Numerical taxonomy of moderately halophilic Gram-negative bacteria from hypersaline soils

A total of 132 moderately halophilic bacteria were isolated from hypersaline soils with a C1- content between 2-36 and 12.72% (w/v) located near Alicante (S.E. Spain) and examined for 98 phenotypic characteristics including their response to cytological, physiological, biochemical and nutritional tests. They were submitted to a numerical analysis together with six reference strains using both simple matching (SsM)a nd Jaccard (S,) coefficients, and cluster analysis was carried out by the unweighted pair group method of association (UPGMA), single linkage and complete linkage. With the S, coefficient and UPGMA clustering, eight phenons were obtained at the 65% similarity level. From each phenon representative strains were chosen for the determination of DNA base composition and for electron microscopy. Bacteria belonging to phenons D, E, and F were assigned to the genus Alcaligenes. Phenon G included 27 strains assigned to Acinetobacter, but the high G + C composition (58.9 mol%) of a representative strain of this phenon suggests that it may represent a new taxon. Phenons A, B, and C were designated Flavobacterium and phenon H was Pseudomonas. The bacteria found in these environments are not related to those from hypersaline waters or normal soils

Factors modulating home range and resource use: a case study with Canarian houbara bustards

ABSTRACT: The home range of an animal is determined by its ecological requirements, and these may vary depending on many intrinsic and extrinsic factors, which are ultimately driven by food resources. Investigating the effects of these factors, and specifically how individuals use food resources within their home ranges is essential to understand the ecology and dynamics of animal populations, and to establish conservation measures in the case of endangered species. Here, we investigate these questions in the Canarian houbara bustard, an endangered subspecies of African houbara endemic to the Canary Islands.We are grateful to A. Rodríguez, T. Díaz-Valera and F. Corujo for their collaboration during the fieldwork, E. Arrondo for helping with the AcceleRater software, and A. Perona for his help and tips about the “rhr package”, M. A. Cabrera for managing capture permits and for his support during the project, F. Crespo, M. Armas, A. Ibarguren and M. Gil for their assistance during the preparation of the project, the guards of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Timanfaya National Park and La Graciosa, including TRAGSA personnel, the veterinarian C. M. Suárez, and all authorities of the Government of the Canary Islands for their collaboration. We also thank J. M. Poveda and F. Suárez of GRAFCAN for providing images and ortophotos of the islands. Two anonymous reviewers and the associate editor provided useful comments that helped to improve our manuscript. This study was funded by Red Eléctrica de España (REE) through a contract with Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)

Numerical taxonomy of moderately halophilic Gram-negative rods

A study was made of 516 randomly selected isolates of moderately halophilic bacteria from solar salterns showing salinities between 8.8 and 40.0% (w/v) total salts, located in S.E. Spain. After purification, many cytological, physiological, biochemical, nutritional and an ti biot ic sensitivity characters were determined for 106 selected saltern isolates and two reference strains. Data were coded and analysed by numerical techniques using the Jaccard coefficient ( S J ) ,a nd clusters of strains were obtained by average linkage (UPGMA) analysis. Nine major phenons were found at the 72.5 % similarity level. The properties of each phenon are given, their taxonomic affinities are discussed, and typical reference strains are suggested. Almost all the strains were related to genera known to contain marine species. A large number of the strains could be tentatively assigned to the genus Vibrio, suggesting that this may be an abundant taxon of moderately halophilic Gram-negative rods in solar salterns

Factors modulating home range and resource use: a case study with Canarian houbara bustards

ABSTRACT: The home range of an animal is determined by its ecological requirements, and these may vary depending on many intrinsic and extrinsic factors, which are ultimately driven by food resources. Investigating the effects of these factors, and specifically how individuals use food resources within their home ranges is essential to understand the ecology and dynamics of animal populations, and to establish conservation measures in the case of endangered species. Here, we investigate these questions in the Canarian houbara bustard, an endangered subspecies of African houbara endemic to the Canary Islands.We are grateful to A. Rodríguez, T. Díaz-Valera and F. Corujo for their collaboration during the fieldwork, E. Arrondo for helping with the AcceleRater software, and A. Perona for his help and tips about the “rhr package”, M. A. Cabrera for managing capture permits and for his support during the project, F. Crespo, M. Armas, A. Ibarguren and M. Gil for their assistance during the preparation of the project, the guards of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Timanfaya National Park and La Graciosa, including TRAGSA personnel, the veterinarian C. M. Suárez, and all authorities of the Government of the Canary Islands for their collaboration. We also thank J. M. Poveda and F. Suárez of GRAFCAN for providing images and ortophotos of the islands. Two anonymous reviewers and the associate editor provided useful comments that helped to improve our manuscript. This study was funded by Red Eléctrica de España (REE) through a contract with Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)

