Search

Inulin is a natural polysaccharide classified as a soluble fiber with demonstrated prebiotic activity. Prebiotics can reduce intestinal and systemic inflammation through modulation of the gut microflora and their metabolites. Additionally, extensive research is illuminating the role of macrophages in the interaction between gut microbiota and many systemic inflammatory diseases. In this study, the anti-inflammatory properties of inulin were evaluated using a murine macrophage cell model (RAW 264.7) of inflammation, and the immunomodulatory mechanism was investigated using omics technologies. The cells underwent comprehensive transcriptomic and proteomic analyses to identify the mechanisms responsible for the observed anti-inflammatory phenotype. Functional analyses of these omics results revealed two potential mechanisms that may lead to an overall reduction in cytokine and chemokine transcription: the inhibition of the NF-κB signaling pathway, leading to the downregulation of proinflammatory factors such as COX2, and the promotion of the phase II defense protein Hmox1 via the Nrf2 pathway. This study provides promising targets for research on immune modulation by dietary fibers and offers new strategies for the design of functional ingredients, foods, and nutraceutical products, which could ultimately lead to personalized nutrition and improved consumer health.

30 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables.-- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, The microbiota present in the gastrointestinal tract is involved in the development or prevention of food allergies and autoimmune disorders; these bacteria can enter the gallbladder and, depending on the species involved, can either be benign or cause significant diseases. Occlusion of the gallbladder, usually due to the presence of calculi blocking the bile duct, facilitates microbial infection and inflammation, which can be serious enough to require life-saving surgery. In addition, the biliary salts are secreted into the intestine and can affect the gut microbiota. The interaction between the gut microbiota, pathogenic organisms, and the human immune system can create intestinal dysbiosis, generating a variety of syndromes including the development of food allergies and autoimmune disorders. The intestinal microbiota can aggravate certain food allergies, which become severe when the integrity of the intestinal barrier is affected, allowing bacteria, or their metabolites, to cross the intestinal barrier and invade the bloodstream, affecting distal body organs. This article deals with health conditions and severe diseases that are either influenced by the gut flora or caused by gallbladder obstruction and inflammation, as well as putative treatments for those illnesses., A.G.A. thanks the USC for his “Convocatoria de Recualificación do Sistema Universitario Español-Margarita Salas” postdoc grant under the “Plan de Recuperación Transformación” program funded by the Spanish Ministry of Universities with European Union’s NextGeneration EU funds. This work has received financial support from the Xunta de Galicia and the European Union (European Social Fund–ESF), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity Project AGL 2.013-48.244-R and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (2007–2013). The study was also supported by the GAIN-Xunta de Galicia Project (IN607D 2017/01) and the Spanish AEI/EU-FEDER PID2019-103845RB-C21 project. The study was also supported by the Plan Complementario en Ciencias Marinas (PCCM) funded by Ministry of Science and Innovation (Activity 3.6.B. NANOSEAOMICS)

28 pages, 4 tables, 3 figures.-- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, Bioactive peptides are found in foods and dietary supplements and are responsible for health benefits with applications in human and animal medicine. The health benefits include antihypertensive, antimicrobial, antithrombotic, immunomodulatory, opioid, antioxidant, anti-allergic and anti-inflammatory functions. Bioactive peptides can be obtained by microbial action, mainly by the gastrointestinal microbiota from proteins present in food, originating from either vegetable or animal matter or by the action of different gastrointestinal proteases. Proteomics can play an important role in the identification of bioactive peptides. High-resolution mass spectrometry is the principal technique used to detect and identify different types of analytes present in complex mixtures, even when available at low concentrations. Moreover, proteomics may provide the characterization of epitopes to develop new food allergy vaccines and the use of immunomodulating peptides to induce oral tolerance toward offending food allergens or even to prevent allergic sensitization. In addition, food-derived bioactive peptides have been investigated for their anti-inflammatory properties to provide safer alternatives to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). All these bioactive peptides can be a potential source of novel drugs and ingredients in food and pharmaceuticals. The following review is focused on food-derived bioactive peptides with antiallergic and anti-inflammatory properties and summarizes the new insights into the use of proteomics for their identification and quantification., A.G.A. thanks the USC for his “Convocatoria de Recualificación do Sistema Universitario Español-Margarita Salas” postdoc grant under the “Plan de Recuperación Transformación” program funded by the Spanish Ministry of Universities with European Union’s NextGeneration EU funds. This work has received financial support from the Xunta de Galicia and the European Union (European Social Fund–ESF), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity Project AGL 2.013-48.244-R and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (2007–2013). The study was also supported by the GAIN-Xunta de Galicia Project (IN607D 2017/01) and the Spanish AEI/EU-FEDER PID2019-103845RB-C21 project. The study was also supported by the Plan Complementario en Ciencias Marinas (PCCM) funded by Ministry of Science and Innovation (Activity 3.6.B. NANOSEAOMICS)

