Ovine HSP90AA1 Expression Rate Is Affected by Several SNPs at the Promoter under Both Basal and Heat Stress Conditions

The aim of this work was to investigate the association between polymorphisms located at the HSP90AA1 ovine gene promoter and gene expression rate under different environmental conditions, using a mixed model approach. Blood samples from 120 unrelated rams of the Manchega sheep breed were collected at three time points differing in environmental conditions. Rams were selected on the basis of their genotype for the transversion G/C located 660 base pairs upstream the gene transcription initiation site. Animals were also genotyped for another set of 6 SNPs located at the gene promoter. Two SNPs, G/C−660 and A/G−444, were associated with gene overexpression resulting from heat stress. The composed genotype CC−660-AG−444 was the genotype having the highest expression rates with fold changes ranging from 2.2 to 3.0. The genotype AG−522 showed the highest expression levels under control conditions with a fold change of 1.4. Under these conditions, the composed genotype CC−601-TT−524-AG−522-TT−468 is expected to be correlated with higher basal expression of the gene according to genotype frequencies and linkage disequilibrium values. Some putative transcription factors were predicted for binding sites where the SNPs considered are located. Since the expression rate of the gene under alternative environmental conditions seems to depend on the composed genotype of several SNPs located at its promoter, a cooperative regulation of the transcription of the HSP90AA1 gene could be hypothesized. Nevertheless epigenetic regulation mechanisms cannot be discarded.Publishe

Use of Maximum Likelihood-Mixed Models to select stable reference genes: a case of heat stress response in sheep

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Reference genes with stable expression are required to normalize expression differences of target genes in qPCR experiments. Several procedures and companion software have been proposed to find the most stable genes. Model based procedures are attractive because they provide a solid statistical framework. NormFinder, a widely used software, uses a model based method. The pairwise comparison procedure implemented in GeNorm is a simpler procedure but one of the most extensively used. In the present work a statistical approach based in Maximum Likelihood estimation under mixed models was tested and compared with NormFinder and geNorm softwares. Sixteen candidate genes were tested in whole blood samples from control and heat stressed sheep.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A model including gene and treatment as fixed effects, sample (animal), gene by treatment, gene by sample and treatment by sample interactions as random effects with heteroskedastic residual variance in gene by treatment levels was selected using goodness of fit and predictive ability criteria among a variety of models. Mean Square Error obtained under the selected model was used as indicator of gene expression stability. Genes top and bottom ranked by the three approaches were similar; however, notable differences for the best pair of genes selected for each method and the remaining genes of the rankings were shown. Differences among the expression values of normalized targets for each statistical approach were also found.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Optimal statistical properties of Maximum Likelihood estimation joined to mixed model flexibility allow for more accurate estimation of expression stability of genes under many different situations. Accurate selection of reference genes has a direct impact over the normalized expression values of a given target gene. This may be critical when the aim of the study is to compare expression rate differences among samples under different environmental conditions, tissues, cell types or genotypes. To select reference genes not only statistical but also functional and biological criteria should be considered. Under the method here proposed <it>SDHA/MDH1 </it>have arisen as the best set of reference genes to be used in qPCR assays to study heat shock in ovine blood samples.</p

Medicinal plants in the southern region of the State of Nuevo León, México

Background: Although the flora of the State of Nuevo León is well known, there are few records of ethnobotancial information. An ethnobotanical study was undertaken in order to know the medicinal plants used by people living at the scrublands and oak-pine forest areas in the southern Nuevo León. Collection of plants specimens and interviews were carried out among the people of the municipalities of Aramberri, Galeana, and Zaragoza. Since former studies in the region are scarce, the aim of this work was to record the medicinal species and their uses in the scrublands and oak-pine forest areas, of southern Nuevo León, Mexico, and also to know if there are differences in the number of species and number of uses knowledge by people. Methods: Field work was carried out over a 2 years period; useful plants were collected and a total of 105 people from 46 different villages were interviewed. A database was compiled using data collected by means of semi structured interviews. The data were analyzed by means of non-parametric statistics, using goodness-of-fit test (Chi-squared) (number of species known by people of each municipality, number of uses known by people of each municipality), Chi-squared modified to incorporate the Yates Correction (number of species known by people living at scrublands and oak-pine forest); the Kruskall-Wallis test (number of species known by women and men of the three municipalities), and the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (age and number of species known, and age and number of uses). Results: A total of 163 medicinal plant species were recorded in the study area, comprising 108 wild and 55 cultivated plants. A total of 117 species were recorded in the oak-pine forest, and 111 in the scrublands area, a total of 68 were recorded in both areas; 68 medicinal species are used in all three municipalities, 40 wild and 28 cultivated. We documented 235 different medicinal uses. The most common plant parts used for medicinal purposes were found to be leaves (123 species), stems (55), fruits (28), roots (17), and bark (14). No differences were noted in the number of medicinal plant species identified among people, but differences were significant in their knowledge with respect to the number of uses among people of the three municipalities studied; people from both, scrublands and oak-pine forest know similar number of species and number of uses. Men and women of the three different municipalities knew statistically the same number of species and number of uses. There was no correlation between resident’s age and number of species known and resident’s age and number of uses either in Galeana or in Aramberri, but, there was high correlation among these variables in Zaragoza Conclusion: In southern Nuevo León people use at least 5% of the total State flora as medicinal plants, and most of these species are included in few plant families. Most of medicinal species are wild and indigenous to the region. The two most important major plant communities, scrublands and oak-pine forest provide almost the same number of medicinal species. A third of the medicinal flora recorded are used in all three municipalities, most of them are wild. Leaves, stems and fruits are the plant parts most commonly used for healing, and boiling is the most common method used for this purpose. Men and women from the three municipalities are familiar with nearly the same number of species; however, their knowledge of the number of uses varies significantly. In Galeana and Aramberri there was no correlation between a person’s age and number of species recognized, however, in Zaragoza, there existed a high correlation between these two factors