TNF Superfamily: A Growing Saga of Kidney Injury Modulators

Members of the TNF superfamily participate in kidney disease. Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and Fas ligand regulate renal cell survival and inflammation, and therapeutic targeting improves the outcome of experimental renal injury. TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL and its potential decoy receptor osteoprotegerin are the two most upregulated death-related genes in human diabetic nephropathy. TRAIL activates NF-kappaB in tubular cells and promotes apoptosis in tubular cells and podocytes, especially in a high-glucose environment. By contrast, osteoprotegerin plays a protective role against TRAIL-induced apoptosis. Another family member, TNF-like weak inducer of apoptosis (TWEAK induces inflammation and tubular cell death or proliferation, depending on the microenvironment. While TNF only activates canonical NF-kappaB signaling, TWEAK promotes both canonical and noncanonical NF-kappaB activation in tubular cells, regulating different inflammatory responses. TWEAK promotes the secretion of MCP-1 and RANTES through NF-kappaB RelA-containing complexes and upregulates CCl21 and CCL19 expression through NF-kappaB inducing kinase (NIK-) dependent RelB/NF-kappaB2 complexes. In vivo TWEAK promotes postnephrectomy compensatory renal cell proliferation in a noninflammatory milieu. However, in the inflammatory milieu of acute kidney injury, TWEAK promotes tubular cell death and inflammation. Therapeutic targeting of TNF superfamily cytokines, including multipronged approaches targeting several cytokines should be further explored

Human decimation caused bottleneck effect, genetic drift, and inbreeding in the Canarian houbara bustard

An endangered subspecies of the African houbara bustard, the Canarian houbara (Chlamydotis undulata fuertaventurae), is endemic to the Canary Islands off southern Morocco (Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, and La Graciosa islands). This population decreased over the last centuries because of hunting and egg collection, and was close to extinction in Lanzarote around the middle of last century. Later, the species recovered because of hunting bans, but in Fuerteventura a significant decline has again occurred in the last decades and houbaras are on the brink of extirpation on that island. We describe the genetic characteristics and recent evolutionary history of this subspecies to provide essential information for the evaluation of the conservation actions implemented and for the development of new measures to prevent further declines and local extirpations. We amplified microsatellite loci to infer genetic variability, population structure, and gene flow. The subspecies exhibited relatively high genetic variability but reduced heterozygosity. In spite of high gene flow among locations and islands, we identified 2 genetic units: 1 comprising La Graciosa and Fuerteventura islands, and the other restricted to Lanzarote. We detected genetic bottlenecks and subsequent inbreeding in both units, with a reduced effective number alleles in Lanzarote compared to Fuerteventura‐La Graciosa. This genetic structure may be explained by human‐induced historical population declines and an associated bottleneck effect, particularly in Lanzarote. Conservation measures should aim to recover the houbara population of Fuerteventura, improving survival of adults and juvenile productivity, and to ensure that genetic flow continues among breeding locations and islands to recover the original population structure (an unique genetic unit over the range of the species) and prevent further genetic deterioration, which could lead to extirpation of this endemic subspecies

A polymeric nanomedicine diminishes inflammatory events in renal tubular cells

The polyglutamic acid/peptoid 1 (QM56) nanoconjugate inhibits apoptosis by interfering with Apaf-1 binding to procaspase-9. We now describe anti-inflammatory properties of QM56 in mouse kidney and renal cell models. In cultured murine tubular cells, QM56 inhibited the inflammatory response to Tweak, a non-apoptotic stimulus. Tweak induced MCP-1 and Rantes synthesis through JAK2 kinase and NF-kB activation. Similar to JAK2 kinase inhibitors, QM56 inhibited Tweak-induced NF-kB transcriptional activity and chemokine expression, despite failing to inhibit NF-kB-p65 nuclear translocation and NF-kB DNA binding. QM56 prevented JAK2 activation and NF-kB-p65(Ser536) phosphorylation. The anti-inflammatory effect and JAK2 inhibition by QM56 were observed in Apaf-12/2 cells. In murine acute kidney injury, QM56 decreased tubular cell apoptosis and kidney inflammation as measured by downmodulations of MCP-1 and Rantes mRNA expression, immune cell infiltration and activation of the JAK2-dependent inflammatory pathway. In conclusion, QM56 has an anti-inflammatory activity which is independent from its role as inhibitor of Apaf-1 and apoptosis and may have potential therapeutic relevance.This work was supported by grants from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (www.isciii.es), FIS: PI07/0020, CP08/1083, PS09/00447 and ISCIII-RETICS REDINREN RD 06/0016; Sociedad Española de Nefrología (www.senefro.org). Álvaro Ucero, Sergio Berzal and Carlos Ocaña supported by Fundacion Conchita Rabago (www.fundacionconchitarabago.net), Alberto Ortiz by the Programa de Intensificación de la Actividad Investigadora in the Sistema Nacional de Salud of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III and the Agencia ‘‘Pedro Lain Entralgo’’ of the Comunidad de Madrid and CIFRA S-BIO 0283/2006 www.madrid.org/lainentralgo) and Adrián Ramos, by FIS (Programa Miguel Servet)

Osteoprotegerin in Exosome-Like Vesicles from Human Cultured Tubular Cells and Urine

