Biología pesquera de la pota gigante Dosidicus gigas en aguas exteriores a la Zona Económica Exclusiva de Chile

The jumbo flying squid Dosidicus gigas is widely distributed in the eastern Pacific Ocean and supports an important fishery. Although many studies have been carried out on the biology of this species, limited biological information is available in the waters outside the Exclusive Economic Zone of Chile (EEZ) (20°S-41°S and 74°30’W-84°W). Three surveys were conducted in this area by the Chinese squid jigging vessels during the period from April 2006 to May 2008. The majority of the catch in the survey was from the two areas defined by 37°30’-41°S and 78°30’-80°W and by 25°-30°S and 76°-77°30’W. The sex ratio (M: F) of the catch was 1: 2.48. The mean mantle length (ML) was 376 mm for males with a range of 257-721 mm and 388.7 mm for females with a range of 236-837 mm. Two distinguished size classes, medium- and large-sized groups, were identified in this study with the medium-sized group (350-450 mm ML) consisting of 89% of the total catch. The sizes at first sexual maturity were 638 mm ML for females and 565 mm ML for males. This study suggests that all the individuals examined were hatched from March 2007 to February 2008, indicating that D. gigas might spawn all year around with a peak spawning time from November 2007 to January 2008. Most of the stomachs analyzed had food remains. The preys included three major groups: fish (mainly lanternfish), cephalopods and crustaceans, but D. gigas was the dominant species in the stomach contents, showing strong evidence of cannibalism. The information obtained from this study improves our understanding of the fishery biology of D. gigas off Chile.La pota gigante Dosidicus gigas está ampliamente distribuida en el océano Pacífico oriental y soporta una pesquería importante. Aunque se han realizado muchos estudios sobre la biología de esta especie, la información existente para aguas externas a la Zona Económica Exclusiva (ZEE) de Chile (20ºS-41ºS y 74º30’W-84ºW) es muy limitada. Los barcos poteros chinos realizaron tres campañas en esta área entre abril de 2006 y mayo de 2008. La mayoría de las capturas en esas campañas proceden de dos áreas definidas por las coordenadas 37º31’S-41ºS 78º30’W-80ºW y 25ºS-30ºS 76ºW-77º30’W, respectivamente. La relación sexual (M:H) en las capturas fue de 1:2.48. La longitud media del manto (LM) fue de 376 mm para los machos con un rango que varió entre 257 y 721 mm, y de 388.7 mm para las hembras (236-837 mm). Se diferenciaron dos clases de tamaño: un grupo medio, cuya LM varió entre 350 y 450 mm representando un 89% de la captura total, y un grupo grande. La talla de primera maduración sexual fue de 638 mm para las hembras y de 565 mm para los machos. Este trabajo sugiere que todos los individuos examinados habían nacido entre marzo de 2007 y febrero de 2008, lo cual indica que D. gigas puede frezar durante todo el año, habiendo existido un pico de puesta desde noviembre de 2007 hasta enero de 2008. La mayoría de los estómagos analizados contenían restos. Las presas incluyen tres grandes grupos de organismos: peces (principalmente mictófidos), cefalópodos y crustáceos. Sin embargo, D. gigas fue la presa dominate en los contenidos estomacales, lo cual es una evidencia del fuerte canibalismo existente en esta especie. La información que se deriva de este trabajo mejora nuestro conocimiento sobre la biología de D. gigas frente a Chile

Identificación de las especies: Ommastrephes bartramii, Dosidicus gigas, Sthenoteuthis oualaniensis e Illex argentinus (Ommastrephidae) a través de medidas morfológicas de sus picos

Four oceanic squid species, Ommastrephes bartramii, Dosidicus gigas, Sthenoteuthis oualaniensis and Illex argentinus, not only support important commercial fisheries, but also play a vital role in their marine ecosystems. It is therefore important to identify them in the analyses of their predators’ stomach contents as this can yield critical information on the trophic dynamics of ecosystems. Hard beaks of the four species frequently found in their predators’ stomachs can be used to identify them. In this study, to remove the effect of size differences among individuals, measurements of upper and lower beaks were standardized with an allometric model. A discriminant analysis was carried out to compare morphological differences among the four species and between the sexes for each species. The upper rostral width and upper rostral length showed the greatest interspecific variation in the beak morphological variables of the four Ommastrephidae. The linear discriminant functions of beak morphological variables were developed for the four Ommastraphidae, which resulted in a rate of correct species classification of over 97%. Sexual dimorphism was also found in the beak morphology of O. bartramii and I. argentinus. This study suggests that morphological variables can be used to reliably classify Ommastrephidae at genus level, which can help identify the specie in the stomachs of cephalopod predators. This helps to improve the understanding of the role cephalopods play in their marine ecosystems.Las cuatro especies de calamares: Ommastrephes bartramii, Dosidicus gigas, Sthenoteuthis oualaniensis e Illex argentinus, sometidas a una importante presión pesquera, juegan un papel significativo dentro de los ecosistemas marinos a los que pertenecen. Al ser los picos de estas especies resistentes, las medidas de diversos aspectos de su morfología pueden servir para identificarlas en análisis de contenidos estomacales de sus depredadores. Ello permite obtener una información crucial sobre la dinámica trófica de los ecosistemas. En el presente estudio, las medidas realizadas en los picos superior e inferior de los Ommastrephidae se han normalizado mediante un modelo de crecimiento alométrico, para evitar la influencia del efecto tamaño de los individuos. A continuación, mediante un análisis discriminante, se han estudiado las diferencias morfológicas entre las cuatro especies, así como entre machos y hembras. Las medidas que presentaban mayores variaciones eran la anchura y longitud del rostro superior. Mediante funciones discriminantes lineales de las medidas morfológicas normalizadas de sus picos, se han conseguido clasificar las cuatro especies de Ommastraphidae, con una fiabilidad superior al 97%. Asimismo, a través de sus medidas morfológicas, se ha encontrado un claro dimorfismo sexual en los picos de O. bartramii e I. argentinus. El presente estudio sugiere que las medidas morfológicas pueden ser útiles para clasificar correctamente los Ommastrephidae a nivel de género, y puede permitir identificar la especie en contenidos estomacales de depredadores de cefalópodos, lo cual mejorará el conocimiento del papel de los cefalópodos en los ecosistemas marinos en los que se integran

Knowledge-refined Denoising Network for Robust Recommendation

Knowledge graph (KG), which contains rich side information, becomes an essential part to boost the recommendation performance and improve its explainability. However, existing knowledge-aware recommendation methods directly perform information propagation on KG and user-item bipartite graph, ignoring the impacts of \textit{task-irrelevant knowledge propagation} and \textit{vulnerability to interaction noise}, which limits their performance. To solve these issues, we propose a robust knowledge-aware recommendation framework, called \textit{Knowledge-refined Denoising Network} (KRDN), to prune the task-irrelevant knowledge associations and noisy implicit feedback simultaneously. KRDN consists of an adaptive knowledge refining strategy and a contrastive denoising mechanism, which are able to automatically distill high-quality KG triplets for aggregation and prune noisy implicit feedback respectively. Besides, we also design the self-adapted loss function and the gradient estimator for model optimization. The experimental results on three benchmark datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of KRDN over the state-of-the-art knowledge-aware methods like KGIN, MCCLK, and KGCL, and also outperform robust recommendation models like SGL and SimGCL

Sini San inhibits breast cancer cell migration and angiogenesis via the HIF 1 /VEGF pathway

