Metabolomic characterization of strawberry cultivars during postharvest

The cultivated strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa) is the berry most consumed worldwide and is well-known for its delicate flavour and nutritional characteristics. However, strawberries possess a very short postharvest shelf-life due to their high respiration rate and their susceptibility to water loss, mechanical damage and fungi deterioration. Extension of fruit shelf-life is a major economic goal, and measures are commercially taken to delay senescence. These procedures include low temperature, controlled atmosphere and/or chemical treatments, being the first one the most commonly applied. To improve our understanding of the molecular and biochemical mechanisms underlying the deterioration of fruit quality attributes during senescence, we monitored the metabolomic profiles of five commercial strawberry cultivars under different postharvest treatments. Ripe fruits of F x ananassa cv. ‘Amiga’, ‘Camarosa’, ‘Candonga’, ‘Fortuna’ and ‘Santa Clara’ were harvested and kept at 4ºC during three, six and ten days in normal, CO2-enriched and O3-enriched atmospheres. We used a combination of GC-TOF-MS, LC-MS and GC-SPME-MS to identify and semi-quantify 49 primary metabolites (sugars, amino and organic acids), 132 polar secondary metabolites and 70 volatile compounds in all different treatments along postharvest stages. Multivariate statistical approaches, including hierarchical cluster analysis, partial least squares discriminant analyses and k-means clustering, were used to characterize the variation in metabolite content during the strawberry fruit postharvest life and to identify the biochemical pathways which are most affected in the senescence processes. Here, we present the main changes in volatile compounds, primary and secondary metabolites as a consequence of postharvest storage, highlighting the differences between cultivars and treatments. Network-based methods will allow us to point out the regulatory factors and molecular mechanisms underlying fruit senescence.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

The balance between fumarate and malate plays an important role in plant development and postharvest quality in tomato fruit

Organic acids, produced as intermediates of the tricarboxylic cycle, play a crucial role in the plant primary metabolism and are considered as being ones of the most important quality traits in edible fruits. Even if they are key metabolites in a multitude of cellular functions, little is known about their physiological relevance and regulation. Transgenic tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) plants expressing constitutively a bacterial maleate isomerase, which converts reversibly maleate to fumarate, were generated in order to improve our knowledge about the role of organic acids in the crop and fruit metabolism. Growth and reproduction were affected by the unbalance of tricarboxylic cycle intermediates, as a dwarf phenotype and a flowering delay were observed in the transgenic plants. In addition, a delay in chlorophyll synthesis, a decrease in the numbers of stomata and significant changes in some photosynthetic parameters indicated alterations in central primary metabolism. Postharvest was also impaired, as transgenic fruits showed increased water lost and deterioration, indicating a possible role of the organic acids in cell wall metabolism. Finally, preliminary metabolomics analysis pointed out important changes during fruit ripening in flavor-related metabolites, such as acids and sugars, revealing the importance of organic acids in fruit metabolism. Taken together, these data indicate a pivotal role of tricarboxylic cycle intermediates, such as malate or fumarate, as regulatory metabolites. Besides their role in quality fruit characteristics, they are involved in a multitude of functions including growth and photosynthesis.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Florestas estacionais no Pantanal, considerações florísticas e subsídios para conservação.

Foi feita uma atualização do conhecimento sobre Florestas Estacionais no Pantanal, em grande parte baseado em dados dos Projetos PROBIO-Pantanal e GeoMS. É apresentado um mapa com as principais manchas de florestas e contatos florísticos, baseado em imagens de satélite e uma tabela comparativa, com 60 espécies. No Pantanal ocorrem poucas áreas grandes de Florestas Estacionais: Matas do Cedro, do Fuzil, do Bebe (RPPN do SESC) e do Soldado, e outras menores espalhadas tais como os capões do Abobral e SE da Nhecolândia, cordilheiras no Sul de Poconé, Aquidauana, Miranda, Nabileque e Porto Murtinho, total estimado de 6.256,4 km2. A maioria das áreas encontra-se no norte do Pantanal nas Bacias dos rios Cuiabá, São Lourenço e Paraguai; no sul apenas o baixo Taquari apresenta uma grande área (matas do Fuzil e do Cedro). Essas áreas provavelmente se formaram devido a um efeito de represamento das águas dos rios com conseqüente junção de grandes diques aluviais. De modo geral essas grandes áreas de floresta estacional estão associadas a solos do tipo Vertissolo e Plintossolo. A composição florística varia entre matas, p. ex., as principais espécies são: Attalea phalerata nas matas do Bebe e de ?salina? (lagoa alcalina), Phyllostylon rhamnoides na do Cedro, Caesalpinia pluviosa na de Miranda, Myracrodruon urundeuva no Abobral e Pisonia zapallo na do Soldado, enquanto em Porto Murtinho há transição para o Chaco. A conservação das florestas estacionais deve ser uma preocupação das autoridades ambientais relacionadas ao Pantanal, uma vez que são poucas áreas dentro do Pantanal e certamente têm importância estratégica.GeoPantanal 2009. Publicado também em: Geografia, Rio Claro, v. 34, p. 697-707, dez. 2009

