Short communication: Effects of the addition of a marigold extract to diets fed to channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) on growth parameters

The expansion of aquaculture in the last 10 years has made it an important source of protein worldwide. However, increased production, and the culture intensification it carries, results in higher risk of infectious disease due to poor water quality and high stocking densities. ... Marigold (Tagetes erecta L.) is a plant native to Mexico whose flowers accumulate carotenoids. Natural carotenoids extracted from marigold have been used in aquaculture to help in the survival of fish juvenile stages by strengthening their immunological system, thus reducing mortality rates. The effect of carotenoids in fish health may exert a positive effect on fish growth indices; however, these effects on growth parameters have not been studied in channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus), which is the most cultured fish species in north-eastern Mexico, and one of the most cultured on the southern United States. Consequently, the aim of this study was to investigate if there were significant differences in growth among channel catfish juveniles when fed diets containing various carotenoid doses from a natural source

Short communication: Effects of the addition of a marigold extract to diets fed to channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) on growth parameters

The expansion of aquaculture in the last 10 years has made it an important source of protein worldwide. However, increased production, and the culture intensification it carries, results in higher risk of infectious disease due to poor water quality and high stocking densities. ... Marigold (Tagetes erecta L.) is a plant native to Mexico whose flowers accumulate carotenoids. Natural carotenoids extracted from marigold have been used in aquaculture to help in the survival of fish juvenile stages by strengthening their immunological system, thus reducing mortality rates. The effect of carotenoids in fish health may exert a positive effect on fish growth indices; however, these effects on growth parameters have not been studied in channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus), which is the most cultured fish species in north-eastern Mexico, and one of the most cultured on the southern United States. Consequently, the aim of this study was to investigate if there were significant differences in growth among channel catfish juveniles when fed diets containing various carotenoid doses from a natural source

Selective Pressure by Rifampicin Modulates Mutation Rates and Evolutionary Trajectories of Mycobacterial Genomes

Resistance to the frontline antibiotic rifampicin constitutes a challenge to the treatment and control of tuberculosis. Here, we analyzed the mutational landscape of Mycobacterium smegmatis during long-term evolution with increasing concentrations of rifampicin, using a mutation accumulation assay combined with whole-genome sequencing. Antibiotic treatment enhanced the acquisition of mutations, doubling the genome-wide mutation rate of the wild-type cells. While antibiotic exposure led to extinction of almost all wild-type lines, the hypermutable phenotype of the ΔnucS mutant strain (noncanonical mismatch repair deficient) provided an efficient response to the antibiotic, leading to high rates of survival. This adaptative advantage resulted in the emergence of higher levels of rifampicin resistance, an accelerated acquisition of drug resistance mutations in rpoB (β RNA polymerase), and a wider diversity of evolutionary pathways that led to drug resistance. Finally, this approach revealed a subset of adaptive genes under positive selection with rifampicin that could be associated with the development of antibiotic resistance. IMPORTANCE Rifampicin is the most important first-line antibiotic against mycobacterial infections, including tuberculosis, one of the top causes of death worldwide. Acquisition of rifampicin resistance constitutes a major global public health problem that makes the control of the disease challenging. Here, we performed an experimental evolution assay under antibiotic selection to analyze the response and adaptation of mycobacteria, leading to the acquisition of rifampicin resistance. This approach explored the total number of mutations that arose in the mycobacterial genomes under long-term rifampicin exposure, using whole-genome sequencing. Our results revealed the effect of rifampicin at a genomic level, identifying different mechanisms and multiple pathways leading to rifampicin resistance in mycobacteria. Moreover, this study detected that an increase in the rate of mutations led to enhanced levels of drug resistance and survival. In summary, all of these results could be useful to understand and prevent the emergence of drug-resistant isolates in mycobacterial infections.This research was funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, grant PID2020-112865RB-I00, and Instituto de Salud Carlos III, grant FIS PI17/00159 (ISCIII/FEDER, UE). E.C.-S. is the recipient of a PFIS predoctoral research fellowship (FI18/00036) cofinanced by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III and the European Social Fund. A.C.-G. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish State Research Agency, AEI/10.13039/501100011033, through the “Severo Ochoa” Program for Centers of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2013-0347, SEV-2017-0712). Editorial assistance was provided by Stuart L. Rulten. Statistical consultancy was provided by Applied Statistical Department-SGAI-CSIC.S

