7150 Depresiones en sustratos turbosos del rhynchosporium

[ES] Definición según Bartolomé et al. (2005): comuni¬dades vegetales pioneras colonizadoras de substratos ácidos turbosos desnudos resultantes de la erosión artificial o natural de las turberas de Sphagnum. Este tipo de hábitat se presenta en los mismos terri¬torios que otras turberas de Sphagnum, fundamen¬talmente en las comarcas septentrionales y en los sistemas montañosos ácidos de la Península.Peer reviewe

Microfluidic‐assisted blade coating of compositional libraries for combinatorial applications: the case of organic photovoltaics

Microfluidic technologies are highly adept at generating controllable compositional gradients in fluids, a feature that has accelerated the understanding of the importance of chemical gradients in biological processes. That said, the development of versatile methods to generate controllable compositional gradients in the solid‐state has been far more elusive. The ability to produce such gradients would provide access to extensive compositional libraries, thus enabling the high‐throughput exploration of the parametric landscape of functional solids and devices in a resource‐, time‐, and cost‐efficient manner. Herein, the synergic integration of microfluidic technologies is reported with blade coating to enable the controlled formation of compositional lateral gradients in solution. Subsequently, the transformation of liquid‐based compositional gradients into solid‐state thin films using this method is demonstrated. To demonstrate efficacy of the approach, microfluidic‐assisted blade coating is used to optimize blending ratios in organic solar cells. Importantly, this novel technology can be easily extended to other solution processable systems that require the formation of solid‐state compositional lateral gradients

The use of mixed collagen-Matrigel matrices of increasing complexity recapitulates the biphasic role of cell adhesion in cancer cell migration: ECM sensing, remodeling and forces at the leading edge of cancer invasion

The migration of cancer cells is highly regulated by the biomechanical properties of their local microenvironment. Using 3D scaffolds of simple composition, several aspects of cancer cell mechanosensing (signal transduction, EMC remodeling, traction forces) have been separately analyzed in the context of cell migration. However, a combined study of these factors in 3D scaffolds that more closely resemble the complex microenvironment of the cancer ECM is still missing. Here, we present a comprehensive, quantitative analysis of the role of cell-ECM interactions in cancer cell migration within a highly physiological environment consisting of mixed Matrigel-collagen hydrogel scaffolds of increasing complexity that mimic the tumor microenvironment at the leading edge of cancer invasion. We quantitatively show that the presence of Matrigel increases hydrogel stiffness, which promotes ß1 integrin expression and metalloproteinase activity in H1299 lung cancer cells. Then, we show that ECM remodeling activity causes matrix alignment and compaction that favors higher tractions exerted by the cells. However, these traction forces do not linearly translate into increased motility due to a biphasic role of cell adhesions in cell migration: at low concentration Matrigel promotes migration-effective tractions exerted through a high number of small sized focal adhesions. However, at high Matrigel concentration, traction forces are exerted through fewer, but larger focal adhesions that favor attachment yielding lower cell motility

Response of Horticultural Soil Microbiota to Different Fertilization Practices

Environmentally friendly agricultural production necessitates manipulation of microbe–plant interactions, requiring a better understanding of how farming practices influence soil microbiota. We studied the effect of conventional and organic treatment on soil bacterial richness, composition, and predicted functional potential. 16S rRNA sequencing was applied to soils from adjacent plots receiving either a synthetic or organic fertilizer, where two crops were grown within treatment, homogenizing for differences in soil properties, crop, and climate. Conventional fertilizer was associated with a decrease in soil pH, an accumulation of Ag, Mn, As, Fe, Co, Cd, and Ni; and an enrichment of ammonia oxidizers and xenobiotic compound degraders (e.g., Candidatus Nitrososphaera, Nitrospira, Bacillus, Pseudomonas). Soils receiving organic fertilization were enriched in Ti (crop biostimulant), N, and C cycling bacteria (denitrifiers, e.g., Azoarcus, Anaerolinea; methylotrophs, e.g., Methylocaldum, Methanosarcina), and disease-suppression (e.g., Myxococcales). Some predicted functions, such as glutathione metabolism, were slightly, but significantly enriched after a one-time manure application, suggesting the enhancement of sulfur regulation, nitrogen-fixing, and defense of environmental stressors. The study highlights that even a single application of organic fertilization is enough to originate a rapid shift in soil prokaryotes, responding to the differential substrate availability by promoting soil health, similar to recurrent applications.This work was supported by the Earth Microbiome Project; the METAMAHA project funded by the Basque Government’s Department of Industry, Trade, and Tourism (SAIOTEK program; S-PE13UN130); and IT1014-16 and IT1213-19 Consolidated Research Group Projects