First VLTI infrared spectro-interferometry on GCIRS 7 - Characterizing the prime reference source for Galactic center observations at highest angular resolution

Investigating the environment of the massive black hole SgrA* at the center of the Galaxy requires the highest angular resolution available to avoid source confusion and to study the physical properties of the individual objects. GCIRS7 has been used as wavefront and astrometric reference. Our studies investigate, for the first time, its properties at 2&10um using VLTI/AMBER and MIDI. We aim at analyzing the suitability of IRS7 as an IF-phase-reference for the upcoming generation of dual-field facilities at optical interferometers. We observed with (R~30) and 50m (proj.) baseline, resulting in 9 and 45mas resolution for NIR and MIR, resp. The first K-band fringe detection of a GC star suggests that IRS7 could be marginally resolved at 2um, which would imply that the photosphere of the supergiant is enshrouded by a molecular and dusty envelope. At 10um, IRS7 is strongly resolved with a visibility of approximately 0.2. The MIR is dominated by moderately warm (200 K), extended dust, mostly distributed outside of a radius of about 120 AU (15 mas) around the star. A deep 9.8-silicate absorption in excess of the usual extinction law with respect to the NIR extinction has been found. This confirms recent findings of a relatively enhanced, interstellar 9.8-silicate absorption with respect to the NIR extinction towards another star in the central arcsec, suggesting an unusual dust composition in that region. Our VLTI observations show that interferometric NIR phase-referencing experiments with mas resolution using IRS7 as phase-reference appear to be feasible, but more such studies are required to definitely characterize the close environment around this star. We demonstrate that interferometry is required to resolve the innermost environment of stars at the Galactic center.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Банда і злочинна організація: проблема співвідношення понять

Розкривається проблема співвідношення понять «банда» та «злочинна організація». На основі критичного аналізу існуючих наукових підходів до визначення сутнісних ознак понять «банда» та «злочинна організація» та судової практики розгляду кримінальних справ про злочини, вчинені такими злочинними об’єднаннями, автором пропонуються конкретні підходи до їх співвідношення.Раскрывается проблема соотношения понятий «банда» и «преступная организация». На основе критического анализа существующих научных подходов на определение сущностных признаков понятий «банда» и «преступная организация» и судебной практики рассмотрения уголовных дел о преступлениях, совершенных такими преступными объединениями автором предлагаются конкретные подходы к их соотношению.Opens up the problem of correlation of the concepts «band» and «criminal organization». Founded on critical analysis of the existing scientific approaches at definition of the essence signs of the concepts «band» and «criminal organization» and judicial practice of consideration criminal cases about crimes are committed by that criminal associations author offers certain approaches at their correlation

Dose-response relationship of fibrous dusts in intraperitoneal studies.

The relationship between the number of fibers injected intraperitoneally and the occurrence of peritoneal mesotheliomas in rats was investigated using data from a series of carcinogenicity studies with several fibrous dusts. Based on observed tumor incidences ranging between 10 and 90%, the hypothesis of a common slope of dose-response relationships (parallel probit lines in probit analysis) cannot be rejected. In general, parallelism of probit lines is considered an indication of a common mode of action. Analysis of the shape of the dose-response relationship, with one apparent exception, shows virtually linear or superlinear behavior, i.e., from these data, there is no indication of a decrease in carcinogenic potency of an elementary carcinogenic unit at lower doses

Childhood injury in Tower Hamlets: Audit of children presenting with injury to an inner city A&E department in London.

Childhood injury is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide with the most socio-economically deprived children at greatest risk. Current routine NHS hospital data collection in England is inadequate to inform or evaluate prevention strategies. A pilot study of enhanced data collection was conducted to assess the feasibility of collecting accident and emergency data for national injury surveillance

Is a member of udp- glycosyltransferase regulating ellagitannins metabolism in strawberry?