Urinary exosomes have been proposed as potential diagnostic tools. TNF superfamily cytokines and receptors may be present in exosomes and are expressed by proximal tubular cells. We have now studied the expression of selected TNF superfamily proteins in exosome-like vesicles from cultured human proximal tubular cells and human urine and have identified additional proteins in these vesicles by LC-MS/MS proteomics. Human proximal tubular cells constitutively released exosome-like vesicles that did not contain the TNF superfamily cytokines TRAIL or TWEAK. However, exosome-like vesicles contained osteoprotegerin (OPG), a TNF receptor superfamily protein, as assessed by Western blot, ELISA or selected reaction monitoring by nLC-(QQQ)MS/MS. Twenty-one additional proteins were identified in tubular cell exosomelike vesicles, including one (vitamin D binding protein) that had not been previously reported in exosome-like vesicles. Twelve were extracellular matrix proteins, including the basement membrane proteins type IV collagen, nidogen-1, agrin and fibulin-1. Urine from chronic kidney disease patients contained a higher amount of exosomal protein and exosomal OPG than urine from healthy volunteers. Specifically OPG was increased in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease urinary exosome-like vesicles and expressed by cystic epithelium in vivo. In conclusion, OPG is present in exosome-like vesicles secreted by proximal tubular epithelial cells and isolated from Chronic Kidney Disease urine.This work was supported by grants from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIIIRETIC REDINREN RD06/0016, RD12/0021, PI11/01854, PI10/00072 PI09/ 00641 and PS09/00447); Comunidad de Madrid (Fibroteam S2010/BMD-2321, S2010/BMD-2378); Sociedad Española de NefrologÍa; European Network (HEALTH F2-2008-200647); DIALOK European project LSHB-CT-2007-036644; Fundacion Lilly and IRSIN/FRIAT to JE; Programa Intensificación Actividad Investigadora (ISCIII/ Agencia Laín-Entralgo/CM) to AO; Instituto de Salud Carlos III (FIS PI11/01401, CP09/00229); and Fundación Conchita Rábago de Jiménez DÍaz to GAL. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscrip

Endogenous NAMPT dampens chemokine expression and apoptotic responses in stressed tubular cells

et al.Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is the most common cause of end-stage renal disease and identification of new therapeutic targets is needed. Nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase (NAMPT) is both an extracellular and intracellular protein. Circulating NAMPT is increased in diabetics and in chronic kidney disease patients. The role of NAMPT in renal cell biology is poorly understood. NAMPT mRNA and protein were increased in the kidneys of rats with streptozotocin-induced diabetes. Immunohistochemistry localized NAMPT to glomerular and tubular cells in diabetic rats. The inflammatory cytokine TNFα increased NAMPT mRNA, protein and NAD production in cultured kidney human tubular cells. Exogenous NAMPT increased the mRNA expression of chemokines MCP-1 and RANTES. The NAMPT enzymatic activity inhibitor FK866 prevented these effects. By contrast, FK866 boosted TNFα-induced expression of MCP-1 and RANTES mRNA and endogenous NAMPT targeting by siRNA also had a proinflammatory effect. Furthermore, FK866 promoted tubular cell apoptosis in an inflammatory milieu containing the cytokines TNFα/IFNγ. In an inflammatory environment FK866 promoted tubular cell expression of the lethal cytokine TRAIL. These data are consistent with a role of endogenous NAMPT activity as an adaptive, protective response to an inflammatory milieu that differs from the proinflammatory activity of exogenous NAMPT. Thus, disruption of endogenous NAMPT function in stressed cells promotes tubular cell death and chemokine expression. This information may be relevant for the design of novel therapeutic strategies in DN. © 2013.Peer Reviewe

Anthropogenic mortality threatens the survival of Canarian houbara bustards

Abstract Anthropogenic mortality is a major cause of global mortality in terrestrial vertebrates. Quantifying its impact on the dynamics of threatened species is essential to improve their conservation. We investigated cause-specific mortality in Canarian houbara bustards (Chlamydotis undulata fuertaventurae), an endangered subspecies endemic to the Canary Islands. We monitored 51 individuals tagged with solar-powered GSM/GPRS loggers for an average of 3.15 years, and recorded 7 casualties at aerial lines (13.73% of the sample; 5 at power lines, 2 at telephone lines), 1 (1.96%) at a wire fence, 4 road kills (7.84%) and 1 case of predation by cat (1.96%). Cox proportional hazards models showed that anthropogenic and natural annual mortality rates were similar (respectively, 6.20% and 6.36% of the individuals). We estimate that 33–35 houbaras die each year in the Canary Islands due to anthropogenic causes. Population viability models using these data and juvenile productivity values obtained over seven years predicted the extinction of the species in 50 years. Eliminating anthropogenic mortality, the population could be recovered, but would still require management actions to improve habitat quality. Conservation measures to reduce anthropogenic mortality due to power line fatalities, roadkills and predation by cats, as well as to increase productivity, are urgently needed, particularly on Fuerteventura, where houbaras are on the brink of extinction