Further distribution of Gertrudielle validinervis (Herz.) Broth. in the Neotropics

Gertrudiella validinervis (Herz.) Broth. is additionally recorded for the dry forests in northwestern Argentina. Complete distribution in the Neotropics, including northwestern Argentina, are shown on the maps

Gertrudiella validinervis (Herz.) Broth. (Pottiaceae, Musci) : un nuevo registro para la flora briológica de Argentina

Gertrudiella validinervis (Herz.)Broth. (Pottiaceae, Musci) is new record for the bryological flora of Argentina. Gertrudiella validinervis (Herz.) Broth. are plants with strong central strand and hyalodermis present in the stem; acute leaves with base sheathing, costa with one stereid band and a multilayered cylinder of thick-walled guide cells. Laminal cells are medially bulging ventrally and flat dorsally but marginally bulging on both sides in several rows. This monotypic genus is registered for the first time for Argentina. The original description is completed with sporophytic characters

Reassessing the role of morphology in bryophyte phylogenetics : combined data improves phylogenetic inference despite character conflict

Morphological data has gained renewed attention and has been shown to be crucial in clarifying the phylogenetic relationship in a wide range of taxa. In the last decades, phylogenetic analyses of sequence-level data have radically modified the systematic schemes within bryophytes (early non-vascular land plants) and have revealed a widespread pattern of conflict with morphology-based classifications. Yet, a comprehensive evaluation of character conflict has not yet been performed in the context of combined matrices. In this study, we evaluate the impact of morphology on bryophyte phylogeny following a total-evidence approach across 10 published matrices. The analysed matrices span a wide range of bryophytes, taxonomic levels, gene sampling and number of morphological characters and taxa. Data conflict was addressed by measuring: (i) the topological congruence between individual partitions, (ii) changes in support values of the combined data relative to the molecular partition and (iii) clade stability. The association between these measures and the number of morphological characters per taxon (Nc/T ratio) and the proportion of non-fixed characters (i.e., inapplicable, polymorphic and missing data) was explored. In the individual partition analyses, the Nc/T ratio correlated positively with the topological congruence in six to seven datasets depending on the weighting scheme. The proportion of non-fixed cells had a minor influence on congruence between data partitions. The number of characters and proportion of non-fixed data varied significantly between morphological datasets that improved congruence between data types. This variation suggests that morphological datasets affect the results of combined analyses in different ways, depending on the taxa studied. Combined analyses revealed that, despite the low congruence values between partitions, integrating data types improves support values and stability. However, while non-fixed data had no negative effect on support values, stability was reduced as the proportion of non-fixed cells increased. Nc/T ratio was negatively associated with support values and it showed ambiguous responses in stability evaluations. Overall, the results indicate that adding morphology may contribute to the inference of phylogenetic relationships of bryophytes despite character conflict. Our findings suggest that merely comparing (a) morphology-based classifications with molecular phylogenies or (b) the outcome from individual data partitions can misestimate data conflict. These findings imply that analyses of combined data may provide conservative assessments of data conflict and, eventually, lead to an improved sampling of morphological characters in large-scale analyses of bryophytes.Peer reviewe

Calymperaceae, una nueva familia para la flora briológica de Uruguay

Introducción y objetivos: El objetivo de este trabajo es contribuir al conocimiento de la flora de briófitos en Uruguay, por medio del estudio de colecciones realizadas en el Parque Nacional Fortaleza Santa Teresa. M&M: Las muestras se coleccionaron, procesaron y analizaron morfológicamente mediante técnicas convencionales para briófitas. Los caracteres microscópicos se observaron e ilustraron con microscopía óptica (LM) y microscopía electrónica de barrido (MEB). Resultados: La familia Calymperaceae Kindb. se registra por primera vez en el país, representada por Syrrhopodon gaudichaudii Mont. Esta especie se caracteriza por las hojas crispadas cuando secas, con margen liso a dentado en el ápice. Conclusiones: Se presenta una descripción detallada e ilustraciones en MO y MEB de S. gaudichaudii.Background and aims: The aim of this work was to increase the knowledge of the bryoflora of Uruguay based on the analysis of samples collected in Fortaleza Santa Teresa National Park. M&M: Specimens were collected, processed and analyzed morphologically using conventional techniques for bryophytes. Microscopic characters were observed and illustrated with light microscopy (LM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Results: Calymperaceae Kindb. are recorded for the first time to the country, represented by Syrrhopodon gaudichaudii Mont. This species is characterized by leaves strongly crispate when dry, and margins smooth to dentate at the apex. Conclusions: A detailed description, illustrations with SEM and LM of S. gaudichaudii is here presented.Fil: Cabral, Richard A.. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Instituto de Botánica del Nordeste. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias. Instituto de Botánica del Nordeste; ArgentinaFil: Jimenez, Maria Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Instituto de Botánica del Nordeste. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias. Instituto de Botánica del Nordeste; ArgentinaFil: Suárez, Guillermo M.. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto Miguel Lillo. Instituto Miguel Lillo; Argentin

Revisión Taxonómica de las especies propaguliferas de Pohlia (Bryaceae, Bryophyta) en América Latina

