Effect of ripening on physico-chemical properties and bioactive compounds in papaya pulp, skin and seeds

Byproducts generated by the food industry represent an alternative to obtain functional ingredients. Byproducts of tropical fruits, such as papaya skin and seeds, represent a source of bioactive compounds (BC), which could change during fruit ripening. Effect of ripening stage (RS) on BC content and antioxidant properties of edible pulp, skin and seeds of papaya cv. Maradol was determined. Papaya skin showed significantly higher ascorbic acid (~250 mg AAE/100 g) content than seeds (~20 mg/100 g), while pulp had the highest values (~600 mg/100 g). However, papaya skin presented higher total phenolic content (~560 mg GAE/100 g) and flavonoids (~1000 mg QE/100 g) than pulp and seeds. Also, papaya skin showed the highest values followed by pulp and seeds with TEAC, FRAP and DPPH. Papaya skin had higher carotenoids and α-tocopherol (~1500 µg/100 g and ~4000 µg/100 g, respectively) content than pulp and seeds. BC content in each byproduct varied in all RS. Therefore, among the papaya byproducts, skin represents a good source of BC with good antioxidant properties, which may be used to extract them for its incorporation in functional foods depending on RS

Primer modification improves rapid and sensitive in vitro and field-deployable assays for detection of High plains virus variants

A high consequence pathogen, High plains virus (HPV) causes considerable damage to wheat if the crop is infected during early stages of development. Methods for the early, accurate, and sensitive detection of HPV in plant tissues are needed for the management of disease outbreaks and reservoir hosts. In this study, the effectiveness of five methods—real-time SYBR green and TaqMan reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR), endpoint RT-PCR, RT-helicase dependent amplification (RT-HDA) and the Razor Ex BioDetection System (Razor Ex)—for the broad-range detection of HPV variants was evaluated. Specific PCR primer sets and probes were designed to target the HPV nucleoprotein gene. Primer set HPV6F and HPV4R, which amplifies a product of 96 bp, was validated in silico against published sequences and in vitro against an inclusivity panel of infected plant samples and an exclusivity panel of near-neighbor viruses. The primers were modified by adding a customized 22 nucleotide long tail at the 5′ terminus, raising the primers' melting temperature (Tm; ca. 10°C) to make them compatible with RT-HDA (required optimal Tm = 68°C), in which the use of primers lacking such tails gave no amplification. All of the methods allowed the detection of as little as 1 fg of either plasmid DNA carrying the target gene sequence or of infected plant samples. The described in vitro and in-field assays are accurate, rapid, sensitive, and useful for pathogen detection and disease diagnosis, microbial quantification, and certification and breeding programs, as well as for biosecurity and microbial forensics applications.Peer reviewedEntomology and Plant Patholog

Optimization of total anthocyanin content and antioxidant activity of a Hibiscus sabdariffa infusion using response surface methodology

Hibiscus sabdariffa L. calyces are underutilized sources of health-promoting anthocyanins. Infusions are the most common way to consume them, but because anthocyanins are thermosensitive, prolonged extraction times at high temperatures may reduce their bioactivities, suggesting the need to identify optimal preparation conditions. Response surface methodology was used to establish calyces-to-water ratio (X1: 1–20 g/100 mL), temperature (X2: 70–100 °C), and time (X3: 1–30 min) that would produce an infusion with optimized total anthocyanin content (TAC) and antioxidant activity. Under optimum conditions (X1=10 g/100 mL, X2=88.7 °C, and X3=15.5 min) TAC was 132.7±7.8 mg cyanidin-3-glucoside equivalents (C3G)/100 mL, and antioxidant activity was 800.6±69.9 (DPPH assay), and 1792.0±153.5 (ABTS assay) μmol Trolox equivalents (TE)/100 mL. Predicted and experimental results were statistically similar. Identifying ideal processing conditions can promote consumption of an H. sabdariffa-based functional beverage with high anthocyanin content and antioxidant activity that exert health-promoting bioactivities on the consumer

Content of bioactive compounds and their contribution to antioxidant capacity during ripening of pineapple (Ananas comosus L.) cv Esmeralda

Pineapple (Ananas comosus L.) cv Esmeralda is a commercially important fruit with many bioactive compounds like vitamin C, β-carotene, phenolic compounds and flavonoids, which have been reported only for fruits of commercial maturity. Our objective was to evaluate changes in concentration of main pineapple bioactives, their contribution to total antioxidant capacity and enzyme activities of phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL), polyphenol oxidase (PPO) and peroxidase (POD) during pineapple ripening. Fruits were grouped into four ripening stages (RS) according to their weight, size and percentage of yellow skin color (RS1: 100% green, RS2: up to 30% yellow, RS3: 30% - 75% yellow, RS4: 75% - 100% yellow). Vitamin C content initially increased, and decreased at RS4; β-carotene, phenolics and antioxidant capacity increased gradually. Phenolics contributed over 40% of antioxidant capacity, followed by vitamin C and β-carotene. Major phenolic compounds identified were gallic acid, catechin and epicatechin. PAL and POD activity increased with ripening and correlated with concentration of phenolics. No PPO activity was quantified. We concluded that ripening of pineapple cv Esmeralda alters the concentration of bioactive compounds. Phenolic compounds, particularly gallic acid, exert the most antioxidant capacity during all RS, even if other compounds have higher concentrations

