Wild-Type and SOD1-G93A SH-SY5Y under oxidative stress: EVs characterization and topographical distribution of budding vesicles

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are important mediators of intercellular communication in several physiopathological conditions. Oxidative stress alters EVs release and cargo composition depending on the cell type and stimulus. Recently, most of the EVs studies have focused on the characterization of their cargo, rather than on the morphological features (i.e., size distribution, shape, and localization on the cell surface). Due to their high heterogeneity, to fully characterize EVs both the functional and morphological characterization are required. Atomic force microscopy (AFM), introduced for cell morphological studies at the nanoscale, represents a promising method to characterize in detail EVs morphology, dynamics along the cell surface, and its variations reflecting the cell physiological status. In the present study, untreated or H2O2-treated wild-type and SOD1-G93A SH-SY5Y cells have been compared performing a transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and AFM morpho-quantitative analysis of budding and released vesicles. Intriguingly, our analysis revealed a differential EVs profiling, with an opposite behavior and implying different cell areas between WT and SOD1-G93A cells, on both physiological conditions and after H2O2 exposure. Our results empower the relationship between the morphological features and functional role, further proving the efficacy of EM/AFM in giving an overview of the cell physiology related to EVs trafficking

On the relative abundance of LiH and LiH+ molecules in the early universe: new results from quantum reactions

The relative efficiencies of the chemical pathways that can lead to the destruction of LiH and LiH+ molecules, conjectured to be present in the primordial gas and to control molecular cooling processes in the gravitational collapse of the post-recombination era, are revisited by using accurate quantum calculations for the several reactions involved. The new rates are employed to survey the behavior of the relative abundance of these molecules at redshifts of interest for early universe conditions. We find significant differences with respect to previous calculations, the present ones yielding LIH abundances higher than LiH+ at all redshifts.Comment: The Astrophysical Journal, in pres

Utility of Healthcare System-Based Interventions in Improving the Uptake of Influenza Vaccination in Healthcare Workers at Long-Term Care Facilities: A Systematic Review

Healthcare workers (HCWs) in long-term care facilities (LTCFs) can represent a source of influenza infection for the elderly. While flu vaccination coverage (VC) is satisfactory in the elderly, HCWs are less likely to be vaccinated. There is no definitive evidence on which types of healthcare system-based interventions at LTCFs would be more useful in improving the vaccination uptake among HCWs. We performed a systematic review in different databases (Pubmed, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Health Evidence, Web of Science, Cinahl) to provide a synthesis of the available studies on this topic. Among the 1177 articles screened by their titles and abstracts, 27 were included in this review. Most of the studies reported multiple interventions addressed to improve access to vaccination, eliminate individual barriers, or introduce policy interventions. As expected, mandatory vaccinations seem to be the most useful intervention to increase the vaccination uptake in HCWs. However, our study suggests that better results in the vaccination uptake in HCWs were obtained by combining interventions in different areas. Educational campaigns alone could not have an impact on vaccination coverage. LTCFs represent an ideal setting to perform preventive multi-approach interventions for the epidemiological transition toward aging and chronicity

Comparative transcriptome analysis of the interaction between Actinidia chinensis var. chinensis and Pseudomonas syringae pv. Actinidiae in absence and presence of acibenzolar-S-methyl

Background: Since 2007, bacterial canker caused by Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae (Psa) has become a pandemic disease leading to important economic losses in every country where kiwifruit is widely cultivated. Options for controlling this disease are very limited and rely primarily on the use of bactericidal compounds, such as copper, and resistance inducers. Among the latter, the most widely studied is acibenzolar-S-methyl. To elucidate the early molecular reaction of kiwifruit plants (Actinidia chinensis var. chinensis) to Psa infection and acibenzolar-S-methyl treatment, a RNA seq analysis was performed at different phases of the infection process, from the epiphytic phase to the endophytic invasion on acibenzolar-S-methyl treated and on non-treated plants. The infection process was monitored in vivo by confocal laser scanning microscopy. Results: De novo assembly of kiwifruit transcriptome revealed a total of 39,607 transcripts, of which 3360 were differentially expressed during the infection process, primarily 3 h post inoculation. The study revealed the coordinated changes of important gene functional categories such as signaling, hormonal balance and transcriptional regulation. Among the transcription factor families, AP2/ERF, MYB, Myc, bHLH, GATA, NAC, WRKY and GRAS were found differentially expressed in response to Psa infection and acibenzolar-S-methyl treatment. Finally, in plants treated with acibenzolar-S-methyl, a number of gene functions related to plant resistance, such as PR proteins, were modulated, suggesting the set-up of a more effective defense response against the pathogen. Weighted-gene coexpression network analysis confirmed these results. Conclusions: Our work provides an in-depth description of the plant molecular reactions to Psa, it highlights the metabolic pathway related to acibenzolar-S-methyl-induced resistance and it contributes to the development of effective control strategies in open field