El aula virtual de la Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena

La implantación de los nuevos títulos de grado en las Universidades españolas lleva asociado un cambio en el enfoque educativo que acompaña a la convergencia europea en materia de educación superior. Gran número de expertos y profesores universitarios han apostado por un modelo mixto que compagine las clases presenciales con trabajo individual o colaborativo del alumno, propiciando este mediante herramientas de Internet. Este modelo mixto pone a disposición de nuestros alumnos mayor cantidad de recursos para mejorar su aprendizaje. Dentro de este planteamiento toman especial relevancia los denominados entornos virtuales de aprendizaje, que suministran a los alumnos los contenidos y las actividades mediante una conexión de Internet. Uno de estos entornos virtuales de enseñanza/aprendizaje que esta suscitando más adeptos es Moodle ya que combina la flexibilidad y sofisticación didáctica, la flexibilidad tecnológica, el dinamismo de su comunidad de desarrollo y su facilidad de uso para estudiantes y profesores, además de ofrecer un gran número de recursos al profesor. En este comunicación presentamos los resultados de implantación y funcionamiento de dicha plataforma en la Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, comprobando su aceptación por la comunidad universitaria.Consejo Escolar de la Región de Murcia. Consejería de Educación, Formación y Empleo. Universidad de Murcia. Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena. Centro de Profesores y Recursos de Murcia (CPR

Strong Cellular Immune Response, but Not Humoral, against SARS-CoV-2 in Oncohematological Patients with Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation after Natural Infection

Oncohematological patients show a low immune response against SARS-CoV-2, both to natural infection and after vaccination. Most studies are focused on the analysis of the humoral response; therefore, the information available about the cellular immune response is limited. In this study, we analyzed the humoral and cellular immune responses in nine individuals who received chemotherapy for their oncohematological diseases, as well as consolidation with autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT), after being naturally infected with SARS-CoV-2. All individuals had asymptomatic or mild COVID-19 and were not vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2. These results were compared with matched healthy individuals who also had mild COVID-19. The humoral response against SARS-CoV-2 was not detected in 6 of 9 oncohematological individuals prior to ASCT. The levels of antibodies and their neutralization capacity decreased after ASCT. Conversely, an enhanced cytotoxic activity against SARS-CoV-2-infected cells was observed after chemotherapy plus ASCT, mostly based on high levels of NK, NKT, and CD8+TCRγδ+ cell populations that were able to produce IFNγ and TNFα. These results highlight the importance of performing analyses not only to evaluate the levels of IgGs against SARS-CoV-2, but also to determine the quality of the cellular immune response developed during the immune reconstitution after ASCT.This work was supported by the Coordinated Research Activities at the Centro Nacional de Microbiología (CNM, Instituto de Salud Carlos III) (COV20_00679) to promote an integrated response against SARS-CoV-2 in Spain (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation) that is coordinated by Dr Inmaculada Casas (WHO National Influenza Center of the CNM), the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2019-110275RB-I00), and AES 2021 grant from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (PI21/00877). The work of Sara Rodríguez-Mora is financed by NIH grant R01AI143567. The work of Montserrat Torres is supported by Instituto de Salud Carlos III (COV20_00679). The work of Lorena Vigón is supported by a pre-doctoral grant from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (FIS PI16CIII/00034-ISCIII-FEDER).S

Antología género

En esta Antología se reúnen textos que, desde varias disciplinas, posiciones teóricas y formas de abordar la construcción social de lo masculino y lo femenino, han contribuido a la definición de un campo de producción de conocimientos en las ciencias sociales sobre las mujeres, las identidades y las representaciones de género en el Ecuador, tomando como punto de partida los años noventa. Esta producción se origina en diversas fuentes: investigadoras extranjeras provenientes de universidades europeas y norteamericanas; centros de investigación aplicada que trabajan en el país, e investigadoras nacionales vinculadas a centros de educación superior. Los distintos artículos que conforman esta Antología intentan ilustrar estas tres vertientes de producción

