Beta-Cyclodextrin: Eugenol Inclusion Complexes: Characterization and Antifungal Capacity

Eugenol (EUG) is the principal component of clove essential oil. It has demonstrated excellent antifungal properties against B. cinerea, one of the most important fungus in the fresh fruit decay. However, this substance is highly volatile, thermolabile and the direct contact with a food induce undesirable changes in the organoleptic properties. For this reason, the application of EUG represents a big challenger and its encapsulation through inclusion complexes formation with β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) is presented as a solution. In this way, the aim of this work was to develop, characterize and assess the antifungal capacity of inclusion complexes β-CD:EUG. For this, co-precipitation was used as method of inclusion complexes synthesis. The quantity of entrapped EUG was determined by gaseous chromatography. The inclusion complexes were characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR). Moreover, the antifungal activity was probed in a headspace system. Results showed that the EUG entrapped quantity was of 68,5 mg/g inclusion complexes. Furthermore, the characteristic peaks of EUG did not appear in inclusion complexes TGA thermogram and FTIR spectrum which confirm the effective compound encapsulation. Finally, inclusion complexes inhibited the growing of A. cinerea at 53% and avoided the fungal sporulation. These findings suggest that the β- CD:EUG inclusion complexes are suitable to use in the storage and transportation of fresh fruits to prevent their deterioration. Keywords: Botrytis cinerea, fresh fruits, headspace. Resumen El eugenol (EUG) es el principal componente del aceite esencial de clavo de olor. Éste ha destacado por su efectivo control de Botrytis cinerea, uno de los hongos más importantes que provoca la pudrición de frutas frescas. Sin embargo, esta sustancia es altamente volátil, termolábil y provoca cambios desagradables en las propiedades organolépticas del alimento si está en contacto directo con el mismo, por lo que su aplicación presenta un gran desafío. Ante esto, se propone su encapsulación a través de la formación de complejos de inclusión con β-ciclodextrina (β-CD). En este sentido, el objetivo de la presente investigación fue desarrollar, caracterizar y evaluar la capacidad antifúngica de complejos de inclusión β-CD:EUG. Éstos se sintetizaron mediante el método de co-precipitación, y la cantidad de EUG atrapada en la β-CD fue cuantificada por cromatografía de gases. Los complejos de inclusión se caracterizaron a través de análisis termogravimétrico (TGA) y espectroscospía infrarroja con transformada de Fourier (FTIR). Además, su actividad antifúngica se evaluó en un sistema de espacio de cabeza. Los resultados mostraron que la cantidad de EUG atrapada fue de 68,5 mg/g de complejo de inclusión. Además, en su termograma TGA y espectro FTIR no se observaron los picos característicos del EUG, confirmando la efectiva encapsulación del compuesto. Finalmente, los complejos de inclusión inhibieron el 53% del crecimiento de B. cinerea y evitaron su esporulación. Estos resultados permiten sugerir el uso de complejos de inclusión β-CD:EUG en el almacenamiento y transporte de frutas frescas para prevenir su deterioro. Palabras clave: Botrytis cinerea, frutas frescas, espacio de cabeza

Cryopreservation of Brown Bear Skin Biopsies

Genetic resource banks and assisted reproductive technologies support the conservation of endangered or threatened species. In this study we assessed two procedures to cryopreserve skin biopsies from live brown bears. Skin biopsies were taken from six live, anesthetized brown bears. Single biopsies (n = 3) of each animal were cut into small pieces and assigned to one of the three experimental groups: freezing, vitrification, or untreated fresh. There were no differences on cell attachment. However, both freezing and fresh culture allowed for higher cell proliferation (p < 0.05) and less days to reach 70% to 80% confluence (p < 0.03) than vitrification. Skin biopsies from brown bears can be preserved long term, allowing fibroblasts to proliferate in culture. Slow freezing was effective to cryopreserve skin biopsies from brown bears

Estadística Descriptiva y Probabilidad: (Teoría y problemas)