Farm diversification strategies, dietary diversity and farm size: results from a cross-country sample in South and Southeast Asia

South and Southeast Asia host almost half of the world's undernourished people. Food and agricultural systems in these regions are highly dependent on the production and consumption of staple cereals such as rice, maize and wheat. More diverse farming systems can potentially improve rural people's nutrition, while reducing the environmental impact of agriculture. Yet, it remains uncertain whether farm diversification is always the most suitable and viable strategy for all types of smallholder farms. We use generalised linear regression models to analyse the farm diversification strategies of 4772 rural households in Cambodia, India, Lao PDR and Vietnam. Our analysis is twofold and focuses first on drivers of farm diversification, and second, on the impacts of farm diversification and other livelihood strategies on dietary diversity. We find that (1) farm diversification is significantly influenced by environmental and climate variables, including rainfall patterns, as well as household and farm characteristics such as farm size and education level; and (2) farm diversification, market orientation and off-farm income generation are all strategies that can improve household and individual dietary diversity. However, their relative effects resulted influenced by farm size. Specifically, the positive effect of farm diversification on dietary diversity was larger for smaller farms, while it decreased for farms of larger size that may improve their diet more by increasing their engagement in off-farm activities and markets. These findings highlight that characteristics such as farm size can represent substantial determinants in production and consumption decisions, suggesting the importance of understanding and considering the type of farm and the situational context of analysis when targeting interventions for improving smallholder farm livelihoods

An aqueous olive leaf extract (OLE) ameliorates parameters of oxidative stress associated with lipid accumulation and induces lipophagy in human hepatic cells

Fatty liver is a disease characterized by a buildup of lipids in the liver, often resulting from excessive consumption of high-fat-containing foods. Fatty liver can degenerate, over time, into more severe forms of liver diseases, especially when oxidative stress occurs. Olive leaf extract (OLE) is a reliable source of polyphenols with antioxidant and hypolipidemic properties that have been successfully used in medicine, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical products. Using "green" solvents with minimal impact on the environment and human health, which simultaneously preserves the extract's beneficial properties, represents one of the major challenges of biomedical research. In the present study, we assayed the potential antioxidant and lipid-lowering effect of a "green" OLE obtained by a water ultrasound-assisted extraction procedure, on the human hepatic HuH7 cell line, treated with a high concentration of free fatty acids (FFA). We found that high FFA concentration induced lipid accumulation and oxidative stress, as measured by increased hydrogen peroxide levels. Moreover, the activity of antioxidant enzymes, catalase, superoxide dismutase, and glutathione peroxidase, was reduced upon FFA treatment. Coincubation of high FFA with OLE reduced lipid and H2O2 accumulation and increased the activity of peroxide-detoxifying enzymes. OLE ameliorated mitochondrial membrane potential, and hepatic parameters by restoring the expression of enzymes involved in insulin signaling and lipid metabolism. Electron microscopy revealed an increased autophagosome formation in both FFA- and FFA + OLE-treated cells. The study of the autophagic pathway indicated OLE's probable role in activating lipophagy

Plant Microbiome and Its Link to Plant Health: Host Species, Organs and Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae Infection Shaping Bacterial Phyllosphere Communities of Kiwifruit Plants

Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae (Psa) is the causal agent of the bacterial canker, the most devastating disease of kiwifruit vines. Before entering the host tissues, this pathogen has an epiphytic growth phase on kiwifruit flowers and leaves, thus the ecological interactions within epiphytic bacterial community may greatly influence the onset of the infection process. The bacterial community associated to the two most important cultivated kiwifruit species, Actinidia chinensis and Actinidia deliciosa, was described both on flowers and leaves using Illumina massive parallel sequencing of the V3 and V4 variable regions of the 16S rRNA gene. In addition, the effect of plant infection by Psa on the epiphytic bacterial community structure and biodiversity was investigated. Psa infection affected the phyllosphere microbiome structures in both species, however, its impact was more pronounced on A. deliciosa leaves, where a drastic drop in microbial biodiversity was observed. Furthermore, we also showed that Psa was always present in syndemic association with Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae and Pseudomonas viridiflava, two other kiwifruit pathogens, suggesting the establishment of a pathogenic consortium leading to a higher pathogenesis capacity. Finally, the analyses of the dynamics of bacterial populations provided useful information for the screening and selection of potential biocontrol agents against Psa

