Molecular networks of insulin signaling and amino acid metabolism in subcutaneous adipose tissue are altered by body condition in periparturient Holstein cows

[EN] Peripartal cows mobilize not only body fat but also body protein to satisfy their energy requirements. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of prepartum BCS on blood biomarkers related to energy and nitrogen metabolism, and mRNA and protein abundance associated with AA metabolism and insulin signaling in subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) in peripartal cows. Twenty-two multiparous Holstein cows were retrospectively classified into a high BCS (HBCS; n = 11, BCS >= 3.5) or normal BCS (NBCS; n = 11, BCS <= 3.17) group at d 28 before expected parturition. Cows were fed the same diet as a total mixed ration before parturition and were fed the same lactation diet postpartum. Blood samples collected at -10, 7, 15, and 30 d relative to parturition were used for analyses of biomarkers associated with energy and nitrogen metabolism. Biopsies of SAT harvested at -15, 7, and 30 d relative to parturition were used for mRNA (real timePCR) and protein abundance (Western blotting) assays. Data were subjected to ANOVA using the MIXED procedure of SAS (v. 9.4; SAS institute Inc., Cary, NC), with P <= 0.05 being the threshold for significance. Cows in HBCS had greater overall plasma nonesterified fatty acid concentrations, due to marked increases at 7 and 15 d postpartum. This response was similar (BCS x Day effect) to protein abundance of phosphorylated (p) protein kinase B (p-AKT), the insulin-induced glucose transporter (SLC2A4), and the sodium-coupled neutral AA transporter (SLC38A1). Abundance of these proteins was lower at -15 d compared with NBCS cows, and either increased (SLC2A4, SLC38A1) or did not change (p-AKT) at 7 d postpartum in IIBCS. Unlike protein abundance, however, overall mRNA abundances of the high-affinity cationic (SLC7A1), proton-coupled (SLC96A1), and sodium-coupled amino acid transporters (SLC,98,42) were greater in IIBCS than NBCS cows, due to upregulation in the postpartum phase. Those responses were similar to protein abundance of p-mTOR, which increased (BCS x Day effect) at 7 d in HBCS compared with NBCS cows. mRNA abundance of argininosuccinate lyase (ASL) and arginase 1 (ARG1) also was greater overall in HBCS cows. Together, these responses suggested impaired insulin signaling, coupled with greater postpartum AA transport rate and urea cycle activity in SAT of HBCS cows. An in vitro study using adipocyte and macrophage cocultures stimulated with various concentrations of fatty acids could provide some insights into the role of immune cells in modulating adipose tissue immunometabolic status, including insulin resistance and AA metabolism.Y. Liang is a recipient of a doctoral fellowship from the China Scholarship Council (CSC, Beijing, China) to perform his PhD studies at the University of Illinois (Urbana). A. S. Alharthi received a fellowship from King Saud University (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) to perform his PhD studies at the University of Illinois (Urbana). A. A. Elolimy was recipient of a fellowship from the Higher Education Ministry (Cairo, Egypt) to perform his PhD studies at the University of Illinois (Urbana). We thank Perdue AgriBusiness (Salisbury, MD) for the donation of ProvAAL2 AADvantage during the course of the experiment. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.Liang, Y.; Alharthi, A.; Elolimy, A.; Bucktrout, R.; Lopreiato, V.; Cortes, I.; Xu, C.... (2020). Molecular networks of insulin signaling and amino acid metabolism in subcutaneous adipose tissue are altered by body condition in periparturient Holstein cows. 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Body condition alters glutathione and nuclear factor erythroid 2-like 2 (NFE2L2)-related antioxidant network abundance in subcutaneous adipose tissue of periparturient Holstein cows

