Voltammetric Behaviour of Cu-NTA and Pb-NTA on a Mercury Iridiun Microelectrode Coated with Agarose

The complexation of nitriloacetic acid (NTA) with copper and lead was studied by square wave stripping voltammetry (SWSV) using a mercury iridium microelectrode as the working electrode. The results show that NTA interfere with the measurements, but if the mercury iridium microelectrode is coated with different concentrations of agarose (0.75%, 1.5% and 15% w/v) this interference is greatly minimized. The best results were obtained with 1.5% agarose.This work is within the context of Research Project F.C.T.-Sapiens/POCTI 32616/Qui/2000

PARECER SOBRE A INTERPRETAÇÃO DO ARTIGO 942.º, N.º 4, DO CÓDIGO DE PROCESSO CIVIL: (Cabe recurso de revista da decisão sobre a existência da obrigação de prestar contas?)

Summary Introductory. Method Issues1. Brief history of the precept2. Interpretation of Article 942(4): the relevance of setting the rise mode and the effect of the appeal3. The application of the general rules on the admissibility of appeals against decisions at first instance4. The admissibility of a review appeal in the special reporting procedureCONCLUSIONS   DOI:  https://doi.org/10.46294/ulplr-rdulp.v14i1.7477Sumário   Introito. Questões de Método Breve história do preceito 2. Interpretação do n.º 4 do artigo 942.º: a relevância da fixação do modo de subida e do efeito do recurso A aplicação das regras gerais de admissibilidade do recurso à apelação interposta da decisão de 1.ª instância A admissibilidade de recurso de revista no processo especial de prestação de contas CONCLUSÕES   DOI:  https://doi.org/10.46294/ulplr-rdulp.v14i1.747

Timely and effectively profile bacteria in cystic fibrosis lungs

Bacterial lung infections are typical of cystic fibrosis (CF) disease due to accumulation of airway mucus. Despite the use of aggressive antibiotic therapy, the mortality rate of CF patients is still high. Unsuccessful bacterial eradication is often due to several evolutional strategies adopted by bacteria to achieve anaerobic or microaerophilic adaptation and antibiotic resistance, such as biofilm formation and phenotypic switching. By triggering these strategies, bacteria have the potential to better survive to airway stressful conditions, without the fitness costs of irreversible mutations. Indeed, phenotypic switching provides a source of microbial diversity through interchange between phenotypic states, analogue to a mechanism ON/OFF. This interchange of states, often visible in terms of colony morphology, can have serious impact on bacterial virulence, antimicrobial resistance and persistence1. However, the specific correlation between some colony traits and the biological impact is unknown. This study was designed to inspect P. aeruginosa and S. aureus colony phenotypic alterations, particularly morphology changes, by visual inspection, and protein profiles by MALDI MS, and correlate them with some virulence determinants expression and antibiotic susceptibility profiles. The visual identification of colony morphologies was supported by a novel, in-house developed identification system, ColMIS2. MALDI MS profiling grouped colony morphotypes differently from conventional morphological classification and antibiotic susceptibility. However, MALDI MS colony differentiation seems to match with changes in some virulence factors expressed by the different bacterial morphotypes, such as the increase of flagella, swarmer cell differentiation, ability to form biofilm and toxin production. Despite exhibiting distinct colony morphologies, the variants grouped by MALDI shared a common morphological feature, the heterogeneity of colony surface (more than one type of texture). Therefore, these data seems to indicate that MALDI MS clustered colony variants according their virulence that can be inspected by just the heterogeneous surface of the colonies, than the whole morphology. However, this association have to be deeper studied, since other colonies with heterogeneous surfaces were differentially clustered by MALDI MS and, despite decreased virulence, exhibited high resistance to in-use antibiotics. These results highlighted the potential and the need of using a combination of proteomic high-throughput screening of pathogenic bacteria with culturing and physiologic methods to reach a comprehensive understanding of the virulence and antibiotic resistance. Efforts are already underway to develop a new tool based on combinatorial methodologies to help clinical diagnosis and medical decision support, as well the design of new therapeutic strategies. Acknowledgments: The financial support from IBB-CEB and FCT and European Community fund FEDER, through Program COMPETE (FCT PTDC/SAU-SAP/113196/2009/ FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-016012) and Ana Margarida Sousa PhD Grant (SFRH/BD/72551/2010) are gratefully acknowledged