Extreme Cosmic-Ray-Dominated-Regions: a new paradigm for high star formation density events in the Universe

We examine in detail the recent proposal that extreme Cosmic-Ray-Dominated-Regions (CRDRs) characterize the ISM of galaxies during events of high-density star formation, fundamentally altering its initial conditions (Papadopoulos 2010). Solving the coupled chemical and thermal state equations for dense UV-shielded gas reveals that the large cosmic ray energy densities in such systems (U_{CR} (few)x(10^3-10^4) U_{CR,Gal}) will indeed raise the minimum temperature of this phase (where the initial conditions of star formation are set) from ~10K (as in the Milky Way) to (50-100)K. Moreover in such extreme CRDRs the gas temperature remains fully decoupled from that of the dust, with T_{kin} >> T_{dust}, even at high densities (n(H_2)~10^5--10^6 cm^{-3}), quite unlike CRDRs in the Milky Way where T_k T_{dust} when n(H_2) >= 10^5 cm^{-3}. These dramatically different star formation initial conditions will: a) boost the Jeans mass of UV-shielded gas regions by factors of ~10--100 with respect to those in quiescent or less extreme star forming systems, and b) "erase" the so-called inflection point of the effective equation of state (EOS) of molecular gas. Both these effects occur across the entire density range of typical molecular clouds, and may represent {\it a new paradigm for all high-density star formation in the Universe}, with cosmic rays as the key driving mechanism, operating efficiently even in the high dust extinction environments of extreme starbursts...Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, accepted with minor modifications for publication in the MNRAS (the follow-up paper to Papadopoulos 2010, ApJ, 720, 226

Galaxy kinematics and mass estimates at z ∼ 1 from ionised gas and stars

We compare ionised gas and stellar kinematics of 16 star-forming galaxies (log (M⋆/M⊙) = 9.7 − 11.2, SFR =6 − 86M⊙/yr) at z ∼ 1 using near-infrared integral field spectroscopy (IFS) of Hα emission from the KMOS3D survey and optical slit spectroscopy of stellar absorption and gas emission from the LEGA-C survey. Hα is dynamically colder than stars, with higher disc rotation velocities (by ∼45 per cent) and lower disc velocity dispersions (by a factor ∼2). This is similar to trends observed in the local Universe. We find higher rotational support for Hα relative to [OII], potentially explaining systematic offsets in kinematic scaling relations found in the literature. Regarding dynamical mass measurements, for six galaxies with cumulative mass profiles from Jeans Anisotropic Multi-Gaussian Expansion (JAM) models the Hα dynamical mass models agree remarkably well out to ∼10 kpc for all but one galaxy (average ΔΜdyn(Re, F814W) < 0.1 dex). Simpler dynamical mass estimates based on integrated stellar velocity dispersion are less accurate (standard deviation 0.24 dex). Differences in dynamical mass estimates are larger, for example, for galaxies with stronger misalignments of the Hα kinematic major axis and the photometric position angle, highlighting the added value of IFS observations for dynamics studies. The good agreement between the JAM models and the dynamical models based on Hα kinematics at z ∼ 1 corroborates the validity of dynamical mass measurements from Hα IFS observations, which can be more easily obtained for higher redshift galaxies

Sizes and ages of SDSS ellipticals: Comparison with hierarchical galaxy formation models

In a sample of about 45,700 early-type galaxies extracted from SDSS, we find that the shape, normalization, and dispersion around the mean size-stellar mass relation is the same for young and old systems, provided the stellar mass is greater than 3*10^10 Msun. This is difficult to reproduce in pure passive evolution models, which generically predict older galaxies to be much more compact than younger ones of the same stellar mass. However, this aspect of our measurements is well reproduced by hierarchical models of galaxy formation. Whereas the models predict more compact galaxies at high redshifts, subsequent minor, dry mergers increase the sizes of the more massive objects, resulting in a flat size-age relation at the present time. At lower masses, the models predict that mergers are less frequent, so that the expected anti-correlation between age and size is not completely erased. This is in good agreement with our data: below 3*10^10 Msun, the effective radius R_e is a factor of ~2 lower for older galaxies. These successes of the models are offset by the fact that the predicted sizes have other serious problems, which we discuss.Comment: 13 pages, 9 Figures, 1 Table. Accepted by MNRA