Insights into pneumococcal fratricide from the crystal structures of the modular killing factor LytC

7 pags, 3 figs, 1 tabThe first structure of a pneumococcal autolysin, that of the LytC lysozyme, has been solved in ternary complex with choline and a pneumococcal peptidoglycan (PG) fragment. The active site of the hydrolase module is not fully exposed but is oriented toward the choline-binding module, which accounts for its unique in vivo features in PG hydrolysis, its activation and its regulatory mechanisms. Because of the unusual hook-shaped conformation of the multimodular protein, it is only able to hydrolyze non-cross-linked PG chains, an assertion validated by additional experiments. These results explain the activation of LytC by choline-binding protein D (CbpD) in fratricide, a competence-programmed mechanism of predation of noncompetent sister cells. The results provide the first structural insights to our knowledge into the critical and central function that LytC plays in pneumococcal virulence and explain a long-standing puzzle of how murein hydrolases can be controlled to avoid self-lysis during bacterial growth and division. © 2010 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved.This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (BFU2008-01711, SAF2006-00390), EU-CP223111 (CAREPNEUMO, European Union), the COMBACT program (S-BIO-0260/2006) and CIBER de Enfermedades Respiratorias (CIBERES). CIBERES is an initiative of Instituto de Salud Carlos III. The work in the US was supported by the US National Institutes of Health. W.V. was supported by the European Commission (EUR-INTAFAR project). I.P.-D. was a fellow of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas

A comprehensive dataset of annotated brain metastasis MR images with clinical and radiomic data.

Brain metastasis (BM) is one of the main complications of many cancers, and the most frequent malignancy of the central nervous system. Imaging studies of BMs are routinely used for diagnosis of disease, treatment planning and follow-up. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has great potential to provide automated tools to assist in the management of disease. However, AI methods require large datasets for training and validation, and to date there have been just one publicly available imaging dataset of 156 BMs. This paper publishes 637 high-resolution imaging studies of 75 patients harboring 260 BM lesions, and their respective clinical data. It also includes semi-automatic segmentations of 593 BMs, including pre- and post-treatment T1-weighted cases, and a set of morphological and radiomic features for the cases segmented. This data-sharing initiative is expected to enable research into and performance evaluation of automatic BM detection, lesion segmentation, disease status evaluation and treatment planning methods for BMs, as well as the development and validation of predictive and prognostic tools with clinical applicability

Extinction-related Angström exponent characterization of submicrometric volume fraction in atmospheric aerosol particles

The AEAOD– ΔAEAOD grid proposed by Gobbi et al. (2007) is a graphical method used to visually represent the spectral characterization of aerosol optical depth (AOD), i.e. Angström exponent (AE) and its curvature, in order to infer the fine mode contribution (η) to the total AOD and the size of the fine mode aerosol particles. Perrone et al. (2014) applied this method for the wavelengths widely used in lidar measurements. However, in neither case does the method allow for a direct relationship between η and the fine mode fraction contribution to the total aerosol population. Some discussions are made regarding the effect of shape and composition to the classical AE-ΔAE plot. The potential use of particle backscatter measurements, widely used in aerosol characterization methods together with extinction measurements, is also discussed in the AE-ΔAE grid context. A modification is proposed that yields the submicron contribution to the total volume concentration by using particle extinction data, and a comparison to experimental measurements is made. Our results indicate that the use of a modified AE-ΔAE grid plot to directly obtain submicrometric and micrometric mode fraction to the total aerosol population is feasible if a volume-based bimodal particle size distribution is used instead of a number-based one.Andalusia Regional Government through project P12-RNM-2409Spanish Ministry of Sciences, Innovation and Universities (CGL2016-81092 and CGL2017 -90884 - REDT

Ojos que no ven… ¿Qué podemos hacer para incluir más a la fracción subterránea en estudios de vegetación?