Purpose: To investigate the effects of Sini San (SNS) on breast cancer (BC), and the mechanism of action.Methods: MDA-MB-231 and SK-BR-3 cells were used as breast cancer cell models. Cell viability, migration, and invasion were determined by CCK-8, Transwell and wound healing assays, respectively. SNS mechanism of action and its anti-cancer effect were investigated by network pharmacological analysis, and further verified by Immunoblot.Results: Sini San inhibited the proliferation of the breast cancer (BC) cells., and also suppressed the migration as well as the invasion of BC cells, and also restrained the angiogenesis of BC cells. In performing the network pharmacological analysis of Sini Powder in the treatment of BC, 337 drugdisease targets were obtained. PPI network was established through String, and GO and KEGG enrichment analysis was performed on the target sites. KEGG analysis showed that genes were enriched in HIF-1 and VEGF pathways.Conclusion: Sini San suppressed cell migration as well as angiogenesis via the HIF-1 /VEGF pathway&nbsp

Combined Treatment with MEK and mTOR Inhibitors is Effective in In Vitro and In Vivo Models of Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary liver cancer histotype, characterized by high biological aggressiveness and scarce treatment options. Recently, we have established a clinically relevant murine HCC model by co-expressing activated forms of v-akt murine thymoma viral oncogene homolog (AKT) and oncogene c-mesenchymal-epithelial transition (c-Met) proto-oncogenes in the mouse liver via hydrodynamic tail vein injection (AKT/c-MET mice). Tumor cells from these mice demonstrated high activity of the AKT/ mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and Ras/ Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling cascades, two pathways frequently co-induced in human HCC. Methods: Here, we investigated the therapeutic efficacy of sorafenib, regorafenib, the MEK inhibitor PD901 as well as the pan-mTOR inhibitor MLN0128 in the AKT/c-Met preclinical HCC model. Results: In these mice, neither sorafenib nor regorafenib demonstrated any efficacy. In contrast, administration of PD901 inhibited cell cycle progression of HCC cells in vitro. Combined PD901 and MLN0128 administration resulted in a pronounced growth constraint of HCC cell lines. In vivo, treatment with PD901 or MLN0128 alone moderately slowed HCC growth in AKT/c-MET mice. Importantly, the simultaneous administration of the two drugs led to a stable disease with limited tumor progression in mice. Mechanistically, combined mitogen-activated extracellular signal-regulated kinase (MEK) and mTOR inhibition resulted in a stronger cell cycle inhibition and growth arrest both in vitro and in vivo. Conclusions: Our study indicates that combination of MEK and mTOR inhibitors might represent an effective therapeutic approach against human HCC

Liao ning virus in China

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Liao ning virus is in the genus Seadornavirus within the family Reoviridae and has a genome composed of 12 segments of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). It is transmitted by mosquitoes and only isolated in China to date and it is the only species within the genus Seadornavirus which was reported to have been propagated in mammalian cell lines. In the study, we report 41 new isolates from northern and southern Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in China and describe the phylogenetic relationships among all 46 Chinese LNV isolates.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>The phylogenetic analysis indicated that all the isolates evaluated in this study can be divided into 3 different groups that appear to be related to geographic origin based on partial nucleotide sequence of the 10th segment which is predicted to encode outer coat proteins of LNV. Bayesian coalescent analysis estimated the date of the most recent common ancestor for the current Chinese LNV isolates to be 318 (with a 95% confidence interval of 30-719) and the estimated evolutionary rates is 1.993 × 10^-3substitutions per site per year.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results indicated that LNV may be an emerging virus at a stage that evaluated rapidly and has been widely distributed in the north part of China.</p

Liao ning virus in China

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Liao ning virus is in the genus Seadornavirus within the family Reoviridae and has a genome composed of 12 segments of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). It is transmitted by mosquitoes and only isolated in China to date and it is the only species within the genus Seadornavirus which was reported to have been propagated in mammalian cell lines. In the study, we report 41 new isolates from northern and southern Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in China and describe the phylogenetic relationships among all 46 Chinese LNV isolates.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>The phylogenetic analysis indicated that all the isolates evaluated in this study can be divided into 3 different groups that appear to be related to geographic origin based on partial nucleotide sequence of the 10th segment which is predicted to encode outer coat proteins of LNV. Bayesian coalescent analysis estimated the date of the most recent common ancestor for the current Chinese LNV isolates to be 318 (with a 95% confidence interval of 30-719) and the estimated evolutionary rates is 1.993 × 10^-3substitutions per site per year.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results indicated that LNV may be an emerging virus at a stage that evaluated rapidly and has been widely distributed in the north part of China.</p