[EN] Dairy cows with high body condition score (BCS) in late prepartum are more susceptible to oxidative stress (OS). Nuclear factor erythroid 2-like 2 (NFE2L2) is a major antioxidant transcription factor. We investigated the effect of precalving BCS on blood biomarkers associated with OS, inflammation, and liver function, along with mRNA and protein abundance of targets related to NFE2L2 and glutathione (GSH) metabolism in s.c. adipose tissue (SAT) of periparturient dairy cows. Twenty-two multiparous Holstein cows were retrospectively classified into a high BCS (HBCS; n = 11, BCS ¿3.5) or normal BCS (NBCS; n = 11, BCS ¿3.17) on d 28 before parturition. Cows were fed a corn silage- and wheat straw-based total mixed ration during late prepartum, and a corn silage- and alfalfa hay-based total mixed ration postpartum. Blood samples obtained at ¿10, 7, 15, and 30 d relative to parturition were used for analyses of biomarkers associated with inflammation, including albumin, ceruloplasmin, haptoglobin, and myeloperoxidase, as well as OS, including ferric reducing ability of plasma (FRAP), reactive oxygen species (ROS), and ß-carotene. Adipose biopsies harvested at ¿15, 7, and 30 d relative to parturition were analyzed for mRNA (real-time quantitative PCR) and protein abundance (Western blotting) of targets associated with the antioxidant transcription regulator nuclear factor, NFE2L2, and GSH metabolism pathway. In addition, concentrations of GSH, ROS and malondialdehyde were measured. High BCS cows had lower prepartum dry matter intake expressed as a percentage of body weight along with greater BCS loss between ¿4 and 4 wk relative to parturition. Plasma concentrations of ROS and FRAP increased after parturition regardless of treatment. Compared with NBCS, HBCS cows had greater concentrations of FRAP at d 7 postpartum, which coincided with peak values in those cows. In addition, NBCS cows experienced a marked decrease in plasma ROS after d 7 postpartum, while HBCS cows maintained a constant concentration by d 30 postpartum. Overall, ROS concentrations in SAT were greater in HBCS cows. However, overall mRNA abundance of NFE2L2 was lower and cullin 3 (CUL3), a negative regulator of NFE2L2, was greater in HBCS cows. Although HBCS cows had greater overall total protein abundance of NFE2L2 in SAT, ratio of phosphorylated NFE2L2 to total NFE2L2 was lower, suggesting a decrease in the activity of this antioxidant system. Overall, mRNA abundance of the GSH metabolism-related genes glutathione reductase (GSR), glutathione peroxidase 1 (GPX1), and transaldolase 1 (TALDO1), along with protein abundance of glutathione S-transferase mu 1 (GSTM1), were greater in HBCS cows. Data suggest that HBCS cows might experience greater systemic OS after parturition, while increased abundance of mRNA and protein components of the GSH metabolism pathway in SAT might help alleviate tissue oxidant status. Data underscored the importance of antioxidant mechanisms at the tissue level. Thus, targeting these pathways in SAT during the periparturient period via nutrition might help control tissue remodeling while allowing optimal performance.Y. Liang is a recipient of a doctoral fellowship from China Scholarship Council (CSC, Beijing, China). A. S. Alharthi received a fellowship from King Saud University to perform his PhD studies at the University of Illinois (Urbana). A. A. Elolimy was recipient of a fellowship from Higher Education Ministry, Egypt to perform his Ph.D. studies at the University of Illinois (Urbana). We thank Perdue AgriBusiness (Salisbury, MD) for the donation of ProvAAL2 AADvantage during the course of the experiment. The authors have not stated any conflicts of interest.Liang, Y.; Alharthi, A.; Bucktrout, R.; Elolimy, A.; Lopreiato, V.; Martinez-Cortes, I.; Xu, C.... (2020). Body condition alters glutathione and nuclear factor erythroid 2-like 2 (NFE2L2)-related antioxidant network abundance in subcutaneous adipose tissue of periparturient Holstein cows. Journal of Dairy Science. 103(7):6439-6453. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2019-17813S643964531037Alharthi, A., Zhou, Z., Lopreiato, V., Trevisi, E., & Loor, J. J. (2018). Body condition score prior to parturition is associated with plasma and adipose tissue biomarkers of lipid metabolism and inflammation in Holstein cows. Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology, 9(1). doi:10.1186/s40104-017-0221-1Aquilano, K., Baldelli, S., & Ciriolo, M. R. (2014). Glutathione: new roles in redox signaling for an old antioxidant. 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Leaching behaviour of cement encapsulated thermally treated organic ion exchange resins