The present review represents an update on the fundamental role played by the Rho factor, which facilitates the process of Rho-dependent transcription termination in the prokaryotic world; it also provides a summary of relevant mutations in the Rho factor and the insights they provide into the functions carried out by this protein. Furthermore, a section is dedicated to the putative future use of Rho (the ‘taming’ of Rho) to facilitate biotechnological processes and adapt them to different technological contexts. Novel bacterial strains can be designed, containing mutations in the rho gene, that are better suited for different biotechnological applications. This process can obtain novel microbial strains that are adapted to lower temperatures of fermentation, shorter production times, exhibit better nutrient utilization, or display other traits that are beneficial in productive Biotechnology. Additional important issues reviewed here include epistasis, the design of TATA boxes, the role of small RNAs, and the manipulation of clathrin-mediated endocytosis, by some pathogenic bacteria, to invade eukaryotic cells. • It is postulated that controlling the action of the prokaryotic Rho factor could generate major biotechnological improvements, such as an increase in bacterial productivity or a reduction of the microbial-specific growth rate. • The review also evaluates the putative impact of epistatic mechanisms on Biotechnology, both as possible responsible for unexpected failures in gene cloning and more important for the genesis of new strains for biotechnological applications • The use of clathrin-coated vesicles by intracellular bacterial microorganisms is included too and proposed as a putative delivery mechanism, for drugs and vaccines.

31 pages, 2 tables, 5 figures.-- This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, Phages have certain features, such as their ability to form protein–protein interactions, that make them good candidates for use in a variety of beneficial applications, such as in human or animal health, industry, food science, food safety, and agriculture. It is essential to identify and characterize the proteins produced by particular phages in order to use these viruses in a variety of functional processes, such as bacterial detection, as vehicles for drug delivery, in vaccine development, and to combat multidrug resistant bacterial infections. Furthermore, phages can also play a major role in the design of a variety of cheap and stable sensors as well as in diagnostic assays that can either specifically identify specific compounds or detect bacteria. This article reviews recently developed phage-based techniques, such as the use of recombinant tempered phages, phage display and phage amplification-based detection. It also encompasses the application of phages as capture elements, biosensors and bioreceptors, with a special emphasis on novel bacteriophage-based mass spectrometry (MS) applications, A.G.A. thanks the USC for his “Convocatoria de Recualificación do Sistema Universitario Español-Margarita Salas” postdoc grant under the “Plan de Recuperación Transformación” program funded by the Spanish Ministry of Universities with European Union’s NextGeneration EU funds

RNA polymerases (RNAPs) carry out transcription in the three domains of life, Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya. Transcription initiation is highly regulated by a variety of transcription factors, whose number and subunit complexity increase during evolution. This process is regulated in Bacteria by the σ factor, while the three eukaryotic RNAPs require a complex set of transcription factors (TFs) and a TATA-binding protein (TBP). The archaeal transcription system appears to be an ancestral version of the eukaryotic RNAPII, requiring transcription factor B (TFB), TBP, and transcription factor E (TFE). The function of the bacterial sigma (σ) factor has been correlated to the roles played by the eukaryotic RNAP II and the archaeal RNAP. In addition, σ factors, TFB, and TFIIB all contain multiple DNA binding helix-turn-helix (HTH) structural motifs; although TFIIB and TFB display two HTH domains, while the bacterial σ factor spans 4 HTH motifs. The sequence similarities and structure alignments of the bacterial σ factor, eukaryotic TFIIB, and archaeal TFB evidence that these three proteins are homologs.Key Points• Transcription initiation is highly regulated by TFs.• Transcription is finely regulated in all domains of life by different sets of TFs.• Specific TFs in Bacteria, Eukarya and Archaea are homologs.