XXXIV, 261 p. ; 24 cm.Libro ElectrónicoÍndice Bibliografía: p. [256]-258 Manual para alumnos de titulaciones experimentales que proporciona una visión práctica e intuitiva de la estadística descriptiva y el cálculo de probabilidades, campos básicos y fundamentales de la ciencia estadísticaLibro : Español (spa) : 3a. edIndice general Prólogo XIII 1. Introducción XIII 2. History (Histórico) XV 3. Licencia de Documentación Libre de GNU XVI 4. GNU Free Documentation License XXVI A Estadística Descriptiva 1 1 Síntesis de la información 7 1. Rese˜na histórica 7 2. La organización de la información 9 3. Representaciones grá?cas 15 4. Medidas centrales 17 5. Medidas de posición 26 6. Medidas de dispersión 27 7. Desigualdad de Tchebychev 31 8. Momentos de la distribución 31 9. Medidas de forma 33 10. Transformaciones 36 11. Análisis exploratorio de datos 37 12. Ejercicios 40 2 Análisis conjunto de variables. 53 1. Distribución conjunta de dos caracteres 53 2. Distribuciones marginales 55 3. Distribuciones condicionadas 55 4. Independencia 60 5. Medidas de dependencia. Coeficientes de relación 61 6. Ejercicios 78 3 Ajuste y regresión bidimensional 89 1. Introducción 89 2. Ajuste. Criterio de los mínimos cuadrados 91 3. Análisis de la bondad del ajuste 97 4. Regresión. Método de regresión a la media 100 5. Análisis de la bondad de la regresión 102 6. Notas y conclusiones 104 7. Ejercicios 105 B Probabilidad 113 4 Teoría de la probabilidad 117 1. Evolución histórica 117 2. Conjuntos. Operaciones 120 3. Algebra de sucesos 122 4. Distintas de?niciones del concepto de probabilidad 126 5. Propiedades de la función de probabilidad 129 6. Probabilidad condicionada. Independencia 131 7. Dependencia e independencia 132 8. Teorema de la probabilidad total. Teorema de Bayes 133 9. Ejercicios 136 5 Variable aleatoria 145 1. Concepto 145 2. Variables discretas y continuas 146 3. Variables unidimensionales 147 4. Variables multidimensionales 161 5. Ejercicios 173 6 Algunos modelos probabilísticos 185 1. Distribución uniforme discreta 185 2. Experimento de Bernouilli 186 3. Distribución hipergeométrica 191 4. Proceso de Poisson 192 5. Distribución uniforme continua 195 6. Distribución normal 197 7. Relación entre binomial, Poisson y normal 200 8. Teorema central del límite 201 9. Distribución gamma 202 10. Distribución beta 203 11. Distribución de Cauchy 204 12. Distribuciones derivadas de la normal 206 13. Distribución de Laplace 210 14. Distribución logística 211 15. Distribución de Pareto 211 16. Algunos modelos multidimensionales 212 17. Ejercicios 215 A Combinatoria 225 1. Introducción 225 2. Variaciones con repetición 225 3. Variaciones 226 4. Permutaciones 226 5. Permutaciones con repetición 226 6. Combinaciones sin repetición 227 7. Combinaciones con repetición 228 8. Ejercicios 228 B Tablas Estadísticas 233 C Bibliografía 25

Differences and similarities of stellar populations in LAEs and LBGs at z~3.4-6.8

Lyman alpha emitters (LAEs) and Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) represent the most common groups of star-forming galaxies at high z, and the differences between their inherent stellar populations (SPs) are a key factor in understanding early galaxy formation and evolution. We have run a set of SP burst-like models for a sample of 1558 sources at 3.4 < z < 6.8 from the Survey for High-z Absorption Red and Dead Sources (SHARDS) over the GOODS-N field. This work focuses on the differences between the three different observational subfamilies of our sample: LAE–LBGs, no-Ly α LBGs, and pure LAEs. Single and double SP synthetic spectra were used to model the spectral energy distributions, adopting a Bayesian information criterion to analyze under which situations a second SP is required. We find that the sources are well modelled using a single SP in ∼79 per cent of the cases. The best models suggest that pure LAEs are typically young low-mass galaxies (⁠t∼26+41−25 Myr; Mstar∼5.6+12.0−5.5×108 M⊙⁠), undergoing one of their first bursts of star formation. On the other hand, no-Ly α LBGs require older SPs (t ∼ 71 ± 12 Myr), and they are substantially more massive (Mstar ∼ 3.5 ± 1.1 × 109 M⊙). LAE–LBGs appear as the subgroup that more frequently needs the addition of a second SP, representing an old and massive galaxy caught in a strong recent star-forming episode. The relative number of sources found from each subfamily at each z supports an evolutionary scenario from pure LAEs and single SP LAE–LBGs to more massive LBGs. Stellar mass functions are also derived, finding an increase of M* with cosmic time and a possible steepening of the low-mass slope from z ∼ 6 to z ∼ 5 with no significant change to z ∼ 4. Additionally, we have derived the SFR–Mstar relation, finding an SFR∝Mβstar behaviour with negligible evolution from z ∼ 4 to z ∼ 6

