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

The Intestinal Microbiota Contributes to the Ability of Helminths to Modulate Allergic Inflammation

We thank Manuel Kulagin for technical help, Pierre Bonnaventure for portal vein blood sampling, Francisco Sepulveda for technical assistance in GS-MS acquisition, and Dorothee Hahne (Metabolomics Australia, University of Western Australia) for human samples SCFA isolation, acquisition, and analysis. We also thank Cristina Cartoni (Phenotyping Unit, EPFL) for Milliplex analysis, Jessica Dessimoz and her team from the Histology Core Facility (EPFL), Miguel Garcia and his team from the Flow Cytometry Core Facility (EPFL), and staff from the EPFL CPG animal house for excellent animal care. The computations were partially performed at the Vital-IT Center for high-performance computing of the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (http://www.vital-it.ch). The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n. 310948. Funding for A.W.W. and a subset of the 16S rRNA gene sequencing was provided by the Wellcome Trust (grant number WT 098051). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Internet Use and Perceived Parental Involvement among Adolescents from Lower Socioeconomic Groups in Europe: An Exploration

Internet usage is a salient developmental factor in adolescents' lives. Although relevant correlates of Internet use have been documented earlier, there is a lack of information on lower socioeconomic status groups. This is important, as these adolescents have increased risk of negative online experiences. The current survey aimed to explore Internet use and parental involvement amongst adolescents from areas of socio-economic disadvantage in 30 urban schools across five European countries. A total of 2594 students participated, of whom 90% were 14-16 years. Virtually all adolescents of socioeconomic disadvantage had Internet access, with 88.5% reporting spending more than two hours per day online, often on apps such as Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube. Almost one-third of adolescents did not talk with their parents about their Internet use and almost two-thirds indicated that their parents were only a little or not interested in their Internet use. A consistent finding across countries was that girls more often talked with their parents about their Internet use and more often reported that their parents were interested in their Internet use than boys. The results suggest that parents have an important task in explicitly showing interest in their adolescents' Internet use, with special attention needed for boys

Using the quality circle approach to empower disadvantaged youth in addressing cyberbullying: an exploration across five European countries

Digital communication technologies play an important role in the social development of young people, but can create vulnerabilities to cyberbullying and other negative online experiences. The Blurred Lives project aimed to tackle cyberbullying innovatively using a co-participatory approach, collaborating with 14–16-year olds living in areas of socio-economic disadvantage in five European countries. In phase one, 2,658 teenagers were surveyed on their internet use and any unpleasant online experiences. This data informed the second phase where the participating countries worked together with 237 adolescents across 10 schools with adult facilitators to create original anti-cyberbullying resources for teachers, parents/carers, peers, and social media providers using the Quality Circle approach. This methodology adopts an ethos of working together to solve a problem in small, peer-led groups. Each group was tasked with creating a resource for one of the target audience groups. The final resources comprise a rich variety of different formats including videos, comic strips, a board game, leaflets, posters, and newsletters. The pupil feedback highlights, for most but not all participants, an increased knowledge of cyberbullying and e-safety skills, as well as enhanced problem-solving skills, levels of confidence, and group work skills. Several operational challenges are also discussed, including the importance of school-level support, planning, staffing, and finding an appropriate balance between facilitator support and pupil agency

Accessible technologies for kinetic and kinematic analysis of people with disabilities: a literature review/ Tecnologias acessíveis para análise cinética e cinemática da pessoa com deficiência: uma revisão da literatura

Locomotion is the process by which a being moves from one place to another, including stopping, changing speed, changes in direction and adaptation to changes in terrain. Human walking follows a pattern, and it is one of the forms of locomotion that most calls the attention of researchers. Its variation among a group may indicate pathological conditions that influence the treatment and rehabilitation of patients with low mobility. The objective of this article is to carry out a review for the development of a low-cost instrumented treadmill that can assist in the rehabilitation, treatment and follow-up of patients with stroke, and for that, a search of articles related to the topic was carried out in databases such as ScienceDirect, PubMed and others. The results obtained were satisfactory and enabled the creation of a good database. It was possible to conclude that there is a diversity of existing resources and that it is up to the professionals to direct their choice to the one that suits them best

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

Diet of five anuran species in a forest remnant in eastern Acre state, Brazilian Amazonia.

The diet of anuran species is based on a large variety of prey items, which may be related to the availability of prey in the environment. In Amazonia, studies on the diet of anurans have occurred mainly in primary forests. Because forest fragmentation promotes changes in the environment, it is expected that the diet of anuran species will also be affected. Here we describe the diet composition of anurans captured in a forest remnant at Fazenda Amoty, municipality of Plácido de Castro, state of Acre, Brazil. Stomach contents of 34 specimens of Allobates femoralis (Aromobatidae), Adenomera hylaedactyla, Engystomops freibergi (Leptodactylidae), Rhinella sp. (Bufonidae), and Elachistocleis muiraquitan (Microhylidae) had 877 prey items belonging to 19 prey categories. The diet of most species were arthropods. Myrmicinae ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) was the most abundant and frequent item in A. hylaedactyla, Rhinella sp. and A. femoralis stomachs. Termitidae (Isoptera) was the second most abundant taxon in Rhinella sp. and A. hylaedactyla, and the only taxon found eaten by E. freibergi and E. muiraquitan. Most studied species showed generalist diet, which is the habit for most anuran species. Contrarily, E. freibergi and E. muiraquitan are likely specialized in Isoptera

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

The p53 Codon 72 Pro/Pro Genotype Identifies Poor-Prognosis Neuroblastoma Patients: Correlation with Reduced Apoptosis and Enhanced Senescence by the p53-72P Isoform.

The p53 gene is rarely mutated in neuroblastoma, but codon 72 polymorphism that modulates its proapoptotic activity might influence cancer risk and clinical outcome. We investigated whether this polymorphism affects neuroblastoma risk and disease outcome and assessed the biologic effects of the p53-72R and p53-72P isoforms in p53-null cells. Comparison of 288 healthy subjects and 286 neuroblastoma patients revealed that the p53-72 polymorphism had no significant impact on the risk of developing neuroblastoma; however, patients with the Pro/Pro genotype had a shorter survival than those with the Arg/Arg or the Arg/Pro genotypes even in the stage 3 and 4 subgroup without MYCN amplification. By Cox regression analysis, the p53 Pro/Pro genotype seems to be an independent marker of poor prognosis (hazard ratio = 2.74; 95% confidence interval = 1.14\u20136.55, P = .014) together with clinical stage, MYCN status, and age at diagnosis. In vitro, p53-72P was less effective than p53-72R in inducing apoptosis and inhibiting survival of p53-null LAN-1 cells treated with etoposide, topotecan, or ionizing radiation but not taxol. By contrast, p53-72P was more effective in promoting p21-dependent accelerated senescence, alone or in the presence of etoposide. Thus, the p53-72 Pro/Pro genotype might be a marker of poor outcome independent of MYCN amplification, possibly improving risk stratification. Moreover, the lower apoptosis and the enhanced accelerated senescence by the p53-72P isoform in response to DNA damage suggest that patients with neuroblastoma with the p53-72 Pro/Pro genotype may benefit from therapeutic protocols that do not rely only on cytotoxic drugs that function, in part, through p53 activation