Dynamic arrest in charged colloidal systems exhibiting large-scale structural heterogeneities

Suspensions of charged liposomes are found to exhibit typical features of strongly repulsive fluid systems at short length scales, while exhibiting structural heterogeneities at larger length scales that are characteristic of attractive systems. We model the static structure factor of these systems using effective pair interaction potentials composed of a long-range attraction and a shorter range repulsion. Our modeling of the static structure yields conditions for dynamically arrested states at larger volume fractions, which we find to agree with the experimentally observed dynamics

Buenas prácticas de transferencia del conocimiento en la Universidad de Córdoba

La iniciativa consiste en proporcionar la materia prima. El proyecto, que se ha realizado con cerdos y ha tenido una duración de tres años, demuestra que la administración de Cardiotrofina-1 en el transplante hepático incrementa la supervivencia del animal, mejora su función cardiaca, respiratoria y renal, y también consigue reducir el daño hepatocelecuar y el estrés oxidativo y nitrosativo en el injerto

In vascular smooth muscle cells paricalcitol prevents phosphate-induced Wnt/β-catenin activation

The present study investigates the differential effect of two vitamin D receptor agonists, calcitriol and paricalcitol, on human aortic smooth muscle cells calcification in vitro. Human vascular smooth muscle cells were incubated in a high phosphate (HP) medium alone or supplemented with either calcitriol 10−8M (HP + CTR) or paricalcitol 3·10−8 M (HP + PC). HP medium induced calcification, which was associated with the upregulation of mRNA expression of osteogenic factors such as bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2), Runx2/Cbfa1, Msx2, and osteocalcin. In these cells, activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling was evidenced by the translocation of β-catenin into the nucleus and the increase in the expression of direct target genes as cyclin D1, axin 2, and VCAN/versican. Addition of calcitriol to HP medium (HP + CTR) further increased calcification and also enhanced the expression of osteogenic factors together with a significant elevation of nuclear β-catenin levels and the expression of cyclin D1, axin 2, and VCAN. By contrast, the addition of paricalcitol (HP + PC) not only reduced calcification but also downregulated the expression of BMP2 and other osteoblastic phenotype markers as well as the levels of nuclear β-catenin and the expression of its target genes. The role of Wnt/β-catenin on phosphate- and calcitriol-induced calcification was further demonstrated by the inhibition of calcification after addition of Dickkopf-related protein 1 (DKK-1), a specific natural antagonist of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. In conclusion, the differential effect of calcitriol and paricalcitol on vascular calcification appears to be mediated by a distinct regulation of the BMP and Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathways

Dry selection and wet evaluation for the rational discovery of new anthelmintics

Helminths infections remain a major problem in medical and public health. In this report, atom-based 2D bilinear indices, a TOMOCOMD-CARDD (QuBiLs-MAS module) molecular descriptor family and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) were used to find models that differentiate among anthelmintic and non-anthelmintic compounds. Two classification models obtained by using non-stochastic and stochastic 2D bilinear indices, classified correctly 86.64% and 84.66%, respectively, in the training set. Equation 1(2) correctly classified 141(135) out of 165 [85.45%(81.82%)] compounds in external validation set. Another LDA models were performed in order to get the most likely mechanism of action of anthelmintics. The model shows an accuracy of 86.84% in the training set and 94.44% in the external prediction set. Finally, we carry out an experiment to predict the biological profile of our ‘in-house’ collections of indole, indazole, quinoxaline and cinnoline derivatives (∼200 compounds). Subsequently, we selected a group of nine of the theoretically most active structures. Then, these chemicals were tested in an invitro assay and one good candidate (VA5-5c) as fasciolicide compound (100% of reduction at concentrations of 50 and 10 mg/L) was discovered.Yovani Marrero-Ponce acknowledges the support from USFQ with partial finance of project ID5455Peer Reviewe