Using spatial confinement to decipher polymorphism in the organic semiconductor p-DTS(FBTTh2)2

Many molecular semiconductors show a pronounced polymorphism; i.e. they can adopt different crystal arrangements depending, e.g., on temperature, pressure, and selected solidification pathways. This renders reliable fabrication of molecular semiconductor devices challenging, as minute changes in processing can lead to numerous structures and, hence, optoelectronic responses. Here, we demonstrate using the example of p-DTS(FBTTh2)2 that spatial confinement at the nanoscale can be exploited to detect specific polymorphs and the conditions under they form. A new polymorph exhibiting a higher charge-carrier mobility compared to previously reported p-DTS(FBTTh2)2 crystal forms is found at elevated temperatures and high degree of confinement, illustrating the benefit of our approach and promising that spatial confinement will find wide-spread application to understand and control polymorph formation in organic semiconductors.This work is supported by MCINN/FEDER (under ref. PID2021-126243NB-I00 and PGC2018-095411-B-I00) and Xunta de Galicia (Proyectos de Consolidación ref. ED431F 2021/009). J. M. thanks MCINN for the Ramón y Cajal contract. N. S. in addition gratefully acknowledges support from the IdEx Bordeaux Excellence program (ANR-10-IDEX-03-02). The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the IONBIKE RISE project. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 823989. All authors acknowledge the synchrotron radiation source ELETTRA (Trieste, Italy) for providing beam time and the staff from the SAXS beamline for support. This work was authored in part by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, operated by Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, for the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308. Funding for TRMC measurements was provided by the Solar Photochemistry Program, Division of Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U. S. Department of Energy. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U. S. Government. The U. S. Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U. S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this work, or allow others to do so, for U. S. Government purposes. J. M. thanks MICINN/FEDER for the Grant PID2021-126243NB-I00.With funding from the Spanish government through the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000917-S).Peer reviewe

On The Thermal Conductivity of Conjugated Polymers for Thermoelectrics

The thermal conductivity (κ) governs how heat propagates in a material, and thus is a key parameter that constrains the lifetime of optoelectronic devices and the performance of thermoelectrics (TEs). In organic electronics, understanding what determines κ has been elusive and experimentally challenging. Here, by measuring κ in 17 π-conjugated materials over different spatial directions, it is statistically shown how microstructure unlocks two markedly different thermal transport regimes. κ in long-range ordered polymers follows standard thermal transport theories: improved ordering implies higher κ and increased anisotropy. κ increases with stiffer backbones, higher molecular weights and heavier repeat units. Therein, charge and thermal transport go hand-in-hand and can be decoupled solely via the film texture, as supported by molecular dynamics simulations. In largely amorphous polymers, however, κ correlates negatively with the persistence length and the mass of the repeat unit, and thus an anomalous, albeit useful, behavior is found. Importantly, it is shown that for quasi-amorphous co-polymers (e.g., IDT-BT) κ decreases with increasing charge mobility, yielding a 10-fold enhancement of the TE figure-of-merit ZT compared to semi-crystalline counterparts (under comparable electrical conductivities). Finally, specific material design rules for high and low κ in organic semiconductors are provided.The authors would like to acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the “Severo Ochoa” Programme for Centers of Excellence in R&D and project reference PID2021-128924OB-I00 as well as the European Research Council (ERC) under grant agreement no. 648901. This work was financially supported by the European Commission through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie projects HORATES (GA-955837). J.M. is also grateful to the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through project PGC2018-094620-A-I00. The authors also acknowledge the support from the Marie Skłodowska-Curie program (action no. 793726 – TELIOTES) and the Centro de Supercomputación de Galicia (CESGA) for the use of their computational resources. The authors acknowledge Prof. Alejandro R. Goñi (ICMAB-CSIC, ICREA) for his valuable help in setting up the Raman thermometry measurement platform. The authors are thankful to Dr. Aleksandr Perevedentsev (ICMAB-CSIC) for his know-how regarding the fabrication of free-standing films, as well as for the preparation of the drop cast DH6T films. The authors are very thankful to Prof. Paul Smith (ETH Zürich) for fruitful discussions about polymer processing and Prof. Christian Müller for his useful comments on this work, and the suggestions regarding thermal diffusivity. The authors also thank Andrés Gómez for performing the nanoindentation experiments. I.M. and H.C. acknowledge King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) under awards no. OSR-2018-CARF/CCF-3079, and OSR-4106 CPF2019 as well as EC FP7 Project SC2 (610115).With funding from the Spanish government through the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000917-S).Peer reviewe

