Delivering of Proteins to the Plant Vacuole-An Update

Trafficking of soluble cargo to the vacuole is far from being a closed issue as it can occur by different routes and involve different intermediates. The textbook view of proteins being sorted at the post-Golgi level to the lytic vacuole via the pre-vacuole or to the protein storage vacuole mediated by dense vesicles is now challenged as novel routes are being disclosed and vacuoles with intermediate characteristics described. The identification of Vacuolar Sorting Determinants is a key signature to understand protein trafficking to the vacuole. Despite the long established vacuolar signals, some others have been described in the last few years, with different properties that can be specific for some cells or some types of vacuoles. There are also reports of proteins having two different vacuolar signals and their significance is questionable: a way to increase the efficiency of the sorting or different sorting depending on the protein roles in a specific context? Along came the idea of differential vacuolar sorting, suggesting a possible specialization of the trafficking pathways according to the type of cell and specific needs. In this review, we show the recent advances in the field and focus on different aspects of protein trafficking to the vacuoles

Carbon monoxide, autophagy and cytoprotection in response to cerebral ischemia

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Genética Molecular e BiomedicinaThere is an increasing need for promoting neuroprotection against cerebral ischemia, which is the main cause of brain damage in adults. Astrocytes are the most abundant cells inboard the central nervous system (CNS), being known as key glial cell for promoting neuronal survival and homeostasis. It is more established in nowdays that astrocytic dysfunction contributes to neurodegenerative processes. Although, carbon monoxide is a well renown as a lethal and toxic gas due to its high affinity to hemoglobin, CO exerts anti-apoptotic, anti-inflammatory and anti-proliferative functions. Recent studies showed likewise that CO induces autophagy, promoting therefore cytoprotective and anti-inflammatory effects. Autophagy is a major catabolic pathway, known as an autodigestive process that degrades cellular organelles and proteins, playing an important role in cellular homeostasis during environmental stress. Due to the great interest on the signaling and cytoprotective actions of CO, novel strategies have been put forward to exploit the potential therapeutic effects of this gaseous molecule. One of these approaches consist on the development of CO-releasing molecules (CO-RMs), compounds that deliver small quantities of CO to tissues and first identified by the group of Motterlini and co-workers. The aim of this Master thesis was to study the action of CORM-A1, a boron-containing compound that spontaneously releases CO, against cell death in primary culture of astrocytes. In particular, we examined the role of CORM-A1 in autophagy, mitophagy and cell metabolism. Here, we demonstrated that CORM-A1 promotes the induction of autophagy in primary culture of astrocytes. Furthermore,autophagy is directly involved in the cytoprotective effect of CORM-A1 against cell death. In some preliminary experiments we have shown that CORM-A1 also induced mitophagy, while autophagy and inhibition of cell death promoted by CORM-A1 seem to occur under hypoxia (5% of oxygen). This master thesis has addressed several important questions on the role of CO in astrocyte function but also opened to many other important questions on the mechanism of action of CO. For instance, future work must be undertaken in order to explore whether CO-mediated induction of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which play an important role in cell signaling, which are the factors directly involved in mitophagy and the cross-talk between apoptosis and modulation of autophagy.e-COST,(COST Action BM1005

Stopping Criterion for the Mean Shift Iterative Algorithm

Image segmentation is a critical step in computer vision tasks constituting an essential issue for pattern recognition and visual interpretation. In this paper, we propose a new stopping criterion for the mean shift iterative algorithm by using images defined in Zn ring, with the goal of reaching a better segmentation. We carried out also a study on the weak and strong of equivalence classes between two images. An analysis on the convergence with this new stopping criterion is carried out too.Comment: Have 8 pages. Is the first version of the more general pape

A Educação Física no subprojeto interdisciplinar do PIBID – Univates

Este estudo trata-se de um Trabalho de Conclusão do Curso de Licenciatura em Educação Física, que tem por objetivo examinar como se organiza o trabalho interdisciplinar dos bolsistas do subprojeto interdisciplinar de ensino fundamental do PIBID/Univates atuantes na escola parceira Guido Arnold Lermen de Lajeado/RS, identificando os fatores que tornam possível a integração da Educação Física com as demais áreas do conhecimento. É uma pesquisa de cunho qualitativo, descritivo. O estudo deu-se por meio de entrevista semiestruturada, realizada com cinco bolsistas do projeto PIBID participantes do subprojeto interdisciplinar ensino fundamental e atuantes na escola Guido A. Lermen; análise documental, foram analisados os planejamentos dos bolsistas e observação participante, o pesquisador acompanhou a aplicação dos planejamentos. Para analisar os dados obtidos utilizou-se a metodologia da Análise de Conteúdo. Os dados evidenciaram que os saberes da Educação Física se fizeram presentes em praticamente todas as atividades pedagógicas desenvolvidas na escola pelos bolsistas, demostrando que esta área do conhecimento também é importante no subprojeto interdisciplinar do PIBID. No que diz respeito à organização do trabalho interdisciplinar, que também faz parte do problema desta pesquisa, os dados revelam que o diálogo entre os bolsistas e o planejamento com o grupo são fatores essenciais para o sucesso do trabalho interdisciplinar. Por fim, é possível afirmar que a aprendizagem se torna mais significativa aos alunos quando a prática pedagógica é interdisciplinar.This study is an End-of-course paper of a Degree in Physical Education (PE). It aims to examine how the fellows’ interdisciplinary work is organized in the elementary school interdisciplinary subproject of PIBID/Univates at the school Guido Arnoldo Lermen in Lajeado/RS by identifying the factors that make possible the integration of PE with the other fields of knowledge. This paper is a qualitative and descriptive research. The study was held by means of a semi-structured interview performed with five fellows from PIBID who are participants in the elementary school interdisciplinary subproject and work at the school Guido A. Lermen; the fellows’ planning and participant observation were analyzed and the researcher monitored the planning application. To analyze the obtained data the researcher used the methodology of Content Analysis. Data evidenced that PE knowledge was present in practically all pedagogic activities developed at school by the fellows. This demonstrated that this knowledge area is also important in interdisciplinary subproject of PIBID. Concerning to the interdisciplinary work organization, which is also a part of the problem of this research, data revealed that the dialogue among fellows and group planning are essential factors to achieve success in the interdisciplinary work. Therefore, it is possible to affirm that learning is more significant to students when the pedagogic practice is interdisciplinary

Refactoring de diagramas de clases UML

Se denomina refactoring al proceso de reestructurar software orientado a objetos aplicando una secuencia de transformaciones que preservan la funcionalidad del mismo a fin de mejorar alguna métrica. Es una actividad esencial para controlar la evolución del software facilitando futuras adaptaciones y extensiones. Cobró importancia en procesos de desarrollo como XP (eXtreme Programming) que requiere de la reestructuración de modelos y código existentes a partir de pasos pequeños y sistemáticos (Beck, 2000). También es fundamental en el contexto de técnicas de ingeniería reversa de sistemas legacy. Algunas herramientas CASE UML proveen facilidades, si bien limitadas, para el refactoring sobre código, es decir ligado a la sintaxis de un lenguaje de programación en particular. Actualmente OMG (Object Management Group) promueve desarrollos de software basados en UML (OMG, 2004) a partir de una arquitectura Model Driven (MDA, 2004). MDA define un framework para modelar que separa la especificación de la funcionalidad del sistema de su implementación sobre una plataforma en una tecnología específica. La idea clave es la automatización de transformaciones de modelo-a-modelo. En este contexto se vuelven esenciales las técnicas de refactoring para mejorar los modelos de los distintos niveles de abstracción de un diseño. En esta investigación se propone el refactoring de diagramas de clases UML enriquecidos con expresiones OCL (Warmer y Kepple, 2003) a partir de un sistema transformacional basado en reglas y estrategias. El objetivo de este sistema transformacional es proveer asistencia para los refactorings de modelo-a-modelo mediante la aplicación de reglas de transformación que preservan la funcionalidad del modelo original. Las transiciones entre versiones se realizan de acuerdo a reglas precisas basadas en la redistribución de clases, atributos, operaciones y asociaciones del diagrama. Durante el proceso de transformación, se necesitan estrategias para guiar la aplicación de las reglas de transformación que permiten construir un nuevo diagrama UML. Se describen en la sección 2 los trabajos relacionados. La sección 3 presenta el sistema de transformación y un conjunto de reglas y estrategias para reestructurar clases y asociaciones. Finalmente la sección 4 concluye y discute futuros trabajos