Zebrafish as a model organism for the study of toxicity and effectiveness of new antitumor therapies

The zebrafish have many advantages that led to be a model organism with a great potential in translational research. The zebrafish embryos are an ideal platform to evaluate novel cancer therapies. For this reason, the main goal of this thesis has been evaluating the therapeutic potential of different anticancer therapies in zebrafish embryos. To accomplish this, we evaluated the toxicity in vitro and in vivo of some commonly used anticancer drugs in order to determinate crucial toxicological profiles for zebrafish xenograft studies. Additionally, we develop a newly nanoemulsion based on the anticancer drug edelfosine which let us to study parameters such as toxicity, biodistribution and efficacy in xenografted zebrafish models

Pastors' struggles, their need for and perceptions on pastoral counseling

Abstract onlyA qualitative and quantitative study was conducted to determine the struggles of pastors, identify their need for pastoral counseling and perceptions on pastoral counseling to pastors. Data were gathered through some literature, Self-administered Questionnaires and Focus Group Discussion. The analysis of the data was done using a thematic approach. All of the respondents believed that pastors have struggles. Pastors’ struggles are interconnected and they affect their total being. The size of the church also influences pastors’ ministry struggle/s. While pastors have different struggles in some areas of their lives the most common struggle which yield high rating among pastors is finances. In addition, all of the respondents have experienced crisis of different kinds in their lives. Most of them have received counseling in an informal setting with a close friend. However, busy schedules of pastors and lack of trust are reasons they seldom or never submit to counseling. Moreover, the respondents believed that Pastoral Counseling can help pastors become better individuals and ministers. Therefore, they are in favor of pastors who seek counseling. All of the participants also noted that pastors need someone who is trained, skilled and respected individual to confide and have counseling with.Includes bibliographical referencesMaster of Divinit

Environmental regulation of dormancy, flowering and runnering in two genetically distant everbearing strawberry cultivars

The environmental control of dormancy and its relation to flowering and runner formation is poorly understood in everbearing (EB) strawberry cultivars. We studied the topic by growing plants of the seed-propagated F1-hybrid ‘Delizzimo’ and the runner-propagated ‘Favori’ cultivar in daylight phytotron compartments under short day (SD) and long day (LD) conditions at temperatures of 6, 16 or 26 °C for 5 and 10 weeks. This was followed by forcing at 20 °C and 20-h photoperiod for 10 weeks with and without preceding chilling at 2 °C for 6 weeks. The results showed that dormancy in EB strawberry is regulated by a complex interaction of temperature, photoperiod and chilling in much the same way as known for seasonal flowering (SF) cultivars. Surprisingly, the EB cultivars exhibited the same SD dormancy induction response as SF cultivars, despite their opposite photoperiodic flowering requirements. However, at 26 °C the EB cultivars developed partial dormancy also under LD conditions. As known for SF cultivars, none of the EB cultivars became dormant at 6 °C regardless of daylength conditions, whereas they were increasingly sensitive to SD dormancy induction at intermediate and high temperatures. Similar to SF cultivars, the EB cultivars needed exposure to SD and relatively high temperatures for at least 10 weeks for attainment of the semi-dormant state that is typical for strawberry in general. As reported for SF cultivars, there was a close interrelation between the control of flowering, runner formation and dormancy also in the EB cultivars. ‘Favori’ had an obligatory LD requirement for flowering at 26 °C and was almost day neutral at 16 °C, while ‘Delizzimo’ behaved as a quantitative LD plant at both temperatures, and both cultivars were completely day neutral at 6 °C. Except for the stricter LD control of flowering in ‘Favori’, the overall environmental responses were quite similar in the two genetically distant cultivars. Chilling for six weeks at 2 °C was adequate for complete reversal of the constrained elongation of leaf petioles and flower trusses in dormant plants, but had little or no effect on the degree of flowering and runner formation.acceptedVersio

Carbon Nanotubes as Solid-Phase Extraction Sorbents Prior to Atomic Spectrometric Determination of Metal Species: Determination of Lead in Urine