The role of climate and topography in shaping the diversity of plant communities in Cabo Verde Islands

ReviewThe flora and vegetation of the archipelago of Cabo Verde is dominated by Macaronesian, Mediterranean, and particularly by African tropical elements, resulting from its southernmost location, when compared to the other islands of the Macaronesia (i.e., Azores, Madeira, Selvagens, and Canary Islands). Very likely, such a geographical position entailed higher susceptibility to extreme climatic fluctuations, namely those associated with the West African Monsoon oscillations. These fluctuations led to a continuous aridification, which is a clear trend shown by most recent studies based on continental shelf cores. Promoting important environmental shifts, such climatic fluctuations are accepted as determinant to explain the current spatial distribution patterns of taxa, as well as the composition of the plant communities. In this paper, we present a comprehensive characterization of the main plant communities in Cabo Verde, and we discuss the role of the climatic and topoclimatic diversity in shaping the vegetation composition and distribution of this archipelago. Our study reveals a strong variation in the diversity of plant communities across elevation gradients and distinct patterns of richness among plant communities. Moreover, we present an overview of the biogeographical relationships of the Cabo Verde flora and vegetation with the other Macaronesian Islands and northwestern Africa. We discuss how the distribution of plant communities and genetic patterns found among most of the endemic lineages can be related to Africa’s ongoing aridification, exploring the impacts of a process that marks northern Africa from the Late Miocene until the presentinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Validation of a Standard Luminescence Method for the Fast Determination of the Antimicrobial Activity of Nanoparticles in Escherichia coli

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.The use of nanoparticles in multiple industries has raised concerned voices about the assessment of their toxicity/antimicrobial activity and the development of standardized handling protocols. Issues emerge during the antimicrobial assaying of multiple cargo, colorimetric, colloidal nanoformulations, as standard protocols often rely on visual evaluations, or optical density (OD) measurements, leading to high variance inhibitory concentrations (MIC). Thus, a fast, luminescence-based assay for the effective assessment of the antimicrobial activity of nanoparticles is herein reported, using the bioluminescence of an in-house E. coli ATCC® 8739™ construct with the pMV306G13 + Lux plasmid (E. coli Lux). The new strain’s sensitivity to ofloxacin as a standard antibiotic was confirmed, and the methodology robustness verified against multiple nanoparticles and colorimetric drugs. The reduction of incubation from 24 to only 8 h, and the sole use of luminescence (LUX490) to accurately determine and distinguish MIC50 and MIC90, are two main advantages of the method. By discarding OD measurements, one can avoid turbidity and color interferences when calculating bacterial growth. This approach is an important tool that contributes to the standardization of methods, reducing samples’ background interference and focusing on luminescence as a direct probe for bacterial metabolic activity, growth and, most importantly, the correct assessment of nanomaterials’ antimicrobial activity.publishersversionpublishe

Vegetação potencial das margens das ribeiras do Algarve

During the summer and fall of 1998, a field survey was conducted in the temtory adjacent to the main waterways of the Algarve region, regarding the flora and vegetation of temestrial systems associated to rivers. These studies where integrated in the Hidrographic Ba.in Plan for Algarve's Rivers, aiming to recognise and establish the main landscape units that form the mosaic of the referred temtory. This communication presents the results of the survey relative to the syccessional stages of Algarve's riparian vegetation, adjacent vegetation and also salt marshes and dunes vegetation. The recognition of the region's potentiai natural vegetation, in order to evaluate the riparian vegetation's conservation state, is obtained through the use of an easy-touse field fom

Synthesis of mesoporous silica coated gold nanorods loaded with methylene blue and its potentials in antibacterial applications