Candida tropicalis fungaemia: incidence, risk factors and mortality in a general hospital

AbstractThe risk factors and clinical features of patients with Candida tropicalis fungaemia have not been fully defined. We performed a case–control study comparing 59 cases of C. tropicalis fungaemia with 177 episodes of fungaemia caused by other species of Candida in our hospital over a 24-year period (January 1985 to December 2008). Patients with C. tropicalis fungaemia were more likely to be older (median age, 67 vs. 56 years; p 0.01), to have cancer (45.5% vs. 31.6%, p 0.04), and to have the abdomen as the portal of entry (32.2% vs. 11.9%, p 0.001), and had a higher in-hospital mortality rate (61% vs. 44%, p 0.03). Multivariate analysis showed that the independent risk factors for C. tropicalis fungaemia were cancer (OR 4.5; 95% CI 1.05–3.83; p 0.03) and the abdomen as the portal of entry (OR 13.6; 95% CI 1.9–8.2; p <0.001). When survivors were compared with non-survivors, the risk factors associated with a poor outcome were neutropenia (19.4% vs. 0; p 0.03), corticosteroid treatment (36% vs. 13%; p 0.07), and septic shock (50% vs. 17.4%; p 0.01). The independent risk factors for mortality in the multivariate analysis were corticosteroid treatment (OR 8.2; 95% CI 0.9–27.7; p 0.04) and septic shock (OR 14.6; 95% CI 2.4–90.2; p 0.004), whereas urinary tract infection (OR 0.07; 95% CI 0.01–0.8; p 0.03) and catheter removal (OR 0.06; 95% CI 0.01–0.4; p 0.002) were protective factors. C. tropicalis is the fourth most common cause of fungaemia in our hospital. It is associated with underlying malignancy, the abdomen as the portal of entry, and poor outcome

Genome-wide analysis of porcine backfat and intramuscular fat fatty acid composition using high-density genotyping and expression data

[EN] Background: Porcine fatty acid composition is a key factor for quality and nutritive value of pork. Several QTLs for fatty acid composition have been reported in diverse fat tissues. The results obtained so far seem to point out different genetic control of fatty acid composition conditional on the fat deposits. Those studies have been conducted using simple approaches and most of them focused on one single tissue. The first objective of the present study was to identify tissue-specific and tissue-consistent QTLs for fatty acid composition in backfat and intramuscular fat, combining linkage mapping and GWAS approaches and conducted under single and multitrait models. A second aim was to identify powerful candidate genes for these tissue-consistent QTLs, using microarray gene expression data and following a targeted genetical genomics approach. Results: The single model analyses, linkage and GWAS, revealed over 30 and 20 chromosomal regions, 24 of them identified here for the first time, specifically associated to the content of diverse fatty acids in BF and IMF, respectively. The analyses with multitrait models allowed identifying for the first time with a formal statistical approach seven different regions with pleiotropic effects on particular fatty acids in both fat deposits. The most relevant were found on SSC8 for C16:0 and C16:1(n-7) fatty acids, detected by both linkage and GWAS approaches. Other detected pleiotropic regions included one on SSC1 for C16:0, two on SSC4 for C16:0 and C18:2, one on SSC11 for C20:3 and the last one on SSC17 for C16:0. Finally, a targeted eQTL scan focused on regions showing tissue consistent effects was conducted with Longissimus and fat gene expression data. Some powerful candidate genes and regions were identified such as the PBX1, RGS4, TRIB3 and a transcription regulatory element close to ELOVL6 gene to be further studied. Conclusions: Complementary genome scans have confirmed several chromosome regions previously associated to fatty acid composition in backfat and intramuscular fat, but even more, to identify new ones. Although most of the detected regions were tissue-specific, supporting the hypothesis that the major part of genes affecting fatty acid composition differs among tissues, seven chromosomal regions showed tissue-consistent effects. Additional gene expression analyses have revealed powerful target regions to carry the mutation responsible for the pleiotropic effects.This work was funded by the MICINN project AGL2011-29821-C02 (Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad). 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