The 18th International Electronic Conference on Synthetic Organic Chemistry session Polymer and Supramolecular ChemistryNew materials have significant impact on development of new methods and instrumentation for chemical analysis. From the discovery of carbon nanotubes in 1991, single and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs and MWCNTs) -due to their high adsorption and desorption capacities- have been employed as sorption substrates in solid-phase extraction for the preconcentration of heavy metals from diverse matrices. In the present work, a new method for the Pb determination by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ETAAS) in urine at low levels has been developed. Lead was separated from the undesirable urine matrix by means of a solid phase extraction (SPE) procedure using oxidized multiwalled carbon nanotubes as a sorbent materia

Efectividad de una intervención de enfermería para modificar la auto-eficacia y la sobrecarga del cuidador del paciente hemato-oncológico ambulatorio

106 páginasPara establecer la problemática del cuidador familiar de la persona con cáncer, es necesario iniciar con el estado actual del cáncer en el mundo, en el ámbito Latinoamericano, en Colombia y en la región de Santander. El Global Cáncer Observatory (GCO) publicó un informe sobre el crecimiento de casos de esta enfermedad en el 2018, en el que revela que 18.078.957 casos de cáncer en el mundo se detectaron en ese año, el informe señala que el de pulmón, con un total 2.093.876 (11,6%), y el de mama, con 2.088.849 (11,6%) casos, son los tipos de cáncer más frecuentes en los pacientes (1) a su vez, el cáncer es la segunda causa principal de muerte en la región de las Américas, donde se estima que 2,8 millones de personas son diagnosticadas cada año y 1,3 millones mueren por esta causa (2). En el caso de Colombia, el observatorio (GCO) informa, que se han registrado 101.893 casos hasta septiembre de 2018, de los cuales 47.876 son hombres y 54.017 mujeres (1). En Santander según los cálculos del Observatorio de Salud Pública de Santander (OSPS) en el 2014 (3), el cáncer de mayor prevalencia fue el de mama, estómago y de cuello uterino mientras que en los hombres, fue el cáncer de estómago, próstata y pulmón(3). El cáncer, según la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS), es un proceso de crecimiento y diseminación incontrolado de células (4), que puede aparecer en cualquier lugar del cuerpo. Generalmente en todos los tipos de cáncer, algunas de las células del cuerpo empiezan a dividirse sin detenerse y se diseminan a los tejidos aledaños produciendo metástasis. Actualmente, se pueden encontrar más de 100 tipos de cáncer, carcinomas, sarcomas, leucemias, linfomas, mielomas y melanomas.Maestría en EnfermeríaMagíster en Enfermerí

Effects of temperature and photoperiod on photosynthesis in everbearing strawberry

There is little knowledge about photosynthesis in everbearing strawberry cultivars. We therefore grew three everbearing strawberry cultivars in daylight phytotron compartments at temperatures of 9, 15, 21 and 27°C and photoperiods of 10 h (SD) and 20 h (LD). After three weeks, the rates of dark respiration and photosynthesis and their acclimation were measured in 'Favouri'. Photosynthesis of plants grown in the various conditions was measured as CO2-uptake with an infrared gas analyzer at increasing irradiances (50-1000 µmol quanta m‑2 s‑1) and temperatures ranging from 9 to 27°C. In the dark, CO2-production (dark respiration) increased with increasing measuring temperature and was always largest in plants grown at low temperature (9°C) with no significant effect of photoperiod. Photosynthetic CO2-uptake was lowest at almost all irradiances in plants grown at 9°C, and with no clear effect of growth temperatures in the 15-27°C range. At saturating irradiances (500-1000 µmol), CO2-uptake increased with increasing measuring temperatures, reaching a plateau at about 21°C for plants grown at 15-27°C in SD and at 21-27°C in LD. For plants grown at 15°C in LD, the maximum CO2-uptake rate was obtained at 27°C. Light response curves showed that CO2-uptake increased with increasing irradiance and measuring temperatures and that the irradiance effect was markedly enhanced by increasing growth temperature. Maximum uptake rates were lowest for plants grown at 9°C at both photoperiods and highest for plants grown at 15°C in SD. Comparison of plants of 'Altess', 'Favouri' and 'Murano' at 500 µmol irradiance and 21°C revealed no significant differences in photosynthetic efficiency between the cultivars. Generally, the everbearing strawberry cultivars showed considerable photosynthetic plasticity to temperature within the 9-27°C range, although with an overall optimum at 15-21°C.acceptedVersio