Compartiendo saberes de educación y humanidades

Los capítulos referentes a este libro tratan diversos temas tales como: 1) la construcción de los estudiantes de la licenciatura en químico farmacéutico biólogo el juicio valorativo y personaI deI significado en su desarroIIo profesionaI desde eI punto de vista axiológico, 2) se realiza un estudio en el Plantel Cuauhtémoc con Ia finaIidad de orientar a Ia comunidad estudiantiI aI tratamiento deI probIema de los residuos sólidos desde su etapa de diagnóstico hasta una propuesta de solución de la problemática, 3) se analiza como a nivel básico se construye el conocimiento y la participación del género en los estudiantes, en donde se observa que el papel del docente es un promotor importante, 4) es un tema que actualmente está causando mucho interés tanto en la educación como el la población en general, las redes sociales que actuaImente ese consideran un medio de comunicación con mucha influencia dentro de la sociedad, 5) se adentra al campo de la psicología y la tanatología ante los recursos resilientes que presentan las familias ante la muerte de un hijo, 6) es una investigación dedicada a identificar Ias diferentes percepciones que tienen las mujeres y los hombres en relación a la felicidad y la desdicha dentro del matrimonio, 7) es un análisis Transgeneracional para aportar las referencias familiares que permiten la permanencia del abuso sexual infantil en tres generaciones, de las cuales en la última generación se rompe ese secreto avallazador al romper el silencio, 8) es un ensayo acerca del juego terapéutico desde el punto de vista psicoanalítico, en el que se advierte ese juego en el que entra el paciente con el psicoanalista, 9) la metodología de la observación para la integración de la pericial en psicología, en donde se denotan desde la parte jurídica como se fundamente esta pericial y fortalece el logro del dictamen para tener un buen dictamen, 10) es una propuesta de construcción y validez del instrumento BP-22 Bienestar Psicológico en el ámbito de la educación superior, 11) se identifica a Ios procesos eIectoraIes como complicados, de tal manera que abre un panorama al marketing de los partidos políticos para conducir la voluntad ciudadana, y además ayuda al posicionamiento de los partidos, 12) aporta una base sobre Ios procesos identificatorios en eI movimiento estudiantiI de Ia UNAM deI año de I999, pIanteándoIo desde dos ejes de análisis: las identidades universitarias y el apartado del texto, que permiten configurar eI movimiento estudiantiI como un acontecimiento capaz de generar articulaciones nuevas de solidaridad. AI finaI deI Iibro se encuentran Ias síntesis curricuIares de cada uno de los autores, que aportaron sus investigaciones para la integración y generación de nuevos aportes científicos.Como su nombre lo indica COMPARTIENDO SABERES DE EDUCACIÓN Y HUMANIDADES, es un Iibro que denota eI deseo de integrar conocimiento para la comunidad estudiantil, llevarlos al interés de la investigación a través de la participación de los investigadores de diferentes áreas como: la educación, las ciencias sociales y las humanidades. Que les permite tener no solo un espacio en la difusión de los avances de sus estudios, sino que además permite el generar el interés de quién lo lee en diferentes formas de investigación, se encuentran estudios tanto cualitativos como cuantitativos, desde descriptivos hasta un nivel de intervención en la práctica de estas áreas.Universidad Autónoma del Estado de méxic

Screening of Microorganisms for Biodegradation of Simazine Pollution (Obsolete Pesticide Azotop 50 WP)

The capability of environmental microorganisms to biodegrade simazine—an active substance of 2-chloro-s-triazine herbicides (pesticide waste since 2007)—was assessed. An enormous metabolic potential of microorganisms impels to explore the possibilities of using them as an alternative way for thermal and chemical methods of utilization. First, the biotope rich in microorganisms resistant to simazine was examined. Only the higher dose of simazine (100 mg/l) had an actual influence on quantity of bacteria and environmental fungi incubated on substrate with simazine. Most simazine-resistant bacteria populated activated sludge and biohumus (vermicompost); the biggest strain of resistant fungi was found in floral soil and risosphere soil of maize. Compost and biohumus were the sources of microorganisms which biodegraded simazine, though either of them was the dominant considering the quantity of simazine-resistant microorganisms. In both cases of periodic culture (microorganisms from biohumus and compost), nearly 100% of simazine (50 mg/l) was degraded (within 8 days). After the repeated enrichment culture with simazine, the rate of its degradation highly accelerated, and just after 24 h, the significant decrease of simazine (20% in compost and 80% in biohumus) was noted. Although a dozen attempts of isolating various strains responsible for biodegradation of simazine from compost and biohumus were performed, only the strain identified as Arthrobacter urefaciens (NC) was obtained, and it biodegraded simazine with almost 100% efficiency (within 4 days)