Cementation in OPC is a widely accepted method for the conditioning of Spent Ion Exchange Resins (IERs). However, the resulting waste forms tends to crack due to the induced forces by IERs swelling upon the adsorption of water. Pre-treatments, such as pyrolysis and incineration, are effective ways to minimize resin swelling issues, besides providing a significant volume reduction. In the present work, immobilization of ashes resulting from the thermal treatment of IERs was performed into three selected cement matrices of CEM I, CEM III and one-part geopolymer; the latter based on metakaolin, blast furnace slag and sodium silicate. By means of a series of batch experiments, the leaching behaviour of the waste/matrix system was assessed. Prismatic probes of 1×1×6 cm3 for each cement matrix, encapsulating 0 (reference) and 20 wt.% of the IERs ashes, were immersed in either a) deionized water, b) in situ disposal site water from El Cabril, the Spanish disposal facility for very low, low and intermediate level radioactive waste, and c) synthetic cementitious water, for reasons of leaching comparison in agreement with the ISO 6961 standard [1]. The ratio between the external surface area of the cement probes and the volume of solution was set to 0.1. All solutions were renovated every week for the first month and then every month up to 180 days. Monitoring of pH, electrical conductivity (EC) and concentrations of main and trace elements in solution were carried out. In general, no significant changes in pH were observed in the experiments performed with cementitious water as the pH was controlled by the initial pH of the solution (12.7). The pH in experiments with deionized and in situ waters increased rapidly from 7 to values in the range 10-11 (depending on the cement matrix composition) over the first week, and then stabilized into a steady range. However, the pH in samples with geopolymer decreased continuously to a range within 9.5-10 and does not seem to have reached a steady stage after 6 months. Similar trends were observed in the leaching behaviour of main cations (Ca, Na, K, Al, and Si) from the reference and IERs-containing cement probes but, as for pH, in general, steady stage was not reached. Additionally, in experiments with sampled water in El Cabril, oxidation-reduction potential was monitored and TOC in solution was measured, confirming no release of organics. Limited leaching of doping elements was observed. The joined evaluation of data may contribute to help to assess the potential of the three candidate materials a suitable conditioning matri

Genetic footprints of iberian cattle in America 500 years after the arrival of Columbus.

American Creole cattle presumably descend from animals imported from the Iberian Peninsula during the period of colonization and settlement, through different migration routes, andmay have also suffered the influence of cattle directly imported from Africa. The introduction of European cattle, which began in the 18th century, and later of Zebu from India, has threatened the survival of Creole populations, some of which have nearly disappeared or were admixed with exotic breeds. Assessment of the genetic status of Creole cattle is essential for the establishment of conservation programs of these historical resources. Methodology/Principal Findings: We sampled 27 Creole populations, 39 Iberian, 9 European and 6 Zebu breeds. We used microsatellite markers to assess the origins of Creole cattle, and to investigate the influence of different breeds on their genetic make-up. The major ancestral contributions are from breeds of southern Spain and Portugal, in agreement with the historical ports of departure of ships sailing towards the Western Hemisphere. This Iberian contribution to Creoles may also include some African influence, given the influential role that African cattle have had in the development of Iberian breeds, but the possibility of a direct influence on Creoles of African cattle imported to America can not be discarded. In addition to the Iberian influence, the admixture with other European breeds was minor. The Creoles from tropical areas, especially those from the Caribbean, show clear signs of admixture with Zebu. Conclusions/Significance: Nearly five centuries since cattle were first brought to the Americas, Creoles still show a strong and predominant signature of their Iberian ancestors. Creole breeds differ widely from each other, both in genetic structure and influences from other breeds. Efforts are needed to avoid their extinction or further genetic erosion, which would compromise centuries of selective adaptation to a wide range of environmental conditions

Feature selection for chemical sensor arrays using mutual information

We address the problem of feature selection for classifying a diverse set of chemicals using an array of metal oxide sensors. Our aim is to evaluate a filter approach to feature selection with reference to previous work, which used a wrapper approach on the same data set, and established best features and upper bounds on classification performance. We selected feature sets that exhibit the maximal mutual information with the identity of the chemicals. The selected features closely match those found to perform well in the previous study using a wrapper approach to conduct an exhaustive search of all permitted feature combinations. By comparing the classification performance of support vector machines (using features selected by mutual information) with the performance observed in the previous study, we found that while our approach does not always give the maximum possible classification performance, it always selects features that achieve classification performance approaching the optimum obtained by exhaustive search. We performed further classification using the selected feature set with some common classifiers and found that, for the selected features, Bayesian Networks gave the best performance. Finally, we compared the observed classification performances with the performance of classifiers using randomly selected features. We found that the selected features consistently outperformed randomly selected features for all tested classifiers. The mutual information filter approach is therefore a computationally efficient method for selecting near optimal features for chemical sensor arrays

Immediate Breast Reconstruction (IBR) With Direct, Anatomic, Extra-Projection Prosthesis 102 Cases

Abstract: There are different methods described until now for immediate breast reconstruction. Despite the use of autologous flaps considered by many authors, implants are considered as an option by others. A prospective study of 102 clinical cases was designed, including a 1-year follow-up in which glands were reconstructed by immediate breast reconstruction (IBR) with direct, extra projection, anatomic prostheses located in a submuscular pocket after a skin-sparing mastectomy. The prosthesis coverage was made by the muscle in its upper two thirds and by using the skin from the mastectomy in its lower third. The cosmetic results obtained were evaluated according to the volume, form, and symmetry achieved using a linear numeric analogical score. This evaluation had an averaged value of 2.79 Ϯ 0.8 in our scale from poor (0) to excellent result (4). The overall rate of complications was 15.7% of the cases, with seroma being the most frequent. In conclusion, this preliminary study demonstrates that immediate breast reconstruction with a direct, extra projection, anatomic prosthesis is a good alternative. Nevertheless, more long-term studies with a higher number of patients and using an SF-36 for patient satisfaction are needed to confirm these results

