49 research outputs found

    New perspectives on an old fishing practice: Scale, context and impacts of bottom trawling

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    This report seeks to provide new perspectives on this historical controversy by presenting the most up-todate synthesis of available data and evidence on bottom trawling's extent, impacts, and solutions in order to inform constructive policy-making. Specifically, it uses novel data analysis from Sea Around Us to map the global extent of bottom trawling; a synthesis of peer-reviewed literature to elucidate environmental, social, and climate impacts; and insights from more than 40 global experts on what a constructive future might look like that manages or severely. limits the worst impacts of this practice, while also ensuring a just and equitable society and a healthy food system

    New insights into the genetic etiology of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias

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    Characterization of the genetic landscape of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementias (ADD) provides a unique opportunity for a better understanding of the associated pathophysiological processes. We performed a two-stage genome-wide association study totaling 111,326 clinically diagnosed/'proxy' AD cases and 677,663 controls. We found 75 risk loci, of which 42 were new at the time of analysis. Pathway enrichment analyses confirmed the involvement of amyloid/tau pathways and highlighted microglia implication. Gene prioritization in the new loci identified 31 genes that were suggestive of new genetically associated processes, including the tumor necrosis factor alpha pathway through the linear ubiquitin chain assembly complex. We also built a new genetic risk score associated with the risk of future AD/dementia or progression from mild cognitive impairment to AD/dementia. The improvement in prediction led to a 1.6- to 1.9-fold increase in AD risk from the lowest to the highest decile, in addition to effects of age and the APOE Δ4 allele

    Multiancestry analysis of the HLA locus in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases uncovers a shared adaptive immune response mediated by HLA-DRB1*04 subtypes

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    Across multiancestry groups, we analyzed Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) associations in over 176,000 individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) versus controls. We demonstrate that the two diseases share the same protective association at the HLA locus. HLA-specific fine-mapping showed that hierarchical protective effects of HLA-DRB1*04 subtypes best accounted for the association, strongest with HLA-DRB1*04:04 and HLA-DRB1*04:07, and intermediary with HLA-DRB1*04:01 and HLA-DRB1*04:03. The same signal was associated with decreased neurofibrillary tangles in postmortem brains and was associated with reduced tau levels in cerebrospinal fluid and to a lower extent with increased AÎČ42. Protective HLA-DRB1*04 subtypes strongly bound the aggregation-prone tau PHF6 sequence, however only when acetylated at a lysine (K311), a common posttranslational modification central to tau aggregation. An HLA-DRB1*04-mediated adaptive immune response decreases PD and AD risks, potentially by acting against tau, offering the possibility of therapeutic avenues

    Preservation of <i>Mimosa tenuiflora</i> Antiaflatoxigenic Activity Using Microencapsulation by Spray-Drying

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    Mimosa tenuiflora aqueous extract (MAE) is rich in phenolic compounds. Among them, condensed tannins have been demonstrated to exhibit a strong antioxidant and antiaflatoxin B1 activities in Aspergillus flavus. Since antioxidant capacity can change with time due to environmental interactions, this study aimed to evaluate the ability of encapsulation by spray-drying of Mimosa tenuiflora aqueous extract to preserve their biological activities through storage. A dry formulation may also facilitate transportation and uses. For that, three different wall materials were used and compared for their efficiency. Total phenolic content, antioxidant activity, antifungal and antiaflatoxin activities were measured after the production of the microparticles and after one year of storage at room temperature. These results confirmed that encapsulation by spray-drying using polysaccharide wall materials is able to preserve antiaflatoxin activity of Mimosa tenuiflora extract better than freezing

    Development and validation of the FRAGIRE tool for assessment an older person’s risk for frailty

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    International audienceBackground: Frailty is highly prevalent in elderly people. While significant progress has been made to understand its pathogenesis process, few validated questionnaire exist to assess the multidimensional concept of frailty and to detect people frail or at risk to become frail. The objectives of this study were to construct and validate a new frailty-screening instrument named Frailty Groupe Iso-Ressource Evaluation (FRAGIRE) that accurately predicts the risk for frailty in older adults.Methods: A prospective multicenter recruitment of the elderly patients was undertaken in France. The subjects were classified into financially-helped group (FH, with financial assistance) and non-financially helped group (NFH, without any financial assistance), considering FH subjects are more frail than the NFH group and thus representing an acceptable surrogate population for frailty. Psychometric properties of the FRAGIRE grid were assessed including discrimination between the FH and NFH groups. Items reduction was made according to statistical analyses and experts' point of view. The association between items response and tests with "help requested status" was assessed in univariate and multivariate unconditional logistic regression analyses and a prognostic score to become frail was finally proposed for each subject.Results: Between May 2013 and July 2013, 385 subjects were included: 338 (88%) in the FH group and 47 (12%) in the NFH group. The initial FRAGIRE grid included 65 items. After conducting the item selection, the final grid of the FRAGIRE was reduced to 19 items. The final grid showed fair discrimination ability to predict frailty (area under the curve (AUC) = 0.85) and good calibration (Hosmer-Lemeshow P-value = 0.580), reflecting a good agreement between the prediction by the final model and actual observation. The Cronbach's alpha for the developed tool scored as high as 0.69 (95% Confidence Interval: 0.64 to 0.74). The final prognostic score was excellent, with an AUC of 0.756. Moreover, it facilitated significant separation of patients into individuals requesting for help from others (P-value < 0.0001), with sensitivity of 81%, specificity of 61%, positive predictive value of 93%, negative predictive value of 34%, and a global predictive value of 78%.Conclusions: The FRAGIRE seems to have considerable potential as a reliable and effective tool for identifying frail elderly individuals by a public health social worker without medical training

    Mimosa tenuiflora Aqueous Extract: Role of Condensed Tannins in Anti-Aflatoxin B1 Activity in Aspergillus flavus

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    International audienceAflatoxin B1 (AFB1) is a potent carcinogenic mycotoxin that contaminates numerous crops pre- and post-harvest. To protect foods and feeds from such toxins without resorting to pesticides, the use of plant extracts has been increasingly studied. The most interesting candidate plants are those with strong antioxidative activity because oxidation reactions may interfere with AFB1 production. The present study investigates how an aqueous extract of Mimosa tenuiflora bark affects both the growth of Aspergillus flavus and AFB1 production. The results reveal a dose-dependent inhibition of toxin synthesis with no impact on fungal growth. AFB1 inhibition is related to a down-modulation of the cluster genes of the biosynthetic pathway and especially to the two internal regulators aflR and aflS. Its strong anti-oxidative activity also allows the aqueous extract to modulate the expression of genes involved in fungal oxidative-stress response, such as msnA, mtfA, atfA, or sod1. Finally, a bio-guided fractionation of the aqueous extract demonstrates that condensed tannins play a major role in the anti-aflatoxin activity of Mimosa tenuiflora bark
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