Suárez, Guillermo M. & Schiavone, María M. 2011. “Revisión Taxonómica de las especies propaguliferas de Pohlia (Bryaceae, Bryophyta) en América Latina”. Lilloa 48 (2). Se presenta un estudio taxonómico y descriptivo de las especies propaguliferas de Pohlia en Centro y Sud América. Seis especies con yemas axilares y una con propágulos rizoidales son reconocidas en el área de estudio. Pohlia richardsii de Costa Rica es un nuevo sinónimo de P. apolensis. Pohlia longipedicellata de Venezuela y P. verrucosa de Bolivia son nuevos sinónimos de Pohlia papillosa. La identidad de Bryum anisodontacum nom. nud., de Chile es clarificada y este nombre es sinonimizado con P. papillosa. Nuevos lectotipos son propuestos. Se analizan caracteres de importancia taxonómica para las especies americanas de Pohlia

Polytrichadelphus bolivianus, una nueva especie de Polytrichaceae para el Noroeste de Argentina

Colotti, M. T.; G. M. Suárez; M. M. Schiavone. 2013. “Polytrichadelphus bolivianus, una nueva especie de Polytrichaceae para el Noroeste de Argentina”. Lilloa 50 (1). Polytrichadelphus bolivianus Herzog, un musgo de los Bosques Montanos de Bolivia es registrado por primera vez para Argentina. Ha sido recolectado en 1997 y 1998 por Schiavone y otros en el norte de la provincia de Salta, pero hasta el momento no había sido identificado. Se presenta una descripción, ilustración y lectotipificación de la especie

Dolotortula mniifolia (Sull.) Zand. (Pottiaceae, Musci) en Argentina

Suárez, G. M., M. T. Colotti y M. M. Schiavone. 2005. Dolotortula mniifolia (Sull.) Zand. (Pottiaceae, Musci), en Argentina. Lilloa 42 (1-2). En esta nota se registra por primera vez al género y la especie para Argentina. Se presentan mapas de distribución

Integrative Metabolomic and Transcriptomic Analysis for the Study of Bladder Cancer

[EN] Metabolism reprogramming is considered a hallmark of cancer. The study of bladder cancer (BC) metabolism could be the key to developing new strategies for diagnosis and therapy. This work aimed to identify tissue and urinary metabolic signatures as biomarkers of BC and get further insight into BC tumor biology through the study of gene-metabolite networks and the integration of metabolomics and transcriptomics data. BC and control tissue samples (n = 44) from the same patients were analyzed by High-Resolution Magic Angle Spinning Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and microarrays techniques. Besides, urinary profiling study (n = 35) was performed in the same patients to identify a metabolomic profile, linked with BC tissue hallmarks, as a potential non-invasive approach for BC diagnosis. The metabolic profile allowed for the classification of BC tissue samples with a sensitivity and specificity of 100%. The most discriminant metabolites for BC tissue samples reflected alterations in amino acids, glutathione, and taurine metabolic pathways. Transcriptomic data supported metabolomic results and revealed a predominant downregulation of metabolic genes belonging to phosphorylative oxidation, tricarboxylic acid cycle, and amino acid metabolism. The urinary profiling study showed a relation with taurine and other amino acids perturbed pathways observed in BC tissue samples, and classified BC from non-tumor urine samples with good sensitivities (91%) and specificities (77%). This urinary profile could be used as a non-invasive tool for BC diagnosis and follow-up.This research was funded by FEDER cofounded MINECO grant SAF2015-66015-R, MAT2015-64139-C4-1-R, MAT2015-64139-C4-3-R, ISCIII-RETICRD12/0036/0009, PIE 15/00076, CB/16/00228, CTQ2016-79561-P; and the PROMETEO II/2014/047 and PROMETEO 2018/24 projects.Loras, A.; Suárez-Cabrera, C.; Martínez-Bisbal, M.; Quintás, G.; Paramio, JM.; Martínez-Máñez, R.; Gil Grau, S.... (2019). Integrative Metabolomic and Transcriptomic Analysis for the Study of Bladder Cancer. Cancers. 11(5):1-19. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers1105068611911

When the optimal is not the best: parameter estimation in complex biological models

Background: The vast computational resources that became available during the past decade enabled the development and simulation of increasingly complex mathematical models of cancer growth. These models typically involve many free parameters whose determination is a substantial obstacle to model development. Direct measurement of biochemical parameters in vivo is often difficult and sometimes impracticable, while fitting them under data-poor conditions may result in biologically implausible values. Results: We discuss different methodological approaches to estimate parameters in complex biological models. We make use of the high computational power of the Blue Gene technology to perform an extensive study of the parameter space in a model of avascular tumor growth. We explicitly show that the landscape of the cost function used to optimize the model to the data has a very rugged surface in parameter space. This cost function has many local minima with unrealistic solutions, including the global minimum corresponding to the best fit. Conclusions: The case studied in this paper shows one example in which model parameters that optimally fit the data are not necessarily the best ones from a biological point of view. To avoid force-fitting a model to a dataset, we propose that the best model parameters should be found by choosing, among suboptimal parameters, those that match criteria other than the ones used to fit the model. We also conclude that the model, data and optimization approach form a new complex system, and point to the need of a theory that addresses this problem more generally

O106 / #796 FEASIBILITY OF TRANSCUTANEOUS SPINAL CORD STIMULATION COMBINED WITH ROBOTIC-ASSISTED GAIT TRAINING (LOKOMAT) FOR GAIT REHABILITATION FOLLOWING INCOMPLETE SPINAL CORD INJURY. A CASE SERIES STUDY

Transcutaneous electrical spinal cord stimulation (tSCS) is a non-invasive technique for neuromodulation with therapeutic potential for motor rehabilitation following spinal cord injury (SCI). The aim of the present study was to analyze the feasibility of a program of 20 sessions of 30-Hz tSCS combined with robotic-assisted gait training in incomplete SCI. The results of the present work partially belong to a randomized clinical trial that is in progress