Funding Information: Funding: We thank the financial support by the PROTEOMASS Scientific Society (Portugal) (General Funding Grant 2019–2020), as well as the Associate Laboratory Research Unit for Green Chemistry— Clean Processes and Technologies—LAQV-REQUIMTE financed by national funds from FCT/MEC (UIDB/04077/2020) and co-financed by the ERDF under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER—007265). J.D.; A.F.-L.; C.L.; J.F.-L. and J.L.C.-M. thanks to the FCT-MEC the research grant SiSi4Bacter (PTDC/QUI-COL/1517/2020). J.F.-L. thank FCT/MEC (Portugal) the junior researcher contract under DL57 pro-gramme. J.D. thanks the Project PTDC/QEQ-MED/2118/2014 for her researcher contract. A.F.-L. thanks the FCT-MEC Portugal for his doctoral grant associated with the Green Chemistry PhD. Program (SFRH/BD/52528/2014) and the PROTEOMASS Scientific Society Postdoctoral grant during August 2019–March 2021. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.In this work, the successful preparation and characterization of gold nanorods (AuNRs) coated with a mesoporous silica shell (AuNRs@Simes) was achieved. Conjugation with methylene blue (MB) as a model drug using ultrasound-stimulated loading has been explored for further application in light-mediated antibacterial studies. Lyophilization of this conjugated nanosystem was analyzed using trehalose (TRH) as a cryogenic protector. The obtained stable dry formulation shows potent antimicrobial activity against Gram-negative (Escherichia coli) and Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) bacteria after a simple post-treatment irradiation method with a red laser during a short time period.publishersversionpublishe

A new approach to bacterial colony morphotyping by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time of flight-based mass spectrometry

Matrix assisted laser desorption ionization time of flight mass spectrometry has been explored as a tool to bacterial colony morphotyping.To this end,four colony morphotypes of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and four of Staphylococcus aureus were analysed using intact bacteria.Results suggest that mass spectrometry of intact bacteria could,in some extent,be used to complement the classical morphological classification of bacteria.Financial support from IBB-CEB and Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT) and European Community fund FEDER, through Program COMPETE, in the ambit of the FCT project "PTDC/SAU-SAP/113196/2009/ FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-016012" and Ana Margarida Sousa PhD grant (SFRH/BD/72551/2010), is gratefully acknowledged. Authors also thank Portugal-Spain cooperation action sponsored by the Foundation of Portuguese Universities [E 48/11] and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [AIB2010PT-00353]

A One Health Approach Molecular Analysis of Staphylococcus aureus Reveals Distinct Lineages in Isolates from Miranda Donkeys (Equus asinus) and Their Handlers

This article belongs to the Special Issue Antibiotics and Alternative Treatments in Zoonosis Therapy.Donkeys (Equus asinus) are in decline in Europe. Occupational exposure to farm animals has been associated with increased staphylococci carriage. We aimed to isolate S. aureus and coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) from donkeys and handlers and characterize the antimicrobial resistance profiles and genetic lineages of S. aureus strains. Oral and nasal swab samples were collected from 49 Miranda donkeys and 23 handlers from 15 different farms. Staphylococci species were identified by MALDI-TOF MS. The presence of antimicrobial resistance genes and virulence factors was investigated by PCR. Molecular typing was performed in S. aureus isolates. From the 49 donkey samples, 4 S. aureus (8.2%) and 21 CoNS (42.9%) were isolated. Ten handlers (43.5%) were carriers of S. aureus and 4 (17.4%) carried CoNS. The CoNS isolates showed resistance to several classes of antimicrobials encoded by the mecA, aph (3')-IIIa, ant (4')-Ia, tetM, tetK, lnuA, ermB, ermC, dfrA and dfrG genes. S. aureus isolates were resistant to penicillin, aminoglicosides and tetracycline harboring the blaZ, aph (3')-IIIa, tetL, tetM and tetK genes. All S. aureus isolates from donkeys belonged to ST49 and spa-type t208 while the strains isolated from the handlers were ascribed to 3 STs and 7 spa-types. However, human isolates were from different STs than the donkey isolates. Donkeys are mainly colonized by methicillin-resistant S. sciuri. S. aureus transmission between donkeys and their handlers appears not to have occurred since the isolates belonged to different genetic lineages.This work was funded by the R&D Project CAREBIO2: Comparative assessment of antimicrobial resistance in environmental biofilms through proteomics—towards innovative theranostic biomarkers, with reference NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-030101 and PTDC/SAU-INF/30101/2017, financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Northern Regional Operational Program (NORTE 2020) and the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). This work was supported by the Associate Laboratory for Green Chemistry-LAQV, which is financed by national funds from FCT/MCTES (UIDB/50006/2020 and UIDP/50006/2020) and by the projects UIDB/CVT/00772/2020 and LA/P/0059/2020 funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). Vanessa Silva is grateful to FCT (Fundacão para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) for financial support through the PhD grant SFRH/BD/137947/2018.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Tailoring Mesoporous Silica-Coated Silver Nanoparticles and Polyurethane-Doped Films for Enhanced Antimicrobial Applications