Hydropeaking impact assessment for Iberian cyprinids and leuciscids: An adaptation of the hydropeaking tool method

Hydropeaking negatively affects fish assemblages, but knowledge gaps still constrain our ability to rank and mitigate the impacts of different hydropower operation regimes at particular power plants. This is especially relevant for species and rivers for which the effects of hydropeaking are less investigated, such as the Iberian Cypriniformes and Mediterranean rivers. Recognizing the potential of the hydropeaking tool method (HT) developed for salmonids to systematically assess hydropeaking impacts, we adapted it for Iberian Cypriniformes. The general tool framework developed for the salmonids was kept for the Cypriniformes, with the combined use of factors describing the hydromorphological effects and factors related with fish vulnerability to assess hydropeaking impact. Effect and vulnerability factors were developed for Iberian cyprinids and leuciscids establishing preliminary thresholds for each indicator with three different levels of hydropeaking impact on the targeted taxa. The proposed factors and thresholds were critically reviewed and ranked by experts on Iberian Cypriniformes ecology and Mediterranean rivers functioning. Overall, the timing and distribution of peaking events were ranked higher by the experts in the effect factors, whereas the population size of barbel and smaller native Cypriniformes, as well as the degree of limitations in recruitment, were ranked higher in the vulnerability factors. Although there was some divergence in the expert opinions, a final set of effect and vulnerability factors was established, that retained most of the ones proposed for the salmonids, but included new ones, particularly for vulnerability. The present study provided a comprehensive, straightforward, and systematic assessment tool for evaluating hydropeaking impacts on Iberian Cypriniformes

Power law scaling of lateral deformations with universal Poissons index for randomly folded thin sheets

We study the lateral deformations of randomly folded elastoplastic and predominantly plastic thin sheets under the uniaxial and radial compressions. We found that the lateral deformations of cylinders folded from elastoplastic sheets of paper obey a power law behavior with the universal Poissons index nu = 0.17 pm 0.01, which does not depend neither the paper kind and sheet sizes, nor the folding confinement ratio. In contrast to this, the lateral deformations of randomly folded predominantly plastic aluminum foils display the linear dependence on the axial compression with the universal Poissons ratio nu_e = 0.33 pm 0.01. This difference is consistent with the difference in fractal topology of randomly folded elastoplastic and predominantly plastic sheets, which is found to belong to different universality classes. The general form of constitutive stress-deformation relations for randomly folded elastoplastic sheets is suggested

Measurements of high-energy neutron-induced fission of (nat)Pb and (209)Bi

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License 3.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any noncommercial medium, provided the original work is properly citedThe CERN Neutron Time-Of-Flight (n_TOF) facility is well suited to measure low cross sections as those of neutron-induced fission in subactinides. The cross section ratios of (nat)Pb and (209)Bi relative to (235)U and (238)U were measured using PPAC detectors and a fragment coincidence method that allows us to identify the fission events. The present experiment provides first results for neutron-induced fission up to 1 GeV. Good agreement is found with previous experimental data below 200 MeV. The comparison with proton-induced fission indicates that the limiting regime where neutron-induced and proton-induced fission reach equal cross sections is close to 1 GeV

Measurement of the Ge 70 (n,γ) cross section up to 300 keV at the CERN n-TOF facility

©2019 American Physical Society.Neutron capture data on intermediate mass nuclei are of key importance to nucleosynthesis in the weak component of the slow neutron capture processes, which occurs in massive stars. The (n,γ) cross section on Ge70, which is mainly produced in the s process, was measured at the neutron time-of-flight facility n-TOF at CERN. Resonance capture kernels were determined up to 40 keV neutron energy and average cross sections up to 300 keV. Stellar cross sections were calculated from kT=5 keV to kT=100 keV and are in very good agreement with a previous measurement by Walter and Beer (1985) and recent evaluations. Average cross sections are in agreement with Walter and Beer (1985) over most of the neutron energy range covered, while they are systematically smaller for neutron energies above 150 keV. We have calculated isotopic abundances produced in s-process environments in a 25 solar mass star for two initial metallicities (below solar and close to solar). While the low metallicity model reproduces best the solar system germanium isotopic abundances, the close to solar model shows a good global match to solar system abundances in the range of mass numbers A=60-80.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio