Cajal´s achievements in the field of the development of dendritic arbors

13 páginas, 7 figuras.In 1909, Cajal published an up-dated version in French (Cajal, 1909-1911) of his main work Texture of the Nervous System of Man and Vertebrates (Cajal, 1899-1904), considered the most important book devoted to the nervous system. Owing that last year was the centenary of this publication, we decided to produce an article focused on Cajal´s description of the morphological changes that dendritic trees undergo during development. We will emphasize his brilliant hypotheses explaining the modelling of dendritic trees (the neurotropic hypothesis and the role of neuronal activity in the patterning of the dendritic trees), and the status of this topic in present day Neuroscience. Here, we will show original photographs taken from a selected collection of Cajal´s slides housed in the Cajal Museum (Instituto Cajal, CSIC, Madrid, Spain) illustrating the principal changes in neuronal morphology at different stages of development of the spinal cord, cerebellum and cerebral cortex. We will also discuss Cajal’s initial proposals regarding the influence of neurotropic substances (chemotactic hypothesis) and neural activity in the modelling of the dendritic tree, as well as the evidence that later confirmed these theories.P. GL. is supported by the Fundación Caixa Galicia. This study was supported by grants from Spain´s Ministry of Science and Innovation (SAF2007- 60010) and the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (RETICS, RENEVAS, RD06/ 0026/1001).Peer reviewe

CB2 cannabinoid receptor activation promotes colon cancer progression via AKT/GSK3β signaling pathway

The pharmacological activation of the cannabinoid receptor type 2, CB2, has been shown to elicit anti-tumoral mechanisms in different cancer types. However, little is known about its endogenous role in tumor pathophysiology, and different studies have attributed pro-tumorigenic properties to this receptor. In a previous work, we showed that CB2 expression is a poor prognostic factor in colon cancer patients. Here we report that activation of CB2 with low doses of specific agonists induce cell proliferation and favor the acquisition of aggressive molecular features in colon cancer cells. We show that sub-micromolar concentrations of CB2-specific agonists, JWH-133 and HU-308, promote an increase in cell proliferation rate through the activation of AKT/PKB pathway in colon cancer in vitro and in vivo. AKT activation promotes GSK3β inhibition and thus, a more aggressive cell phenotype with the subsequent elevation of SNAIL levels, E-cadherin degradation and β-catenin delocalization from cell membrane. Taken together, our data show that CB2 activation with sub-micromolar doses of agonists, which could be more similar to endogenous levels of cannabinoids, promote colon cancer progression, implicating that CB2 could have a pro-tumorigenic endogenous role in colon cancerThis work was supported by grants from Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias (ISCIII-PI10/00879 to JMG; Plan Nacional de I+D+I 2008-2011, FEDER funds co-financed), Red Temática de Investigación Cooperativa en Cáncer (ISCIII-RETIC RD12/0036/0041; Plan Estatal de I+D+I 2013-2016, FEDER funds cofinanced). JMG and PM were supported by ISCIII CP08/00217 and JR14/0018 contracts, respectively. EMM was recipient of ISCIII PFIS PhD studentship (FI11/00696) (Plan Nacional de I+D+I 2008-2011, FEDER funds co-financed); AMR was recipient of PhD contract from Department of Medical Oncology of H.U. Puerta de Hierro; VC was recipient of attending physician contract in Medical Oncology Department from H.U. Puerta de Hierro; MP was supported by Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) with Full Professor contrac

Seguiment a llarg termini de la colònia d’Hydrobates pelagicus de s’Espartar. Any 1

La conservació de les aus marines com el paio és un procés a llarg termini que necessita a més d’informació bàsica, aquella que permeti conèixer i predir la dinàmica de la seva població. Malgrat sembli senzill implementar un model de seguiment que perduri en el temps (monitoratge), no existeixen gaires estudis d’aquesta espècie a llarg termini. Aquest article recull els resultats del seguiment dut a terme en 2014 a la colònia de paio de La Cova Nord de s’Espartar (reserves naturals des Vedrà, es Vedranell i els illots de Ponent), que pretén ser el primer d’un projecte a llarg termini amb un protocol que permeti comparar la dinàmica d’aquesta població amb la d’altres colònies mediterrànies

Atorvastatin Provides a New Lipidome Improving Early Regeneration After Partial Hepatectomy in Osteopontin Deficient Mice

Osteopontin (OPN), a multifunctional cytokine that controls liver glycerolipid metabolism, is involved in activation and proliferation of several liver cell types during regeneration, a condition of high metabolic demands. Here we investigated the role of OPN in modulating the liver lipidome during regeneration after partial-hepatectomy (PH) and the impact that atorvastatin treatment has over regeneration in OPN knockout (KO) mice. The results showed that OPN deficiency leads to remodeling of phosphatidylcholine and triacylglycerol (TG) species primarily during the first 24 h after PH, with minimal effects on regeneration. Changes in the quiescent liver lipidome in OPN-KO mice included TG enrichment with linoleic acid and were associated with higher lysosome TG-hydrolase activity that maintained 24 h after PH but increased in WT mice. OPN-KO mice showed increased beta-oxidation 24 h after PH with less body weight loss. In OPN-KO mice, atorvastatin treatment induced changes in the lipidome 24 h after PH and improved liver regeneration while no effect was observed 48 h post-PH. These results suggest that increased dietary-lipid uptake in OPN-KO mice provides the metabolic precursors required for regeneration 24 h and 48 h after PH. However, atorvastatin treatment offers a new metabolic program that improves early regeneration when OPN is deficient.This work was supported by IT-336-10 (Gobierno Vasco) (to PA) and SAF2015-64352-R (to PA), SAF2017-87301-R (to MLM-C) and EITB Maratoia BIO15/CA/014 (to MLM-C). MNG and DM were recipients of a predoctoral fellowship from the University of Basque Country UPV/EHU and BG-S and DS were recipients for predoctoral fellowships from the Basque Goverment. We thank technical support from Jose Antonio Lopez Gomez