This work was supported by the Associate Laboratory for Green Chemistry—LAQV which is financed by national funds from FCT/MCTES (UIDB/50006/2020 and UIDP/50006/2020) as well as the Scientific Society PROTEOMASS (Portugal) for funding support (General Funding Grant). This work was also supported by the Mechanical Engineering and Resource Sustainability Center- MEtRICs which is funded by national funds from FCT/MCTES (https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/04077/2020, (28 February 2024), https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDP/04077/2020 (28 February 2024)). S.N., J.F.-L., A.F.-L., E.O., J.L.C-M. and C.L. thank the FCT-MEC for the research grant SiSi4Bacter (PTDC/QUI-COL/1517/2020). E.O. thanks FCT/MEC (Portugal) for the individual contract, CEECIND/05280/2022. S.N. and J.G. thank the FCT/MCTES (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior) for their doctoral grants associated with the Chemistry PhD program (SFRH/BD/144618/2019) and (2022.09495.BD). A.F.L. thanks the FCT/MCTES (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior) for his research contract through the project PTDC/QUI-COL/1517/2020. J.F-.L. thanks the FC/MEC (Portugal) for the individual research contract DL57/2016 Norma Transitoria. The work was carried out partially through the INL User Facilities (Braga, Portugal). Publisher Copyright: © 2024 by the authors.The global increase in multidrug-resistant bacteria poses a challenge to public health and requires the development of new antibacterial materials. In this study, we examined the bactericidal properties of mesoporous silica-coated silver nanoparticles, varying the core sizes (ca. 28 nm and 51 nm). We also investigated gold nanoparticles (ca. 26 nm) coated with mesoporous silica as possible inert metal cores. To investigate the modification of antimicrobial activity after the surface charge change, we used silver nanoparticles with a silver core of 28 nm coated with a mesoporous shell (ca. 16 nm) and functionalized with a terminal amine group. Furthermore, we developed a facile method to create mesoporous silica-coated silver nanoparticles (Ag@mSiO2) doped films using polyurethane (IROGRAN®) as a polymer matrix via solution casting. The antibacterial effects of silver nanoparticles with different core sizes were analyzed against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria relevant to the healthcare and food industry. The results demonstrated that gold nanoparticles were inert, while silver nanoparticles exhibited antibacterial effects against Gram-negative (Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Choleraesuis) and Gram-positive (Bacillus cereus) strains. In particular, the larger Ag@mSiO2 nanoparticles showed a minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and a minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of 18 µg/mL in the Salmonella strain. Furthermore, upon terminal amine functionalization, reversing the surface charge to positive values, there was a significant increase in the antibacterial activity of the NPs compared to their negative counterparts. Finally, the antimicrobial properties of the nanoparticle-doped polyurethane films revealed a substantial improvement in antibacterial efficacy. This study provides valuable information on the potential of mesoporous silica-coated silver nanoparticles and their applications in fighting multidrug-resistant bacteria, especially in the healthcare and food industries.publishersversionpublishe