Integrated molecular signaling involving mitochondrial dysfunction and alteration of cell metabolism induced by tyrosine kinase inhibitors in cancer

Cancer cells have unlimited replicative potential, insensitivity to growth-inhibitory signals, evasion of apoptosis, cellular stress, and sustained angiogenesis, invasiveness and metastatic potential. Cancer cells adequately adapt cell metabolism and integrate several intracellular and redox signaling to promote cell survival in an inflammatory and hypoxic microenvironment in order to maintain/expand tumor phenotype. The administration of tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) constitutes the recommended therapeutic strategy in different malignancies at advanced stages. There are important interrelationships between cell stress, redox status, mitochondrial function, metabolism and cellular signaling pathways leading to cell survival/death. The induction of apoptosis and cell cycle arrest widely related to the antitumoral properties of TKIs result from tightly controlled events involving different cellular compartments and signaling pathways. The aim of the present review is to update the most relevant studies dealing with the impact of TKI treatment on cell function. The induction of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and Ca2+ disturbances, leading to alteration of mitochondrial function, redox status and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)-protein kinase B (Akt)-mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) signaling pathways that involve cell metabolism reprogramming in cancer cells will be covered. Emphasis will be given to studies that identify key components of the integrated molecular pattern including receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) downstream signaling, cell death and mitochondria-related events that appear to be involved in the resistance of cancer cells to TKI treatments.This study was funded by Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCiii) (PI16/00090, PI19/00838 and PI19/01266), Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BFU2016-80006-P), Andalusian Ministry of Economy, Innovation, Science and Employment (BIO-216 and CTS-6264), Andalusian Ministry of Equality, Health and Social Policies (PI-0198-2016) and Valencian Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports (PROMETEO/2019/027). P de la C-O was supported by FPU predoctoral fellowship (FPU17/00026) from Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports. E N-V was supported by the the predoctoral i-PFIS IIS-enterprise contract in science and technologies in health (IFI18/00014) from ISCiii. We thank the Biomedical Research Network Center for Cardiovascular Diseases (CIBERcv), and the Biomedical Research Network Center for Liver and Digestive Diseases (CIBERehd) founded by the ISCiii and co-financed by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) "A way to achieve Europe" for their financial support

The Effects of Governmental Protected Areas and Social Initiatives for Land Protection on the Conservation of Mexican Amphibians

Traditionally, biodiversity conservation gap analyses have been focused on governmental protected areas (PAs). However, an increasing number of social initiatives in conservation (SICs) are promoting a new perspective for analysis. SICs include all of the efforts that society implements to conserve biodiversity, such as land protection, from private reserves to community zoning plans some of which have generated community-protected areas. This is the first attempt to analyze the status of conservation in Latin America when some of these social initiatives are included. The analyses were focused on amphibians because they are one of the most threatened groups worldwide. Mexico is not an exception, where more than 60% of its amphibians are endemic. We used a niche model approach to map the potential and real geographical distribution (extracting the transformed areas) of the endemic amphibians. Based on remnant distribution, all the species have suffered some degree of loss, but 36 species have lost more than 50% of their potential distribution. For 50 micro-endemic species we could not model their potential distribution range due to the small number of records per species, therefore the analyses were performed using these records directly. We then evaluated the efficiency of the existing set of governmental protected areas and established the contribution of social initiatives (private and community) for land protection for amphibian conservation. We found that most of the species have some proportion of their potential ecological niche distribution protected, but 20% are not protected at all within governmental PAs. 73% of endemic and 26% of micro-endemic amphibians are represented within SICs. However, 30 micro-endemic species are not represented within either governmental PAs or SICs. This study shows how the role of land conservation through social initiatives is therefore becoming a crucial element for an important number of species not protected by governmental PAs

Effect of Chronic Administration of Resveratrol on Cognitive Performance during Aging Process in Rats

The increase in the elderly population has generated concern to meet health demands. The research efforts to elucidate the mechanisms of damage associated with aging have also been significantly increased, especially in order to avoid the reduction of the cognitive abilities in geriatric patients, resulting from the damage generated mainly at the level of the hippocampus during old age. At present, many studies describe resveratrol as an antiaging component. There are reports that it can activate the Sirt1 gene related to antiaging, emulating the effects obtained by caloric restriction in rodents. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of chronic administration of resveratrol (10 mg/kg) on cognitive performance in behavioral tests after 8 months of treatment and on the preservation of cerebral integrity in the cytoarchitecture of regions CA1 and CA2. Results showed that the cytoarchitecture of the CA1 and CA2 regions in the hippocampus retained their integrity over time in rats treated with resveratrol, and the behavioral test performed revealed that chronic resveratrol administration for 8 months showed improvements in cognitive performance. The results indicate that resveratrol may exhibit therapeutic potential for age-related conditions

Lectura y escritura académicas

Comunicar y construir conocimiento a nivel superior y de posgrado, requiere de competencias y estrategias de lectura y escritura para adaptarse al lenguaje especializado de diferentes disciplinas académicas. Este libro presenta experiencias concretas de aprendizaje de producción textual para el progreso de la literacidad académica, expone estudios contemporáneos y diversas modalidades de acompañamiento de desarrollo de competencias de lectura y escritura en estudiantes universitarios indígenas, experiencias y análisis que pueden replicarse en otros escenarios formativos similares.ITESO, A.C

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13