Lipase catalysed oxidations in a sugar-derived natural deep eutectic solvent

Chemoenzymatic oxidations involving the CAL-B/H2O2 system was developed in a sugar derived Natural Deep Eutectic Solvent (NaDES) composed by a mixture of glucose, fructose and sucrose. Good to excellent conversions of substrates like cyclooctene, limonene, oleic acid and stilbene to their corresponding epoxides, cyclohexanone to its corresponding lactone and 2-phenylacetophenone to its corresponding ester, demonstrate the viability of the sugar NaDES as a reaction medium for epoxidation and Baeyer-Villiger oxidation

Thoracic myopericytoma in an older adult, rare but possible: A case report

Myopericytoma is a rare tumor generally arising from skin and soft tissues of extremities, trunk, head, and neck regions, rarely from visceral sites. An intrathoracic visceral localization may carry a broad differential diagnosis including primary lung, pleura and chest wall lesions, or metastatic lesions. To date, any radiological features have been recognized and diagnosis of myopericytoma with intrathoracic localization remains still challenging. Here, we describe the case of a subpleural lesion incidentally diagnosed in an older adult affected by gastric cancer. Radiological features did not allow a differential diagnosis between a benign lesion, a primary tumor, or a metastasis. After resection, the histological examination showed histopathological features congruent with the diagnosis of myopericytoma. This unusual presentation reflects the need to share clinical, radiological, and histopathological data about this uncommon but frequently misdiagnosed disease

Multigene panel testing increases the number of loci associated with gastric cancer predisposition

The main gene involved in gastric cancer (GC) predisposition is CDH1, the pathogenic variants of which are associated with diffuse-type gastric cancer (DGC) and lobular breast cancer (LBC). CDH1 only explains a fraction (10–50%) of patients suspected of DGC/LBC genetic predisposition. To identify novel susceptibility genes, thus improving the management of families at risk, we performed a multigene panel testing on selected patients. We searched for germline pathogenic variants in 94 cancer-related genes in 96 GC or LBC Italian patients with early-onset and/or family history of GC. We found CDH1 pathogenic variants in 10.4% of patients. In 11.5% of cases, we identified loss-of-function variants in BRCA1, BRCA2, PALB2, and ATM breast/ovarian cancer susceptibility genes, as well as in MSH2, PMS2, BMPR1A, PRF1, and BLM genes. In 78.1% of patients, we did not find any variants with clear-cut clinical significance; however, 37.3% of these cases harbored rare missense variants predicted to be damaging by bioinformatics tools. Multigene panel testing decreased the number of patients that would have otherwise remained genetically unexplained. Besides CDH1, our results demonstrated that GC pathogenic variants are distributed across a number of susceptibility genes and reinforced the emerging link between gastric and breast cancer predisposition.This research was supported by the Istituto Scientifico Romagnolo per lo Studio e la Cura dei Tumori (IRST) IRCCS, by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR)—Dipartimenti di Eccellenza Program (2018–2022)—Department of Biology and Biotechnology L. Spallanzani, University of Pavia, and by the Dunia Beam Erasmus Mundus project (fellowship to R.A.K.)

Identification of a delta5-like fatty acyl desaturase from the cephalopod Octopus vulgaris (Cuvier 1797) involved in the biosynthesis of essential fatty acids

Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) have been identified as essential compounds for common octopus (Octopus vulgaris), but precise dietary requirements have not been determined due in part to the inherent difficulties of performing feeding trials on paralarvae. Our objective is to establish the essential fatty acid (EFA) requirements for paralarval stages of the common octopus through characterisation of the enzymes of endogenous LC-PUFA biosynthetic pathways. In this study we isolated a cDNA with high homology to fatty acyl desaturases (Fad). Functional characterisation in recombinant yeast showed the octopus Fad exhibited ∆5 desaturation activity towards saturated and polyunsaturated fatty acyl substrates. Thus, it efficiently converted the yeast’s endogenous 16:0 and 18:0 to 16:1n-11 and 18:1n-13, respectively, and desaturated exogenously added PUFA substrates, 20:4n-3 and 20:3n-6, to 20:5n-3 (EPA) and 20:4n-6 (ARA), respectively. Although the ∆5 Fad enables common octopus to produce EPA and ARA, the low availability of its adequate substrates 20:4n-3 and 20:3n-6, either in the diet or by limited endogenous synthesis from C18 PUFA, might indicate that EPA and ARA are indeed EFA for this species. Interestingly, the octopus ∆5 Fad can also participate in the biosynthesis of non-methylene interrupted FA, PUFA that are generally uncommon in vertebrates but that have been found previously in marine invertebrates including molluscs, and now also confirmed to be present in specific tissues of common octopus

GrassPlot - a database of multi-scale plant diversity in Palaearctic grasslands

GrassPlot is a collaborative vegetation-plot database organised by the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG) and listed in the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD ID EU-00-003). GrassPlot collects plot records (releves) from grasslands and other open habitats of the Palaearctic biogeographic realm. It focuses on precisely delimited plots of eight standard grain sizes (0.0001; 0.001;... 1,000 m(2)) and on nested-plot series with at least four different grain sizes. The usage of GrassPlot is regulated through Bylaws that intend to balance the interests of data contributors and data users. The current version (v. 1.00) contains data for approximately 170,000 plots of different sizes and 2,800 nested-plot series. The key components are richness data and metadata. However, most included datasets also encompass compositional data. About 14,000 plots have near-complete records of terricolous bryophytes and lichens in addition to vascular plants. At present, GrassPlot contains data from 36 countries throughout the Palaearctic, spread across elevational gradients and major grassland types. GrassPlot with its multi-scale and multi-taxon focus complements the larger international vegetationplot databases, such as the European Vegetation Archive (EVA) and the global database " sPlot". Its main aim is to facilitate studies on the scale-and taxon-dependency of biodiversity patterns and drivers along macroecological gradients. GrassPlot is a dynamic database and will expand through new data collection coordinated by the elected Governing Board. We invite researchers with suitable data to join GrassPlot. Researchers with project ideas addressable with GrassPlot data are welcome to submit proposals to the Governing Board

Peer-to-peer data mining classifiers for decentralized detection of network attacks

Data mining aims to extract from huge amount of data stochastic theories, called knowledge models, to explain or predict complex phenomenon. In this paper we propose new distributed data mining algorithms to recognize network attacks against a set of devices from statistic data generated locally by each device according to the standard Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) available in each modern operating systems. The idea is to place an autonomous mining resource in each network node that cooperates with its neighbors in a peer-to-peer fashion in order to reciprocally improve their detection capabilities. Differently from existing security solutions, which are based on centralized databases of attack signatures and transmissions of huge amount of raw traffic data, in this solution the network nodes exchange local knowledge models of few hundred bytes. The approach efficacy has been validated performing experiments with several types of attacks, with different network topologies and distributions of attacks so as to also test the node capability of detecting unknown attacks