Conocer la estructura y el funcionamiento de la fracción subterránea de la vegetación es fundamental para comprender numerosos procesos que ocurren en distintos niveles de organización. Sin embargo, dicha fracción fue menos estudiada que su contraparte aérea, principalmente por el gran esfuerzo que demanda muestrearla a campo y procesarla en el laboratorio. En la XXVIII Reunión Argentina de Ecología (Mar del Plata, 2018) se realizaron dos simposios sobre la importancia de conocer las raíces en estudios ecológicos. De los simposios surgió la necesidad de 1) cuantificar los estudios que hayan evaluado las fracciones subterránea y aérea de la vegetación, y 2) determinar las metodologías empleadas y las variables de la fracción subterránea registradas en sistemas naturales (i.e., pastizales, estepas, bosques, arbustales y desierto) y antropizados (i.e., pasturas y cultivos) en seis provincias fitogeográficas de la Argentina y en dos regiones geomorfológicas de Uruguay. Se registraron 933 estudios publicados entre 1990 y 2019. El 57% y el 23% correspondieron a estudios exclusivos de la fracción aérea y de la subterránea, respectivamente, con un incremento exponencial en el tiempo de ambas fracciones. En la actualidad existe una tendencia a incorporar el compartimiento subterráneo en estudios ecológicos. Mediante un análisis sistemático se encontró que se emplearon seis métodos de muestreo (barreno, ruleros, planta entera, monolitos, rhizotron y estimación de la biomasa subterránea a partir de la biomasa aérea) para evaluar cuatro variables (biomasa subterránea, productividad primaria neta subterránea, algunos atributos radicales y tasa de descomposición radical). El método más empleado fue el del barreno y la variable más evaluada fue la biomasa subterránea. Proponemos fomentar la colaboración entre equipos de investigación y establecer comparaciones metodológicas para comprender los alcances de los resultados y obtener estimaciones más confiables sobre las consecuencias del cambio en el uso del suelo.To know the structure and functioning of the belowground vegetation compartment is essential to understand numerous processes that occur at different organization levels. However, the belowground vegetation compartment has traditionally been less studied than the above layer due to the great effort required for field sampling and laboratory processing. In the XXVIII Reunión Argentina de Ecología, Mar del Plata 2018, two symposia about the importance of root knowledge in ecological studies were conducted. From this exchange arose the need to 1) quantify studies that include data of belowground and aboveground vegetation, and 2) determine the methodologies and the variables of the belowground compartment recorded in natural (grasslands, steppes, forests, shrubs, and desert) and human modified systems (pastures, crops) in six Argentinean phytogeographic provinces and in two Uruguayan geomorphological regions. There were 933 published studies from 1990 to 2019. The 57% and 23% corresponded to exclusive studies of the above and belowground compartments respectively, with an exponential increase in the time of both fractions. Currently, there is a tendency to incorporate the underground compartment in ecological studies. Through systematic analysis, it was found that six sampling methods were used (soil core, ingrowth cores, trench, monoliths, rhizotron and belowground biomass estimation from aboveground biomass) where four variables of the belowground vegetation compartment were recorded (belowground biomass, belowground net primary productivity, root traits, and roots decomposition rate). Obtaining soil volumes by soil core was the most used method, while belowground biomass was the most evaluated variable. We propose to encourage collaboration between research teams and establish methodological comparisons to understand the scope of the results and obtain better estimates about the consequences of land-use change.EEA Santa CruzFil: López Mársico, Luis. Universidad de la República. Facultad de Ciencias. Instituto de Ecología y Ciencias Ambientales; UruguayFil: Pestoni, Sofía. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; ArgentinaFil: Conti, Georgina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; ArgentinaFil: Pérez-Harguindeguy, Natalia. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; ArgentinaFil: Martínez Pastur, Guillermo José. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas. Laboratorio de Recursos Agroforestales; ArgentinaFil: Pinto, Priscila. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; ArgentinaFil: Sarquis, Agustín. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; ArgentinaFil: Reyes, María Fernanda. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Facultad de Ambiente y Salud. Laboratorio de Rehabilitación y Restauración de Ecosistemas Áridos y Semiáridos (LARREA); ArgentinaFil: Peri, Pablo Luis. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Santa Cruz; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Piñeiro, Gervasio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; Argentina. Universidad de la República. Facultad de Agronomía. Departamento de Sistemas Ambientales; Urugua

