Amperometric biosensor for oxalate determination in urine using sequential injection analysis

Producción CientíficaAn amperometric flow biosensor for oxalate determination in urine samples after enzymatic reaction with oxalate oxidase immobilized on a modified magnetic solid is described. The solid was magnetically retained on the electrode surface of an electrode modified with Fe (III)-tris-(2-thiopyridone) borate placed into a sequential injection system preceding the amperometric detector. The variables involved in the system such as flow rate, aspired volumes (modified magnetic suspension and sample) and reaction coil length were evaluated using a Taguchi parameter design. Under optimal conditions, the calibration curve of oxalate was linear between 3.0–50.0 mg·L−1, with a limit of detection of 1.0 mg·L−1. The repeatability for a 30.0 mg·L−1 oxalate solution was 0.7%. The method was validated by comparing the obtained results to those provided by the spectrophotometric method; no significant differences were observed.CONACyT (Project 178607)Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MCINN AN2010-00234)Junta de Castilla y León (Project VA023A10-2

Estimación de la edad cronológica en función de la mineralización del tercer molar inferior en población andina

Objective: To determine the level of mineralization of the third lower molar according to chronological age using the Demirjian method in panoramic digital radiographies of Andean patients. Material and methods: A correlational study was carried out analyzing 706 digital panoramic radiographies in the Unidad Académica de Salud y Bienestar de la Universidad Católica de Cuenca Ecuador, in the period 2015-2016. The patients were between 6 and 22 years of age. A total of 1412 third molars (4.8 and 3.8) were evaluated. Results: A first descriptive analysis showed a strong correlation (Rho=0.99) between chronological age and the level or degree of mineralization of the lower third molar. In both studied pieces the beginning of the formation of the third molar was given in average at 8,13 years and finished at 20,41 years. The stages that showed greater coincidence in both sexes and in both pieces were B, C, F, G and H and the stages with less coincidence were the stages A, D, E. Conclusions: According to the results we can suggest that the Demirjian method is a useful tool to determine the chronological age based on the mineralization of the third molars, with an error of +/- 1.2 months so it is possible to be used for the estimation of the age in forensic evaluations.Objetivo: Determinar el nivel de mineralización del tercer molar inferior de acuerdo a la edad cronológica mediante el método Demirjian en radiografías panorámicas digitales de pacientes andinos. Material y métodos: Se realizó un estudio correlacional analizando 706 radiografías panorámicas digitales en la Unidad Académica de Salud y Bienestar de la Universidad Católica de Cuenca Ecuador, en el período2015-2016. Los pacientes tuvieron entre 6 y 22 años de edad. Se Evaluó un total de 1412 terceros molares (4.8 y 3.8). Resultados: Un primer análisis descriptivo mostró una correlación fuerte (Rho= 0,99) entre la edad cronológica y el nivel o grado de mineralización del tercer molar inferior. En ambas piezas estudiadas el inicio de la formación del tercer molar se dio en promedio a los 8,13 años y finalizaba a los 20,41 años. Los estadios que mostraron mayor coincidencia en ambos sexos y en ambas piezas fueron B, C, F, G y H y los estadios con menor coincidencia fueron los estadios A, D, E. Conclusiones: De acuerdo a los resultados podemos sugerir que el método Demirjian, es una herramienta útil para determinar la edad cronológica en base a la mineralización de los terceros molares, con un error de +/- 1.2 meses por lo que es posible ser usado para la estimación de la edad en evaluaciones forenses

Cross-sectional and prospective associations of sleep, sedentary and active behaviors with mental health in older people: a compositional data analysis from the Seniors-ENRICA-2 study

Abstract Background Most studies on the effects of sleep, sedentary behavior (SB), and physical activity (PA) on mental health did not account for the intrinsically compositional nature of the time spent in several behaviors. Thus, we examined the cross-sectional and prospective associations of device-measured compositional time in sleep, SB, light PA (LPA) and moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) with depression symptoms, loneliness, happiness, and global mental health in older people (≥ 65 years). Methods Data were taken from the Seniors-ENRICA-2 study, with assessments in 2015–2017 (wave 0) and 2018–2019 (wave 1). Time spent in sleep, SB, LPA and MVPA was assessed by wrist-worn accelerometers. Depression symptoms, loneliness, happiness, and global mental health were self-reported using validated questionnaires. Analyses were performed using a compositional data analysis (CoDA) paradigm and adjusted for potential confounders. Results In cross-sectional analyses at wave 0 (n = 2489), time-use composition as a whole was associated with depression and happiness (all p < 0.01). The time spent in MVPA relative to other behaviors was beneficially associated with depression (γ = -0.397, p < 0.001), loneliness (γ = -0.124, p = 0.017) and happiness (γ = 0.243, p < 0.001). Hypothetically, replacing 30-min of Sleep, SB or LPA with MVPA was beneficially cross-sectionally related with depression (effect size [ES] ranged -0.326 to -0.246), loneliness (ES ranged -0.118 to -0.073), and happiness (ES ranged 0.152 to 0.172). In prospective analyses (n = 1679), MVPA relative to other behaviors at baseline, was associated with favorable changes in global mental health (γ = 0.892, p = 0.049). We observed a beneficial prospective effect on global mental health when 30-min of sleep (ES = 0.521), SB (ES = 0.479) or LPA (ES = 0.755) were theoretically replaced for MVPA. Conclusions MVPA was cross-sectionally related with reduced depression symptoms and loneliness and elevated level of happiness, and prospectively related with enhanced global mental health. Compositional isotemporal analyses showed that hypothetically replacing sleep, SB or LPA with MVPA could result in modest but significantly improvements on mental health indicators. Our findings add evidence to the emerging body of research on 24-h time-use and health using CoDA and suggest an integrated role of daily behaviors on mental health in older people

