Más allá de la inmediatez de los sentidos: un acercamiento a la obra de Fernanda Melchor

Our aim is to consider the first Fernanda Melchor’s publication, in particular Falsa liebre (2013), analysing the sensory saturation that characterises them. Her stylistic expression seems indissolubly linked to the appropiation of journalistic forms. Through transgenericity and intermediality, she also questions the links between fiction, chronicle, photography and movie.  Keywords: Fernanda Melchor, sensoriality, body, journalism, violence. Nos proponemos abordar los primeros textos publicados por Fernanda Melchor, en particular, la novela Falsa liebre (2013), a partir de la saturación sensorial que los caracteriza. Su expresión estilística parece indisociable de la apropiación de recursos periodísticos, mientras la novelista tematiza a su vez las relaciones transgenéricas e intermediales que establece entre ficción, crónica, fotografía y cine.  Palabras clave: Fernanda Melchor, sensorialidad, corporalidad, periodismo, violencia.&nbsp

Addressing the problem of plastic waste: Development of an enzymatic process for PET recycling

Every day, media and NGOs describe the society\u27s disaffection for plastics accused of polluting the planet. All major brand-owners made commitments to solve this problem (e.g. Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Danone, PepsiCo, Suntory, Unilever, L’Oréal, Nike) and announced a future with less plastic waste by 2025. Nevertheless, only 6 years before the announced term, no effective solution is yet available to meet these goals. Indeed, existing technologies like thermo-mechanical recycling leads to loss in mechanical properties of the polymer and even if several chemical recycling processes are under development, they suffer from the disadvantages of using organic solvents, high reaction temperatures and the need of an intensive waste sorting. Consequently, enzymatic recycling appears as a pertinent solution notably because the enzyme selectivity avoids a drastic sorting of waste and enables the recycling of complex plastics (multi-layers construction in some bottles of sparkling water for instance), it is an eco-friendly reaction in water and because of savings in energy consumption due to a low temperature of reaction. Using a computer-aided engineering strategy, we drastically improved the depolymerizing performance of the best identified enzyme candidate. Utilizing site-directed mutagenesis targeted at the active site, combined with three-dimensional fold stabilization, we engineered an enzyme variant, demonstrating an astounding increase in thermostability combined with a high activity. This enzyme is able to depolymerize 90% of PET waste (200g/kg) into monomers, terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol, in less than 10 hours. The downstream processing was developed and optimized leading to the demonstration that this enzymatic technology could enable the use of an industrial plastic waste to produce again PET monomers and ultimately a bottle from this recycled PET. We hope to demonstrate the strong potential of the enzymatic technology jointly developed by CARBIOS and LISBP to provide a breakthrough solution to help solve society’s growing plastic waste problem

Chapitre 1. L’occupation du Ve s. et du début du IVe s. av. J.-C.

Les travaux de terrassement réalisés lors de la fondation de l’agglomération d’époque romaine semblent avoir détruit la majeure partie des niveaux protohistoriques. Toutefois, quelques traces fugaces témoignent d’occupations de bas de pente, liées à l’habitat de hauteur, au Ve s. et au début du IVe s. av. J.-C., puis aux IIe - Ier s. av. J.-C. Ces vestiges correspondent très certainement à des périodes d’expansion de l’agglomération gauloise. Par ailleurs, certains indices autorisent à poser ..

Production and characterization of two medium-chain-length polydroxyalkanoates by engineered strains of Yarrowia lipolytica

Background: The oleaginous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica is an organism of choice for the tailored production of various compounds such as biofuels or biopolymers. When properly engineered, it is capable of producing medium-chain-length polyhydroxyalkanoate (mcl-PHA), a biobased and biodegradable polymer that can be used as bioplastics or biopolymers for environmental and biomedical applications.Results: This study describes the bioproduction and the main properties of two different mcl-PHA polymers. We generated by metabolic engineering, strains of Y. lipolytica capable of accumulating more than 25% (g/g) of mcl-PHA polymers. Depending of the strain genetic background and the culture conditions, we produced (i) a mcl-PHA homopolymer of 3-hydroxydodecanoic acids, with a mass-average molar mass (M-w) of 316,000 g/mol, showing soft thermoplastic properties with potential applications in packaging and (ii) a mcl-PHA copolymer made of 3-hydroxyoctanoic (3HO), decanoic (3HD), dodecanoic (3HDD) and tetradecanoic (3TD) acids with a M-w of 128,000 g/mol, behaving like a thermoplastic elastomer with potential applications in biomedical material.Conclusion: The ability to engineer Y. lipolytica to produce tailored PHAs together with the range of possible applications regarding their biophysical and mechanical properties opens new perspectives in the field of PHA bioproduction

Strain superlattices and macroscale suspension of Graphene induced by corrugated substrates

We investigate the organized formation of strain, ripples and suspended features in macroscopic CVD-prepared graphene sheets transferred onto a corrugated substrate made of an ordered arrays of silica pillars of variable geometries. Depending on the aspect ratio and sharpness of the corrugated array, graphene can conformally coat the surface, partially collapse, or lay, fakir-like, fully suspended between pillars over tens of micrometers. Upon increase of pillar density, ripples in collapsed films display a transition from random oriented pleats emerging from pillars to ripples linking nearest neighboring pillars organized in domains of given orientation. Spatially-resolved Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy and electronic microscopy reveal uniaxial strain domains in the transferred graphene, which are induced and controlled by the geometry. We propose a simple theoretical model to explain the transition between suspended and collapsed graphene. For the arrays with high aspect ratio pillars, graphene membranes stays suspended over macroscopic distances with minimal interaction with pillars tip apex. It offers a platform to tailor stress in graphene layers and open perspectives for electron transport and nanomechanical applications

