Ecological traits, genetic diversity and regional distribution of the macroalga Treptacantha elegans along the Catalan coast (NW Mediterranean Sea)

The widespread decline of canopy-forming macroalgal assemblages has been documented in many regions during the last decades. This pattern is often followed by the replacement of structurally complex algal canopies by more simplified habitats (e.g., turfs or sea urchin barren grounds). Against all odds, the fucoid Treptacantha elegans, a large Mediterranean brown macroalga, broadened its depth range to deeper and exposed environments and displayed an unexpected range expansion along the northern coast of Catalonia over the last two decades. Here, we reconstruct the spread of T. elegans in time and space and unravel ecological and demographic traits such as population dynamics and genetic patterns to provide a comprehensive and integrated view of the current status and geographical expansion for this species. Fast-growing dynamics, early fertile maturity, and high turnover rate are the main competitive advantages that allow the exposed populations of T. elegans to colonize available substrata and maintain dense and patchy populations. We also provided evidence that the deeper and exposed populations of T. elegans constitute a single group across the Catalan coast, with little genetic differentiation among populations. This seems to support the hypothesis of a unique source of spread in the last decades from the Medes Islands No-Take Zone towards both southern and northern waters.CCMAR was funded by FCT—Foundation for Science and Technology (Portugal) UID/Multi/04326/2019, PTDC/MAR-EST/6053/2014,Biodiversa/0004/2015, (DL 57/2016/CP1361/CT0010), SFRH/BSAB/150485/2019info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Characterizing the Gait of People With Different Types of Amputation and Prosthetic Components Through Multimodal Measurements: A Methodological Perspective

Prosthetic gait implies the use of compensatory motor strategies, including alterations in gait biomechanics and adaptations in the neural control mechanisms adopted by the central nervous system. Despite the constant technological advancements in prostheses design that led to a reduction in compensatory movements and an increased acceptance by the users, a deep comprehension of the numerous factors that influence prosthetic gait is still needed. The quantitative prosthetic gait analysis is an essential step in the development of new and ergonomic devices and to optimize the rehabilitation therapies. Nevertheless, the assessment of prosthetic gait is still carried out by a heterogeneous variety of methodologies, and this limits the comparison of results from different studies, complicating the definition of shared and well-accepted guidelines among clinicians, therapists, physicians, and engineers. This perspective article starts from the results of a project funded by the Italian Worker's Compensation Authority (INAIL) that led to the generation of an extended dataset of measurements involving kinematic, kinetic, and electrophysiological recordings in subjects with different types of amputation and prosthetic components. By encompassing different studies published along the project activities, we discuss the specific information that can be extracted by different kinds of measurements, and we here provide a methodological perspective related to multimodal prosthetic gait assessment, highlighting how, for designing improved prostheses and more effective therapies for patients, it is of critical importance to analyze movement neural control and its mechanical actuation as a whole, without limiting the focus to one specific aspect

Metastatic renal cell carcinoma invading liver, duodenum and ivc, surgical treatment and literature review. A case report

Renal Cell Carcinoma has a biologic predisposition for direct vascular invasion: intravascular tumor thrombus is found in 5% to 20% of the cases inside the renal vein or the inferior vena cava. Despite new and effective conservative therapy such as targeted therapy and immunotherapy, cytoreductive nephrectomy and palliative nephrectomy continues to have an important role in T4 patient. The patient selection for cytoreductive nephrectomy should be done carefully. This report present an unique case of metastatic RCC with invasion of the duodenum, liver and retrohepatic IVC, the adopted surgical approach and a review of the literature. Complete surgical extirpation is possible in cases of RCC invading other organs such as pancreas, duodenum, liver, retroperitoneum and IVC. In this scenario, to narrow the possible intraoperative complication, a multidisciplinary approach and equipe is recommended

Characterization of Cystatin B Interactome in Saliva from Healthy Elderly and Alzheimer's Disease Patients