Fresh strawberries are a popular and important component of the human diet. The demand for highquality fruits is increasing globally, challenging breeders to develop modern strawberry cultivarsthat fulfill all desired characteristics. Fruit flavor and nutritional characteristics are key quality traitsand ones of the main factors influencing consumer preference. Shikimate and phenylpropanoidpathways produce many chemical compounds, like phenolic compounds, polyphenols and tannins,thatarehighlyvaluable in human nutrition offering antioxidant protection and contribute to the prevention of some diseases. Among them, the hydrolysable tannins, like ellagitanins and ellagic acid, have an effect on health in some human diseases such as breast and prostate cancers or neurodegenerative diseases (Basu et al., 2014). In a previous study, Pott et al., (2020) found 110 stable QTL for secondary metabolism by studying the F1 population derived from the crossing of ‘232’ and ‘1392’ (Zorrilla Fontanesi et al., 2011). Among these QTLs, we highlighted one that was responsible for 50-70% of the variation of ellagic acid hexose. A RNAseq with contrasting lines in ellagic acid hexose content was performed to reveal 11 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) with a false discovery ratio under 0.05. Candidate genes were functionally annotated using MapMan software. One gene raised as a candidate gene, annotated as UDP-glycosyltransferase suggesting to participate in the glycosylation of ellagic acid. In addition, we found that the gene expression of this candidate was negatively correlated with proanthocyanidin and flavan-3-ols content, providing an evidence of possible metabolic flux redirection through the synthesis of ellagitannins. However, further experiments are needed to confirm the role of this gene in the synthesis of ellagitannins.This work was supported by grants RTI 2018-099797-B-100 (Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Spain) and UMA18-FEDERJA-179 (FEDER-Junta Andalucía). In addition, we acknowledge partial funding by PY20_00408 (PAIDI 2020-Junta de Andalucía). JGV acknowledges the EMERGIA Programme (EMERGIA20_00309-Junta de Andalucía). J.M. thanks to Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (PRE2019-091188). Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Candidate gene for branched-chain amino acid content in strawberry

Cultivated strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) is a berry crop widely appreciated worldwide due to its nutritional and organoleptic properties. However, the main breeding targets in these crops have been the control of flowering (for fruit yield), runnering (for vegetative propagation) and the trade-off between the two. For this reason, nowadays, breeders are mainly focused on recovering fruit quality attributes in order to gain consumers acceptance. Those characteristics are determined by the metabolic composition of the fruit, thus the modulation of its metabolism can help to reach this aim. Regarding aroma, esters are the main responsible of this trait in strawberry fruit. Some of them are derived from the catabolism of branched-chain amino acids (valine, leucine and isoleucine). Although the synthesis of these amino acids has been well stablished in strawberry fruit, its degradation remains unclear. Using a F1 F. × ananassa mapping population we identified a stable QTL (Quantitative Trait Loci) for these amino acids. Based on its differential gene expression in contrasting lines for these metabolites and its annotation, we identified an amino acid transporter as a candidate gene for the regulation of branched-chain amino acid content in strawberry. To elucidate the involvement of this gene in branched-chain amino acid metabolism, we have done functional analysis based on transient overexpression lines on Nicotiana benthamiana showing changes in amino acids content. Moreover, the subcellular localization of the candidate gene in N. benthamiana suggested its location in the plasmatic reticulum. Currently, we are performing further experiments in order to elucidate the role of this gene on strawberry volatile metabolism.This work was supported by grants RTI 2018-099797-B-100 (Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Spain) and UMA18-FEDERJA-179 (FEDER-Junta Andalucía). In addition, we acknowledge partial funding by PY20_00408 (PAIDI 2020-Junta de Andalucía). The attendance to this meeting was supported by Plan Propio de Investigación, Transferencia y Divulgación Científica de la Universidad de Málaga. Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Avaliação da atividade inseticida em espécies de plantas do Pantanal Matogrossense.

As substâncias produzidas por plantas através de metabolismo secundário, podem apresentar atividades biológicas diversas e algumas podem ser de interesse para aplicações em controle de insetos. Neste trabalho foram avaliadas 14 espécies de plantas do Pantanal Mato-grossense, quanto a atividade inseticida, utilizando como organismos-testes, Spodoptera frugiperda e Anticarsia gemmatalis. Os melhores resultados foram obtidos com Sebastiania hispida, Annona dioica, A. cornifolia, Fagara hassleriana e Unonopsis lindimanii.bitstream/CNPMA/5373/1/boletim_24.pd