats is increasing continuously. The trawl yields varied between 3 and 14 kg/h. The highest yields occurred in winter and spring. The decline of the sizes at first capture in 1997 and the increase of juveniles in the catches can be interpreted as a change in the fishery strategy, which has increased the exploitation effort on the small sizesPublicado

Efectos de la perturbación crónica por la pesca de arrastre sobre la producción secundaria de las comunidades suprabénticas e infaunales de crustáceos en el Mar Adriático (Mediterráneo NO)

13 pages, 6 figures[EN] Towing gears are known to produce several kinds of effects on benthic ecosystems. As small organisms and benthic species with faster growth rates and shorter life histories can withstand the fishing mortality and benefit from reduced competition or predation, trawl fishing can enhance their proliferation. Thus, trawl fishing can lead to biomass loss and production increase, since smaller specimens are more productive than bigger ones. In the present study we evaluate the effects, if any, of trawling on benthic crustacean macrofaunal production rates. Sampling was carried out in two neighbouring sites in the central Adriatic Sea (central Mediterranean), one affected by fishing activity and one not. Production and production/biomass (P/B) ratio of 13 species of peracarid and eucarid crustaceans were estimated using the Hynes size-frequency method. Estimates measured at both sites were compared in order to test the hypothesis that higher production and P/B values should occur in the fished area rather than in the unfished one. Our results indicated that the effects on the species are more complex than expected in regard to this hypothesis, and that they depend on the ecological and behavioural characteristics of the selected species. [ES] Las artes de pesca de arrastre pueden tener varios tipos de efectos sobre los ecosistemas bénticos. Considerando que los organismos pequeños y las especies bénticas con mayores tasas de crecimiento y menores expectativas de vida pueden soportar la mortalidad por pesca y beneficiarse de una reducción en la competencia o depredación, la pesca de arrastre puede propiciar su proliferación y, por ende, resultar en una pérdida de biomasa y un incremento en producción, ya que las especies de menor talla son más productivas que las de mayor tamaño. En el presente estudio se evalúan los efectos, si es que los hay, de la pesca de arrastre sobre las tasas de producción de la macrofauna béntica. Los muestreos se realizaron en dos sitios adyacentes en la parte central del Mar Adriático (Mediterráneo central), uno impactado por actividad de pesca y otro no. Se estimaron la producción y la razón producción/biomasa (P/B) de 13 especies de crustáceos peracáridos y eucáridos mediante el método de frecuencia de tallas de Hynes. Las estimaciones para ambios sitios se compararon para probar la hipótesis de que los valores de producción y P/B deberían de ser mayores en la zona de pesca que en la zona de exclusión a la pesca. Los resultados indican que los efectos sobre las especies son más complejos que los esperados en relación a esta hipótesis, y que dependen de las características ecológicas y el comportamiento de las especies seleccionadas.[en] This study is part of the EU project (Q5RS-2002-00787) "Response of benthic communities and sediment to different regimens of fishing disturbance in European coastal waters (RESPONSE)". [es] Este estudio es parte del proyecto de la Unión Europea (Q5RS-2002-00787) "Respuesta de diferentes comunidades bénticas y el sedimento a distintos regímenes de perturbaciones pesqueras en aguas costeras europeas (RESPONSE)".Peer reviewe

SHANK2 Mutations Result in Dysregulation of the ERK1/2 Pathway in Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells-Derived Neurons and Shank2(−/−) Mice

International audienceSHANK2 (ProSAP1) is a postsynaptic scaffolding protein of excitatory synapses in the central nervous system and implicated in the development of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Patients with mutations in SHANK2 show autism-like behaviors, developmental delay, and intellectual disability. We generated human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) from a patient carrying a heterozygous deletion of SHANK2 and from the unaffected parents. In patient hiPSCs and derived neurons SHANK2 mRNA and protein expression was reduced. During neuronal maturation, a reduction in growth cone size and a transient increase in neuronal soma size were observed. Neuronal proliferation was increased, and apoptosis was decreased in young and mature neurons. Additionally, mature patient hiPSC-derived neurons showed dysregulated excitatory signaling and a decrease of a broad range of signaling molecules of the ERK-MAP kinase pathway. These findings could be confirmed in brain samples from Shank2 (−/−) mice, which also showed decreased mGluR5 and phospho-ERK1/2 expression. Our study broadens the current knowledge of SHANK2-related ASD. We highlight the importance of excitatory-inhibitory balance and mGluR5 dysregulation with disturbed downstream ERK1/2 signaling in ASD, which provides possible future therapeutic strategies for SHANK2-related ASD