Human mitochondrial degradosome prevents harmful mitochondrial R loops and mitochondrial genome instability

R loops are nucleic acid structures comprising an DNA-RNA hybrid and a displaced single-stranded DNA. These structures may occur transiently during transcription, playing essential biological functions. However, persistent R loops may become pathological as they are important drivers of genome instability and have been associated with human diseases. The mitochondrial degradosome is a functionally conserved complex from bacteria to human mitochondria. It is composed of the ATP-dependent RNA and DNA helicase SUV3 and the PNPase ribonuclease, playing a central role in mitochondrial RNA surveillance and degradation. Here we describe a new role for the mitochondrial degradosome in preventing the accumulation of pathological R loops in the mitochondrial DNA, in addition to preventing dsRNA accumulation. Our data indicate that, similar to the molecular mechanisms acting in the nucleus, RNA surveillance mechanisms in the mitochondria are crucial to maintain its genome integrity by counteracting pathological R-loop accumulation.European Research Council ERC2014 AdG669898 TARLOOPMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad BFU2013-42918-P, BFU2016-75058-

Effects of forest fragmentation on the vertical stratification of neotropical bats

Vertical stratification is a key component of the biological complexity of rainforests. Understanding community- and species-level responses to disturbance across forest strata is paramount for evidence-based conservation and management. However, even for bats, known to extensively explore multiple layers of the complex three-dimensional forest space, studies are biased towards understory-based surveys and only few assessments of vertical stratification were done in fragmented landscapes. Using both ground and canopy mist-nets, we investigated how the vertical structure of bat assemblages is influenced by forest fragmentation in the experimentally fragmented landscape of the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, Central Amazon, Brazil. Over a three year-period, we captured 3077 individuals of 46 species in continuous forest (CF) and in 1, 10 and 100 ha forest fragments. In both CF and forest fragments, the upper forest strata sustained more diverse bat assemblages than the equivalent understory layer, and the midstory layers had significantly higher bat abundance in fragments than in CF. Artibeus lituratus and Rhinophylla pumilio exhibited significant shifts in their vertical stratification patterns between CF and fragments (e.g. R. pumilio was more associated with the upper strata in fragments than in CF). Altogether, our study suggests that fragmentation modulates the vertical stratification of bat assemblages

Enfermedades de origen bacteriano transmitidas por vectores

Las enfermedades bacterianas transmitidas por vectores son un problema creciente en nuestra sociedad. En los últimos años se ha observado un aumento de la población tanto de garrapatas como de pulgas y mosquitos que, unido a la globalización y viajes internacionales, está llevando a la expansión de enfermedades a nuevas áreas geográficas. La dificultad de diagnóstico de estas enfermedades junto con la falta de recursos para tratarlas en países en desarrollo dan lugar a un elevado número de casos sin tratamiento y convierten a los enfermos en reservorios para la bacteria. Ante esta situación están comenzando a desarrollarse por todo el mundo programas de vigilancia para las enfermedades transmitidas por vectores, así como campañas para dar a conocer las medidas profilácticas. En esta revisión nos centraremos en las enfermedades transmitidas por vectores de origen bacteriano que presentan mayor reemergencia en los últimos 10 años. A lo largo del trabajo desarrollaremos enfermedades causadas por bacterias del género Yersinia, Francisella, Rickettsia, Bartonella y Borrelia. Nos hemos centrado en las características biológicas de los vectores que afectan a la transmisión de la enfermedad y hemos realizado una revisión de la epidemiología de las enfermedades seleccionadas en los últimos 10 años en todo el mundoUniversidad de Sevilla. Grado en Farmaci

La Orden de los Siervos de María en sus primeros siglos de existencia (siglos XIII-XV)

Treballs Finals de Grau en Història, Facultat de Geografia i Història, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2013-2014, Tutor: Dolores López PérezEl presente trabajo tiene por objetivo dar a conocer la expansión de los Siervos de María, Orden religiosa fundada en Florencia a finales del siglo XIII, a lo largo de la Baja Edad Media. La importancia de la misma radica en la difusión que hicieron del culto a la Virgen María, en su advocación Dolorosa. Así mismo, también se trata sobre la relación de la Orden con la Península Ibéric

OJS as a Tool for Information Technology Integration and Cultural Change: A Case Study in Colombia

This article describes the implementation of an OJS-based editorial process for a leading Colombian Psychology Journal, Universitas Psychologica, and its integration with a custom-made front-end.  It also describes the attempt of making a cultural change in the submission, reviewing and editing processes, within the open access tradition

Pushing the limits of concertedness. A waltz of wandering carbocations.

Among the array of complex terpene-forming carbocation cyclization/rearrangement reactions, the so-called "triple shift" reactions are among the most unexpected. Such reactions involve the asynchronous combination of three 1,n-shifts into a concerted process, e.g., a 1,2-alkyl shift followed by a 1,3-hydride shift followed by a second 1,2-alkyl shift. This type of reaction so far has been proposed to occur during the biosynthesis of diterpenes and the sidechains of sterols. Here we describe efforts to push the limits of concertedness in this type of carbocation reaction by designing, and characterizing with quantum chemical computations, systems that could couple additional 1,n-shift events to a triple shift leading, in principle to quadruple, pentuple, etc. shifts. While our designs did not lead to clear-cut examples of quadruple, etc. shifts, they did lead to reactions with surprisingly flat energy surfaces where more than five chemical events connect reactants and plausible products. Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations demonstrate that the formal minima on these surfaces interchange on short timescales, both with each other and with additional unexpected structures, allowing us a glimpse into a very complex manifold that allows ready access to great structural diversity

Self Awareness and the Self-Presenting Character of Abnormal Conscious Experience

Some philosophers suggest that a minimal form of self-awareness is an integral element of the way in which all experiences are given (SPC: self-presenting claim). The main argument for this is that the phenomenological quality of ‘mineness’ of the experience reveals the self as a part of all experiences. Since the sense of mineness is taken as intrinsic to the givenness of the experience, it counts as an argument for the SPC. In this essay, I assess this claim and its main argument. After describing the phenomenological approach to self- awareness that grounds the discussion, I comment on some pathological cases that challenge the SPC. After this, I examine the standard reply in defence of the SPC and I focus the discussion on cases of thought insertion. I conclude that although the standard reply adds interesting elements to the general discussion, it becomes philosophically problematic especially when it tries to deal with cases of thought insertion