Identification of three dietary groups in French university students and their associations with nutritional quality and environmental impact

IntroductionThe student period is associated with changes in eating habits, usually leading to diets of lower nutritional quality. However, some variability may exist in students’ dietary patterns. We aimed to describe French students’ diets and identify dietary groups that may vary in nutritional quality and environmental impact.MethodsA representative sample of French students (N = 582) for age, sex and scholarship status completed an online 125-item food frequency questionnaire. The nutritional quality of diets was assessed by a score of adherence to the French nutritional guidelines (sPNNS-GS2 score, ranging from−17 to 11.5) and its environmental impact by greenhouse gas emissions for an isocaloric diet (GHGE). An ascending hierarchical classification analysis on food and beverage intakes led to three dietary groups. Between-group differences in food consumption, dietary indicators and sociodemographic characteristics were investigated using ANOVA models.ResultsThe average sPNNS-GS2 score of students’ diets was −0.8 ± 2.8, representing a 57% coverage of French nutritional recommendations, and GHGE were 5.4 ± 1.7 kg eCO2/2000 kcal. The three dietary groups were: a healthy diet group (20% of the sample) with the highest nutritional quality and high GHGE, which included older students with a higher level of physical activity; a Western diet group (40%) with the worst nutritional quality and high GHGE, which included more students who lived with their parents; and a frugal diet group (40%) with the lowest energy intake, intermediate nutritional quality, and low GHGE, which included more students who lived alone.ConclusionNone of the dietary groups optimized both nutritional quality and environmental impact simultaneously, which suggests an apparent incompatibility in the student population between these two sustainability dimensions. These findings emphasize the need for tailored public health policies that acknowledge the diversity of student eating patterns and address specific individual barriers to healthy and sustainable diets

Production of medium chain fatty acid by Yarrowia lipolytica: Combining molecular design and TALEN to engineer the fatty acid synthase

Yarrowia lipolytica is a promising organism for the production of lipids of biotechnological interest and particularly for biofuel. In this study, we engineered lipid biosynthesis through rational engineering of the giant multifunctional Fatty Acid Synthase (FAS) enzyme to modulate fatty acid chain length and produce shorter fatty acids. Based on the hypothesis that the Ketoacyl Synthase (KS) domain, responsible for chain elongation in Yarrowia lipolytica, is directly involved in chain length specificity, a computer-based strategy was undertaken to re-design mutants of the Ketoacyl Synthase. Molecular modelling of this domain in interaction with a C16-acyl substrate enabled identification of a key residue from the fatty acid binding site. This site was then targeted by mutagenesis in order to modify KS fatty acid chain length specificity. To introduce point mutations in this essential gene, we applied, for the first time, the TALEN technology to Yarrowia lipolytica and demonstrated the efficiency of the technique to perform site-directed mutagenesis at a specific genomic locus. Some mutants led to a significant increase of C14 fatty acid. Thanks to the use of an elegant combination of genome editing technology and molecular modelling, this study provides for the first time, evidences that the KS domain of the fungal FASI system is directly involved in fatty acid chain length specificity

Molecular profiling of biliary tract cancers reveals distinct genomic landscapes between circulating and tissue tumor DNA

Biliary tract cancers (BTCs) are heterogeneous malignancies with dismal prognosis due to tumor aggressiveness and poor response to limited current therapeutic options. Tumor exome profiling has allowed to successfully establish targeted therapeutic strategies in the clinical management of cholangiocarcinoma (CCA). Still, whether liquid biopsy profiling could inform on BTC biology and patient management is unknown. In order to test this and generate novel insight into BTC biology, we analyzed the molecular landscape of 128 CCA patients, using a 394-gene NGS panel (Foundation Medicine). Among them, 32 patients had matched circulating tumor (ct) DNA and tumor DNA samples, where both samples were profiled. In both tumor and liquid biopsies, we identified an increased frequency of alterations in genes involved in genome integrity or chromatin remodeling, including ARID1A (15%), PBRM1 (9%), and BAP1 (14%), which were validated using an in-house-developed immunohistochemistry panel. ctDNA and tumor DNA showed variable concordance, with a significant correlation in the total number of detected variants, but some heterogeneity in the detection of actionable mutations. FGFR2 mutations were more frequently identified in liquid biopsies, whereas KRAS alterations were mostly found in tumors. All IDH1 mutations detected in tumor DNA were also identified in liquid biopsies. These findings provide novel insights in the concordance between the tumor and liquid biopsies genomic landscape in a large cohort of patients with BTC and highlight the complementarity of both analyses when guiding therapeutic prescription

Drying nano particles solution on an oscillating tip at an air liquid interface: what we can learn, what we can do

Evaporation of fluid at micro and nanometer scale may be used to self-assemble nanometre-sized particles in suspension. Evaporating process can be used to gently control flow in micro and nanofluidics, thus providing a potential mean to design a fine pattern onto a surface or to functionalize a nanoprobe tip. In this paper, we present an original experimental approach to explore this open and rather virgin domain. We use an oscillating tip at an air liquid interface with a controlled dipping depth of the tip within the range of the micrometer. Also, very small dipping depths of a few ten nanometers were achieved with multi walls carbon nanotubes glued at the tip apex. The liquid is an aqueous solution of functionalized nanoparticles diluted in water. Evaporation of water is the driving force determining the arrangement of nanoparticles on the tip. The results show various nanoparticles deposition patterns, from which the deposits can be classified in two categories. The type of deposit is shown to be strongly dependent on whether or not the triple line is pinned and of the peptide coating of the gold nanoparticle. In order to assess the classification, companion dynamical studies of nanomeniscus and related dissipation processes involved with thinning effects are presented