Prevalence of severe/morbid obesity and other weight status and anthropometric reference standards in Spanish preschool children: The PREFIT project

BACKGROUND: Childhood obesity has become a major health problem in children under the age of 5 years. Providing reference standards would help paediatricians to detect and/or prevent health problems related to both low and high levels of body mass and to central adiposity later in life. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of different weight status categories and to provide sex- and age-specific anthropometry reference standards for Spanish preschool children. METHODS: A total of 3178 preschool children (4.59±0.87 years old) participated in this study. Prevalence of different degrees of obesity (mild, severe, and morbid) and other weight status categories were determined. RESULTS: Reference standards were obtained. Prevalence of overweight and obese preschool children in the Spanish population ranged from 21.4 to 34.8%. Specifically, the obesity prevalence was 3.5, 1.2, and 1.3% of these subjects were categorized as mild, severe, and morbid obese. Sex- and age-specific reference standards for anthropometric parameters are provided for every 0.25 years (i.e. every trimester of life). CONCLUSION: Our results show a high prevalence of overweight/obese preschoolers. The provided sex- and age-specific anthropometric reference standards could help paediatricians to track and monitor anthropometric changes at this early stage in order to prevent overweight/obesity.We thank the participation of the preschoolers, parents, and teachers in this study. We are grateful to Ms. Carmen Sainz-Quinn for assistance with the English language. This work is part of a Ph.D. Thesis conducted in the Biomedicine Doctoral Studies of the University of Granada, Spain. The PREFIT project takes place owing to the funding of the Ramón y Cajal grant held by FBO (RYC-2011-09011). C.C.-S. is supported by a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BES-2014-068829). E.G.A. and F.B.O. are supported by a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (RYC-2014-16390 and RYC-2011-09011, respectively). C.A.-B., A.P.-B., and G.S.-D. are supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education (FPU13/03137, FPU15/ 05337, and FPU13/04365, respectively). Additional funding was obtained from the University of Granada, Plan Propio de Investigación 2016, Excellence actions: Units of Excellence; Unit of Excellence on Exercise and Health (UCEES) and by the Junta de Andalucia, Consejería de Conocimiento, Investigación y Universidades. In addition, funding was provided by the SAMID III network, RETICS, the PN I+D+I 2017-2021 (Spain), ISCIII-Sub-Directorate General for Research Assessment and Promotion, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (RD16/0022, SOMM17/6107/UGR), the EXERNET Research Network on Exercise and Health in Special Populations (DEP2005- 00046/ACTI), the University of the Basque Country (GIU14/21), and the University of Zaragoza (JIUZ-2014-BIO-08)

Memoria del II Coloquio de verano de investigación de la Escuela de Negocios de ITESO, 2023

La memoria recoge cinco de las ponencias presentadas en el Coloquio de investigación de verano de la Escuela de Negocios, 2023. Durante las presentaciones y el diálogo quisimos hacer énfasis en dos aspectos de nuestra labor universitaria: 1) el fortalecimiento de la Escuela de Negocios como instancia interdepartamental que comparte una misión común; 2) el modo como las tres funciones sustantivas (docencia, investigación y vinculación) se retroalimentan y sostienen mutuamente. Se presentan resúmenes extendidos de los siguientes trabajos: Diagnóstico de cultura organizacional por alumnos del PAP de Gestión del cambio, del talento humano y la efectividad organizacional; Modelo estratégico de sostenibilidad basado en el modelo de flujos descontados (DCF); Laboratorios móviles: impulsando la industria creativa-cultural en Jalisco; Nueva estrategia de comunicación como proceso formativo para empresarios y emprendedores; Economía Social y Solidaria como un elemento para el desarrollo de talleres del sector artesanal.ITESO, A.C