Cystatin B is a small, multifunctional protein involved in the regulation of inflammation, innate immune response, and neuronal protection and found highly abundant in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Recently, our study demonstrated a significant association between the level of salivary cystatin B and AD. Since the protein is able to establish protein-protein interaction (PPI) in different contexts and aggregation-prone proteins and the PPI networks are relevant for AD pathogenesis, and due to the relevance of finding new AD markers in peripheral biofluids, we thought it was interesting to study the possible involvement of cystatin B in PPIs in saliva and to evaluate differences and similarities between AD and age-matched elderly healthy controls (HC). For this purpose, we applied a co-immunoprecipitation procedure and a bottom-up proteomics analysis to purify, identify, and quantify cystatin B interactors. Results demonstrated for the first time the existence of a salivary cystatin B-linked multi-protein complex composed by 82 interactors and largely expressed in the body. Interactors are involved in neutrophil activation, antimicrobial activity, modulation of the cytoskeleton and extra-cellular matrix (ECM), and glucose metabolism. Preliminary quantitative data showed significantly lower levels of triosophosphate isomerase 1 and higher levels of mucin 7, BPI, and matrix Gla protein in AD with respect to HC, suggesting implications associated with AD of altered glucose metabolism, antibacterial activities, and calcification-associated processes. Data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifiers PXD039286 and PXD030679

Potential Salivary Biomarkers In Mastocytosis: A Proteomics Approach

Mastocytosis is a myeloproliferative neoplasm characterized by infiltration of clonally derived mast cells in different tissues. According to mast cells localization, it is possible to discriminate cutaneous mastocytosis (CM) from systemic mastocytosis (SM), the latter involving at least an extracutaneous organ, like bone marrow, liver, spleen and gastrointestinal tract. Some of the SM patient can develop also cutaneous lesions (SM+C). Oral cavity is commonly involved in the symptomatology. Disease classification is often tricky. In the first part of this thesis, in order to highlight possible qualitative/quantitative modifications of the salivary proteome associated to the different forms of the disease, we investigated salivary samples collected from 6 CM, 35 SM patients, among which 8 with only systemic symptoms (SM-C) and 27 with both systemic and cutaneous symptoms (SM+C), and 48 healthy controls by a top-down proteomic approach. Low-resolution HPLC-ESI-MS analysis of the acid soluble fractions of saliva highlighted different proteomic profiles in the three patients’ groups, showing that the salivary samples of the patients were characterized by a down-regulation of peptides and proteins involved in the homeostasis and defense of the oral cavity, and in the innate immunity and in inflammation not only in the oral cavity but at systemic level, such as aPRPs, statherin, histatins and cystatins. Only two proteins with regulatory roles in the innate immunity and inflammation, S100A8 and antileukoproteinase, resulted up-regulated in patients differently to all the other salivary proteins analyzed, suggesting the establishment of a response by the organism to the injuries caused by the disease. Interestingly, some differences have been found among the patients in the concentration of α-defensins 1, thymosin β-4, and the truncated forms of cystatin D-R26 variant, and some truncated forms of P-B and statherin. Correlation between the protein/peptide levels and tryptase concentration evidenced that acidic PRPs, statherin and P-B fragments, and cystatin D-R26 des1-5 correlated positively just in SM-C group, while thymosin β-4 correlated negatively. Since the interesting data on cystatin D, in the second part of the thesis I focused on the characterization of the salivary protein complex aggregating to the cystatin D-C26 variant (named by us SIC-D). Indeed, the C-26 variant is usually undetectable in acid soluble fraction of saliva but measurable in whole saliva. Pools of whole saliva from 4 CM, 3 SM-C, 14 SM+C, and 20 sex/age matched healthy controls, were submitted to immunoprecipitation with cystatin D-C26 antibody followed by SDS-PAGE/western-blot under reducing and non-reducing conditions. Since the low volume of CM samples, the tryptic digestion, and the nano-HPLC-high-resolution-MS/MS analysis were performed only in SM-C, SM+C and control samples. The quantitative comparison was performed with Proteome Discoverer 2.2 software. SIC-D included 44 proteins, among which IgA, IgG, PIgR, annexins, α-defensin 1/2, S100A8, carbonic anhydrase 6, prolactin-inducible protein, lysozyme C and dermicidin. Several qualitative/quantitative differences were highlighted with respect to controls and between the two patient groups. The most relevant were: all the patients exhibited lower levels of IgA, PIgR, DMBT-1 and S100A8 than controls, but higher levels of IgG, α-defensins 1/2 and carbonic anhydrase 6. The highest level of cystatin D-C26 was found in SM+C patients, which were different from SM-C for annexin A2. Both SM-C and SM+C showed the presence of antileukoproteinase and S100A14. The results on the acid-soluble fraction of saliva and the preliminary results on the SIC-D complex are promising in order to find candidate markers able to discriminate the different forms of mastocytosis

Marked differences in the submandibular salivary proteome between Sardinian alcohol-preferring and Sardinian alcohol-non preferring rats revealed by an integrated top-down-bottom-up proteomic platform