Microbial community in resistant and susceptible Churra sheep infected by Teladorsagia circumcincta

[EN]Gastrointestinal nematodes (GIN) are a major threat to health and welfare in small ruminants worldwide. Teladorsagia circumcincta is a nematode that inhabits the abomasum of sheep, especially in temperate regions, causing important economic losses. Given that T. circumcincta and microbiome share the same niche, interactions between them and the host are expected. Although it is known that within a sheep breed there are animals that are more resistant than others to infection by GIN, it is not known if the microbiome influences the phenotype of these animals. Under this condition, 12 sheep were classified according to their cumulative faecal egg count (cFEC) at the end of a first experimental infection, 6 as resistant group (RG) and 6 as susceptible group (SG) to T. circumcincta infection. Then, all sheep were experimentally infected with 70,000 L3 of T. circumcincta and at day 7 days post-infection were euthanized. At necropsy, gastric mucosa and gastric content from abomasum were collected to extract bacterial DNA and sequence V3-V4 region from 16S rRNA gene using Ilumina technology. After bioanalysis performed, results showed that α-diversity and β-diversity remained similar in both groups. However, resistant phenotype sheep showed a higher number of bacteria butyrate-fermenting species as Clostridium sensu stricto 1 (abundance in RG: 1.29% and in SG: 0.069%; p = 0.05), and Turicibacter (abundance in RG: 0.31% and in SG: 0.027%; p = 0.07) in gastric content but also Serratia spp in gastric mucosa (abundance in RG: 0.12% and in SG: 0.041%; p = 0.07). A trend towards a significant negative correlation between cFEC and Clostridium sensu stricto 1 abundance in gastric content was detected (r = − 0.537; p = 0.08). These data suggest that microbiome composition could be another factor associated with the development of the resistant phenotype modifying the interaction with the host and the in last instance affecting the individual risk of infection.S

Modelo hidrogeológico conceptual del Salar del Pipanaco, provincias de Catamarca y La Rioja, Argentina

La cuenca endorreica del Salar de Pipanaco, situada entre las provincias de La Rioja y Catamarca, se encuentra en un valle tectónico caracterizado por presentar bloques elevados diferencialmente del basamento rocoso cristalino, que generan fosas que fueron rellenadas con importantes secuencias sedimentarias detríticas. Este relleno conforma el principal reservorio de aguas subterráneas, donde quedan involucradas sedimentitas cenozoicas y sedimentos modernos. La irregular distribución de las precipitaciones en la región, da lugar a una recarga concentrada en los bordes de la depresión intermontana; mientras que en el interior de la depresión, éstas no producirían tal efecto. En función de las características hidrodinámicas existentes, estas aguas de origen meteórico se mezclan en el interior de la depresión con: (1) aguas residentes en las sedimentitas neógenos, (2) aquellas pertenecientes al sistema termal (aguas dulces de circulación profunda), y (3) el agua de recarga proveniente del río Colorado o Salado. Las salidas naturales del sistema se producen por la intensa tasa de evaporación/evapotranspiración, originada en la zona de playa salina y en aquellos sectores donde existe presencia de vegetación freatófitas. Las salidas artificiales se originan en el intensivo bombeo de los numerosos pozos existentes en la cuenca. Existe un margen de incertidumbre en los balances hídricos, producto de la insuficiente información hidrometeorológica, de aspectos geomorfológicos y estructurales poco conocidos.The Salar de Pipanaco endorheic basin, located between the La Rioja and Catamarca provinces, is hosted in a tectonic valley constituted by high crystalline bedrock blocks which generate depressions filled with important clastic sedimentary sequences. These sequences represent the main groundwater reservoir, and it involves Cenozoic and modern sedimentary deposits. The rainfall distribution is irregular, and the mountain ranges have the highest annual records. This situation produces that the recharge to be concentrated at the depression edges. Depending on the hydrodynamic characteristics, these meteoric waters are mixing with (1) the resident groundwaters hosted into the Neogene sediments, (2) those ones associated with the thermal system (freshwaters of deep circulation), (3) the surficial recharge into the depression from the Salado or Colorado river. The natural discharges of this system are produced by the intense evaporation/evapotranspiration in the saline playa, and those areas tightly related by the presence of phreatophytic vegetation, besides the intensive groundwater pumping in the numerous boreholes distributed in the whole basin. There is a margin of uncertainty in the water balance as a result of the scarce hydrometeorological data, and not well known geomorphological and geological structural features of the basin.Publicado en: García, R. y Mariño, E. (Eds): Calidad del Agua Subterránea: Actas IX Congreso Argentino de Hidrogeología y VII Seminario Hispano-Latinoamericano Sobre Temas Actuales de la Hidrología Subterránea. Editorial Científica Universitaria UNCA. ISBN 978-987-661-222-

Functional Heterogeneity of Mouse and Human Brain OPCs: Relevance for Preclinical Studies in Multiple Sclerosis.