Fishery biology of the jumbo flying squid <i>Dosidicus gigas</i> off the Exclusive Economic Zone of Chilean waters

The jumbo flying squid Dosidicus gigas is widely distributed in the eastern Pacific Ocean and supports an important fishery. Although many studies have been carried out on the biology of this species, limited biological information is available in the waters outside the Exclusive Economic Zone of Chile (EEZ) (20°S-41°S and 74°30’W-84°W). Three surveys were conducted in this area by the Chinese squid jigging vessels during the period from April 2006 to May 2008. The majority of the catch in the survey was from the two areas defined by 37°30’-41°S and 78°30’-80°W and by 25°-30°S and 76°-77°30’W. The sex ratio (M: F) of the catch was 1: 2.48. The mean mantle length (ML) was 376 mm for males with a range of 257-721 mm and 388.7 mm for females with a range of 236-837 mm. Two distinguished size classes, medium- and large-sized groups, were identified in this study with the medium-sized group (350-450 mm ML) consisting of 89% of the total catch. The sizes at first sexual maturity were 638 mm ML for females and 565 mm ML for males. This study suggests that all the individuals examined were hatched from March 2007 to February 2008, indicating that D. gigas might spawn all year around with a peak spawning time from November 2007 to January 2008. Most of the stomachs analyzed had food remains. The preys included three major groups: fish (mainly lanternfish), cephalopods and crustaceans, but D. gigas was the dominant species in the stomach contents, showing strong evidence of cannibalism. The information obtained from this study improves our understanding of the fishery biology of D. gigas off Chile

An analysis of microbiota-targeted therapies in patients with avian influenza virus subtype H7N9 infection

BACKGROUND: Selective prophylactic decontamination of the digestive tract is a strategy for the prevention of secondary nosocomial infection in patients with avian influenza virus subtype H7N9 infection. Our aim was to summarize the effectiveness of these therapies in re-establishing a stable and diverse microbial community, and reducing secondary infections. METHODS: Comprehensive therapies were dependent on the individual clinical situation of subjects, and were divided into antiviral treatment, microbiota-targeted therapies, including pro- or pre-biotics and antibiotic usage, and immunotherapy. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) were used for real-time monitoring of the predominant intestinal microbiome during treatment. Clinical information about secondary infection was confirmed by analyzing pathogens isolated from clinical specimens. RESULTS: Different antibiotics had similar effects on the gut microbiome, with a marked decrease and slow recovery of the Bifidobacterium population. Interestingly, most fecal microbial DGGE profiles showed the relative stability of communities under the continual suppression of the same antibiotics, and significant changes when new antibiotics were introduced. Moreover, we found no marked increase in C-reactive protein, and no cases of bacteremia or pneumonia, caused by probiotic use in the patients, which confirmed that the probiotics used in this study were safe for use in patients with H7N9 infection. Approximately 72% of those who subsequently suffered exogenous respiratory infection by Candida species or multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii and Klebsiella pneumoniae were older than 60 years. The combination of probiotics and prebiotics with antibiotics seemed to fail in these patients. CONCLUSIONS: Elderly patients infected with the influenza A (H7N9) virus are considered a high-risk group for developing secondary bacterial infection. Microbiota restoration treatment reduced the incidence of enterogenous secondary infection, but not exogenous respiratory infection. The prophylactic effects of microbiota restoration strategies for secondary infection were unsatisfactory in elderly and critically ill patients