Sardinian alcohol-preferring (sP) and Sardinian alcohol-non preferring (sNP) rats have been selectively bred for opposite alcohol preference and consumption. Aiming to verify possible differences at the proteomics level between sP and sNP rats, we investigated the salivary proteome by a a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry top-down-bottom-up integrated approach. For this purpose, submandibular saliva was collected from alcohol-naive sP and sNP rats under isoprenaline stimulation. A total of 200 peptides and proteins were detected and quantified in the two rat lines, 149 of which were characterized in their naturally occurring structure. The data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD006997. Surprisingly, sP rats exhibited marked quantitative and qualitative differences with respect to sNP rats, namely higher levels of proteoforms originating from submandibular gland protein C, and from submandibular rat protein 2, as well as those of several unidentified peptides and proteins. sP rats expressed some proteins not detectable in sNP rats such as the glutamine and glutamic acid-rich protein (GRP)-CB. The isoform GRP-B, detectable in both rat lines, was more abundant in sNP rats. The submandibular saliva of sNP rats was also characterized by very high levels of GRP-B proteolytic peptides and rat salivary protein 1. Whether these differences could contribute to the opposite alcohol preference and consumption of sP and sNP rats is currently unknown and requires further investigation

Salivary Proteomics Reveals Significant Changes in Relation to Alzheimer's Disease and Aging

Objective: Investigate the salivary proteome through a statistical comparison of the proteomic data by several approaches to highlight quali-/quantitative variations associated specifically either to aging or to AD occurrence, and, thus, able to classify the subjects. Methods: Salivary proteomic data of healthy controls under-70 (adults) and over-70 (elderly) years old, and over-70 AD patients, obtained by liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry, were analyzed by multiple Mann-Whitney test, Kendall correlation, and Random-Forest (RF) analysis. Results: Almost all the investigated proteins/peptides significantly decreased in relation to aging in elderly subjects, with or without AD, in comparison with adults. AD subjects exhibited the highest levels of -defensins, thymosin 4, cystatin B, S100A8 and A9. Correlation tests also highlighted age/disease associated differences. RF analysis individuated quali- /quantitative variations in 20 components, as oxidized S100A8 and S100A9, -defensin 3, P-B peptide, able to classify with great accuracy the subjects into the three groups. Conclusion: The findings demonstrated a strong change of the salivary protein profile in relation to the aging. Potential biomarkers candidates of AD were individuated in peptides/proteins involved in antimicrobial defense, innate immune system, inflammation, and in oxidative stress. RF analysis revealed the feasibility of the salivary proteome to discriminate groups of subjects based on age and health status

RP-HPLC-ESI-IT Mass Spectrometry Reveals Significant Variations of the Human Salivary Protein Profile Associated with Predominantly Antibody Deficiencies

Present study is designed to discover potential salivary biomarkers associated with predominantly antibody deficiencies, which include a large spectrum of disorders sharing failure of antibody production, and B cell defects resulting in recurrent infections, autoimmune and inflammatory manifestations, and tumor susceptibility. Understanding and clinical classification of these syndromes is still challenging

Top-Down Proteomics Detection of Potential Salivary Biomarkers for Autoimmune Liver Diseases Classification

(1) Autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) and primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) are autoimmune liver diseases characterized by chronic hepatic inflammation and progressive liver fibrosis. The possible use of saliva as a diagnostic tool has been explored in several oral and systemic diseases. The use of proteomics for personalized medicine is a rapidly emerging field. (2) Salivary proteomic data of 36 healthy controls (HCs), 36 AIH and 36 PBC patients, obtained by liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry top-down pipeline, were analyzed by multiple Mann—Whitney test, Kendall correlation, Random Forest (RF) analysis and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA); (3) Mann—Whitney tests provided indications on the panel of differentially expressed salivary proteins and peptides, namely cystatin A, statherin, histatin 3, histatin 5 and histatin 6, which were elevated in AIH patients with respect to both HCs and PBC patients, while S100A12, S100A9 short, cystatin S1, S2, SN and C showed varied levels in PBC with respect to HCs and/or AIH patients. RF analysis evidenced a panel of salivary proteins/peptides able to classify with good accuracy PBC vs. HCs (83.3%), AIH vs. HCs (79.9%) and PBC vs. AIH (80.2%); (4) RF appears to be an attractive machine-learning tool suited for classification of AIH and PBC based on their different salivary proteomic profiles