Stabilization of LKB1 and Akt by neddylation regulates energy metabolism in liver cancer

The current view of cancer progression highlights that cancer cells must undergo through a post-translational regulation and metabolic reprogramming to progress in an unfriendly environment. In here, the importance of neddylation modification in liver cancer was investigated. We found that hepatic neddylation was specifically enriched in liver cancer patients with bad prognosis. In addition, the treatment with the neddylation inhibitor MLN4924 in Phb1-KO mice, an animal model of hepatocellular carcinoma showing elevated neddylation, reverted the malignant phenotype. Tumor cell death in vivo translating into liver tumor regression was associated with augmented phosphatidylcholine synthesis by the PEMT pathway, known as a liver-specific tumor suppressor, and restored mitochondrial function and TCA cycle flux. Otherwise, in protumoral hepatocytes, neddylation inhibition resulted in metabolic reprogramming rendering a decrease in oxidative phosphorylation and concomitant tumor cell apoptosis. Moreover, Akt and LKB1, hallmarks of proliferative metabolism, were altered in liver cancer being new targets of neddylation. Importantly, we show that neddylation-induced metabolic reprogramming and apoptosis were dependent on LKB1 and Akt stabilization. Overall, our results implicate neddylation/signaling/metabolism, partly mediated by LKB1 and Akt, in the development of liver cancer, paving the way for novel therapeutic approaches targeting neddylation in hepatocellular carcinoma

Angular analysis of B0→D∗−D∗+s with D∗+s→D+sγ decays

The first full angular analysis of the B0→D∗−D∗+s decay is performed using 6 fb−1 of pp collision data collected with the LHCb experiment at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The D∗+s→D+sγ and D*− → D¯¯¯¯0π− vector meson decays are used with the subsequent D+s → K+K−π+ and D¯¯¯¯0 → K+π− decays. All helicity amplitudes and phases are measured, and the longitudinal polarisation fraction is determined to be fL = 0.578 ± 0.010 ± 0.011 with world-best precision, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. The pattern of helicity amplitude magnitudes is found to align with expectations from quark-helicity conservation in B decays. The ratio of branching fractions [ℬ(B0→D∗−D∗+s) × ℬ(D∗+s→D+sγ)]/ℬ(B0 → D*−D+s) is measured to be 2.045 ± 0.022 ± 0.071 with world-best precision. In addition, the first observation of the Cabibbo-suppressed Bs → D*−D+s decay is made with a significance of seven standard deviations. The branching fraction ratio ℬ(Bs → D*−D+s)/ℬ(B0 → D*−D+s) is measured to be 0.049 ± 0.006 ± 0.003 ± 0.002, where the third uncertainty is due to limited knowledge of the ratio of fragmentation fractionsS

Stabilization of LKB1 and Akt by neddylation regulates energy metabolism in liver cancer

The current view of cancer progression highlights that cancer cells must undergo through a post-translational regulation and metabolic reprogramming to progress in an unfriendly environment. In here, the importance of neddylation modification in liver cancer was investigated. We found that hepatic neddylation was specifically enriched in liver cancer patients with bad prognosis. In addition, the treatment with the neddylation inhibitor MLN4924 in Phb1-KO mice, an animal model of hepatocellular carcinoma showing elevated neddylation, reverted the malignant phenotype. Tumor cell death in vivo translating into liver tumor regression was associated with augmented phosphatidylcholine synthesis by the PEMT pathway, known as a liver-specific tumor suppressor, and restored mitochondrial function and TCA cycle flux. Otherwise, in protumoral hepatocytes, neddylation inhibition resulted in metabolic reprogramming rendering a decrease in oxidative phosphorylation and concomitant tumor cell apoptosis. Moreover, Akt and LKB1, hallmarks of proliferative metabolism, were altered in liver cancer being new targets of neddylation. Importantly, we show that neddylation-induced metabolic reprogramming and apoptosis were dependent on LKB1 and Akt stabilization. Overall, our results implicate neddylation/signaling/metabolism, partly mediated by LKB1 and Akt, in the development of liver cancer, paving the way for novel therapeutic approaches targeting neddylation in hepatocellular carcinoma