Global scale analysis on the extent of river channel belts

Rivers form channel belts that encompass the area of the river channel and its associated levees, bars, splays and overbank landforms. The channel belt is critical for understanding the physical river evolution through time, predicting river behavior and management of freshwater resources. To date, there is no global-scale, quantitative study of the extent of river channel belts. Here we show, based on a pattern recognition algorithm, the global surface area of channel belts at an approximate 1 km resolution is 30.5 × 105 km2, seven times larger than the extent of river channels. We find 52% of river channels associated with the channel belts have a multi-threaded planform with the remaining 48% being single-threaded by surface area. The global channel belt (GCB) datasets provide new methods for high-resolution global scale landform classifications and for incorporating the channel belt into flood mitigation, freshwater budgets, ecosystem accounting and biogeochemical analyses.publishedVersio

Characterization of Environmental Effects on Flowering and Plant Architecture in an Everbearing Strawberry F1-Hybrid by Meristem Dissection and Gene Expression Analysis

Floral transition in the cultivated everbearing strawberry is a hot topic because these genotypes flower perpetually and are difficult to maintain in a non-flowering state. However, it has rarely been studied using morphogenetic and molecular analyses simultaneously. We therefore examined the morphogenetic effects and the activation of genes involved in floral induction and initiation in seedlings of an everbearing F1-hybrid. Seedlings were grown at 12, 19, and 26 degrees C under 10 h SD and 20 h LD conditions. We observed a strong environmental influence on meristem development and a FLOWERING LOCUS T1 (FaFT1)-SUPPRESSOR OF OVEREXPRESSION OF CONSTANS1 (FaSOC1) pathway similar to that in the everbearing woodland strawberry. The everbearing cultivar showed typical features of a quantitative LD plant, flowering earlier under LD than SD conditions at all temperatures. We also found that floral induction is facilitated by FaFT1 upregulation under LD conditions, while FaSOC1 upregulation in the apex leads to photoperiod-independent floral initiation. Moreover, we confirmed the strawberry meristem identity gene FaFUL can also be used as an early indicator of floral initiation in EB cultivars. This study also highlights the advantages of seed-propagated F1-hybrids in genetic studies, namely that they are genetically identical and not biased by a previous flowering history

The Potential of Zebrafish as a Model Organism for Improving the Translation of Genetic Anticancer Nanomedicines

In the last few decades, the field of nanomedicine applied to cancer has revolutionized cancer treatment: several nanoformulations have already reached the market and are routinely being used in the clinical practice. In the case of genetic nanomedicines, i.e., designed to deliver gene therapies to cancer cells for therapeutic purposes, advances have been less impressive. This is because of the many barriers that limit the access of the therapeutic nucleic acids to their target site, and the lack of models that would allow for an improvement in the understanding of how nanocarriers can be tailored to overcome them. Zebrafish has important advantages as a model species for the study of anticancer therapies, and have a lot to offer regarding the rational development of efficient delivery of genetic nanomedicines, and hence increasing the chances of their successful translation. This review aims to provide an overview of the recent advances in the development of genetic anticancer nanomedicines, and of the zebrafish models that stand as promising tools to shed light on their mechanisms of action and overall potential in oncologyThis work was supported by the Xunta de Galicia, Spain (Competitive Reference Groups, GRC2014/010), the Carlos III Health Institute/FEDER (PI15/00828), and the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (FPU15/06595)S