Besides giving rise to oligodendrocytes (the only myelin-forming cell in the Central Nervous System (CNS) in physiological conditions), Oligodendrocyte Precursor Cells (OPCs) are responsible for spontaneous remyelination after a demyelinating lesion. They are present along the mouse and human CNS, both during development and in adulthood, yet how OPC physiological behavior is modified throughout life is not fully understood. The activity of adult human OPCs is still particularly unexplored. Significantly, most of the molecules involved in OPC-mediated remyelination are also involved in their development, a phenomenon that may be clinically relevant. In the present article, we have compared the intrinsic properties of OPCs isolated from the cerebral cortex of neonatal, postnatal and adult mice, as well as those recovered from neurosurgical adult human cerebral cortex tissue. By analyzing intact OPCs for the first time with 1H High Resolution Magic Angle Spinning Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (1H HR-MAS NMR) spectroscopy, we show that these cells behave distinctly and that they have different metabolic patterns in function for their stage of maturity. Moreover, their response to Fibroblast Growth Gactor-2 (FGF-2) and anosmin-1 (two molecules that have known effects on OPC biology during development and that are overexpressed in individuals with Multiple Sclerosis (MS)) differs in relation to their developmental stage and in the function of the species. Our data reveal that the behavior of adult human and mouse OPCs differs in a very dynamic way that should be very relevant when testing drugs and for the proper design of effective pharmacological and/or cell therapies for MS.post-print753 K

Finding new molecular targets of two copper(II)-hydrazone complexes on triple-negative breast cancer cells using mass-spectrometry-based quantitative proteomics

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, with a high incidence estimated to reach 2.3 million by 2030. Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) is the greatest invasive class of breast cancer with a poor prognosis, due to the side-effects exerted by the chemotherapy used and the low effectivity of novel treatments. In this sense, copper compounds have shown to be potentially effective as antitumor agents, attracting increasing interest as alternatives to the usually employed platinum-derived drugs. Therefore, the aim of this work is to identify differentially expressed proteins in MDA-MB-231 cells exposed to two copper(II)-hydrazone complexes using label-free quantitative proteomics and functional bioinformatics strategies to identify the molecular mechanisms through which these copper complexes exert their antitumoral effect in TNBC cells. Both copper complexes increased proteins involved in endoplasmic reticulum stress and unfolded protein response, as well as the downregulation of proteins related to DNA replication and repair. One of the most relevant anticancer mechanisms of action found for CuHL1 and CuHL2 was the down-regulation of gain-offunction- mutant p53. Moreover, we found a novel and interesting effect for a copper metallodrug, which was the down-regulation of proteins related to lipid synthesis and metabolism that could lead to a beneficial decrease in lipid levels.Centro de Química InorgánicaInstituto de Física La Plat

GARP promotes the proliferation and therapeutic resistance of bone sarcoma cancer cells through the activation of TGF-β

Sarcomas are mesenchymal cancers with poor prognosis, representing about 20% of all solid malignancies in children, adolescents, and young adults. Radio- and chemoresistance are common features of sarcomas warranting the search for novel prognostic and predictive markers. GARP/LRRC32 is a TGF-β-activating protein that promotes immune escape and dissemination in various cancers. However, if GARP affects the tumorigenicity and treatment resistance of sarcomas is not known. We show that GARP is expressed by human osteo-, chondro-, and undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcomas and is associated with a significantly worse clinical prognosis. Silencing of GARP in bone sarcoma cell lines blocked their proliferation and induced apoptosis. In contrast, overexpression of GARP promoted their growth in vitro and in vivo and increased their resistance to DNA damage and cell death induced by etoposide, doxorubicin, and irradiation. Our data suggest that GARP could serve as a marker with therapeutic, prognostic, and predictive value in sarcoma. We propose that targeting GARP in bone sarcomas could reduce tumour burden while simultaneously improving the efficacy of chemo- and radiotherapy.Instituto de Salud Carlos IIIEuropean Union (EU) PI15/00794 PI18/00826 CPII15/00032 PI15/02015Junta de Andalucía C-0013-2018Spanish Government PEJ-2014-A-46314Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) [MICINN/Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER)] SAF-2016-75286-RISCIII/FEDER [Miguel Servet Program] CPII16/00049ISCIII/FEDER [Sara Borrell Program] CD16/00103Servicio de Salud del Principado de Asturias, Instituto de Salud Carlos III PT17/0015/0023Fundación Bancaria Cajastur PT17/0015/0023ISCIII/FEDER [Consorcio CIBERONC] CB16/12/0039