Charge density wave in layered La1-xCexSb2

The layered rare-earth diantimonides RSb2 are anisotropic metals with generally low electronic densities whose properties can be modified by substituting the rare earth. LaSb2 is a nonmagnetic metal with a low residual resistivity presenting a low-temperature magnetoresistance that does not saturate with the magnetic field. It has been proposed that the latter can be associated to a charge density wave (CDW), but no CDW has yet been found. Here we find a kink in the resistivity above room temperature in LaSb2 (at 355 K) and show that the kink becomes much more pronounced with substitution of La by Ce along the La1−xCexSb2 series. We find signatures of a CDW in x-ray scattering, specific heat, and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) experiments in particular for x ≈ 0.5. We observe a distortion of rare-earth–Sb bonds lying in-plane of the tetragonal crystal using x-ray scattering, an anomaly in the specific heat at the same temperature as the kink in resistivity and charge modulations in STM. We conclude that LaSb2 has a CDW which is stabilized in the La1−xCexSb2 series due to substitutional disorderThis work was supported by the Spanish MINECO (FIS2014-54498-R, MAT2011-27470-C02-02, and CSD-2009-00013), by the European Union (Graphene Flagship Contract No. CNECT-ICT-604391 and COST MP1201 action), and by the Comunidad de Madrid through programs Nanofrontmag-CM (S2013/MIT-2850) and MAD2D-CM (S2013/MIT-3007).We acknowledge MINECO and CSIC for financial support and for provision of synchrotron radiation facilities and would like to thank the SpLine BM25 staff for assistance in using the beamlin

A study of the interplay between ionized gas and star clusters in the central region of NGC 5253 with 2D spectroscopy

ABRIDGED: A detailed 2D study of the central region of NGC5253 has been performed to characterize the stellar and ionized gas structure as well as the extinction distribution, physical properties and kinematics of the ionized gas in the central ~210pc x 130pc. We utilized optical integral field spectroscopy (IFS) data obtained with FLAMES. A detailed extinction map for the ionized gas in NGC5253 shows that the largest extinction is associated with the prominent Giant HII region. There is an offset of ~0.5" between the peak of the optical continuum and the extinction peak in agreement with findings in the infrared. We found that stars suffer less extinction than gas by a factor of 0.33. The [SII]l6717/[SII]l6731 map shows an electron density (N_e) gradient declining from the peak of emission in Ha (790cm^-3) outwards, while the argon line ratio traces areas with $N_e~4200 - 6200cm^(-3). The area polluted with extra nitrogen, as deduced from the excess [NII]/Ha, extends up to distances of 3.3" (~60pc) from the maximum pollution, which is offset by ~1.5" from the peak of continuum emission. Wolf-Rayet features are distributed in an irregular pattern over a larger area (~100pc x 100pc) and associated with young stellar clusters. We measured He^+ abundances over most of the field of view and values of He^++/H^+<~0.0005 in localized areas which do not coincide, in general, with the areas presenting W-R emission or extra nitrogen. The line profiles are complex. Up to three emission components were needed to reproduce them. One of them, associated with the giant HII region, presents supersonic widths and [NII] and [SII] emission lines shifted up to 40km/s with respect to Ha. Similarly, one of the narrow components presents offsets in the [NII] line of <~20km/s. This is the first time that maps with such velocity offsets for a starburst galaxy have been presented.Comment: accepted in Astronomy & Astrophysics. 21 pages, 22 figure