Rivers and estuaries are the main links between continents and oceans. The Paraíba do Sul River is among the most important rivers of the southeastern Brazilian region, carrying an average of 0.08 Tg of dissolved organic matter (DOM) to the ocean but has been facing significant changes in river discharge. In this study, we aimed to provide insights into the sources and transformations of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) and fluorescent dissolved organic matter (FDOM) sources across a salinity gradient under changing river discharge scenarios. Three spatial surveys were performed covering the entire salinity gradient of the main estuarine channel and surrounding mangrove waters under contrasting river discharge (178 to 1240 m

Food allergies (FA) have dramatically increased in recent years, particularly in developed countries. It is currently well-established that food tolerance requires the strict maintenance of a specific microbial consortium in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract microbiome as alterations in the gut microbiota can lead to dysbiosis, causing inflammation and pathogenic intestinal conditions that result in the development of FA. Although there is currently not enough knowledge to fully understand how the interactions between gut microbiota, host responses and the environment cause food allergies, recent advances in ‘-omics’ technologies (i.e., proteomics, genomics, metabolomics) and in approaches involving systems biology suggest future headways that would finally allow the scientific understanding of the relationship between gut microbiome and FA. This review summarizes the current knowledge in the field of FA and insights into the future advances that will be achieved by applying proteomic techniques to study the GI tract microbiome in the field of FA and their medical treatment. Metaproteomics, a proteomics experimental approach of great interest in the study of GI tract microbiota, aims to analyze and identify all the proteins in complex environmental microbial communities; with shotgun proteomics, which uses liquid chromatography (LC) for separation and tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) for analysis, as it is the most promising technique in this field.

Some Listeria species are important human and animal pathogens that can be found in contaminated food and produce a variety of virulence factors involved in their pathogenicity. Listeria strains exhibiting multidrug resistance are known to be progressively increasing and that is why continuous monitoring is needed. Effective therapy against pathogenic Listeria requires identification of the bacterial strain involved, as well as determining its virulence factors, such as antibiotic resistance and sensitivity. The present study describes the use of liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC–ESI–MS/MS) to do a global shotgun proteomics characterization for pathogenic Listeria species. This method allowed the identification of a total of 2990 non-redundant peptides, representing 2727 proteins. Furthermore, 395 of the peptides correspond to proteins that play a direct role in Listeria pathogenicity; they were identified as virulence factors, toxins and anti-toxins, or associated with either antibiotics (involved in antibiotic-related compounds production or resistance) or resistance to toxic substances. The proteomic repository obtained here can be the base for further research into pathogenic Listeria species and facilitate the development of novel therapeutics for these pathogens.

Classical and culture-based methods for the identification and characterization of the biochemical properties of microorganisms are slow and labor-intensive. Liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS) has been used for the analysis of bacterial pathogen strain-specific diagnostic peptides allowing the characterization of bacterial strains.Here, we describe the analysis of tryptic digestion peptides by LC-ESI-MS/MS to search for specific biomarkers useful for the rapid identification of, on the one hand, the bacterial species and, on the other hand, the physiological and biochemical characteristics such as the expression of virulence factors, including toxins, immune-modulatory factors, and exoenzymes.

Classical and culture-based methods for the identification and characterization of the biochemical properties of microorganisms are slow and labor-intensive. Liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS) has been used for the analysis of bacterial pathogen strain-specific diagnostic peptides allowing the characterization of bacterial strains.Here, we describe the analysis of tryptic digestion peptides by LC-ESI-MS/MS to search for specific biomarkers useful for the rapid identification of, on the one hand, the bacterial species and, on the other hand, the physiological and biochemical characteristics such as the expression of virulence factors, including toxins, immune-modulatory factors, and exoenzymes.

21 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables.-- This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, The present work describes LC-ESI-MS/MS MS (liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry) analyses of tryptic digestion peptides from phages that infect mastitis-causing Staphylococcus aureus isolated from dairy products. A total of 1933 nonredundant peptides belonging to 1282 proteins were identified and analyzed. Among them, 79 staphylococcal peptides from phages were confirmed. These peptides belong to proteins such as phage repressors, structural phage proteins, uncharacterized phage proteins and complement inhibitors. Moreover, eighteen of the phage origin peptides found were specific to S. aureus strains. These diagnostic peptides could be useful for the identification and characterization of S. aureus strains that cause mastitis. Furthermore, a study of bacteriophage phylogeny and the relationship among the identified phage peptides and the bacteria they infect was also performed. The results show the specific peptides that are present in closely related phages and the existing links between bacteriophage phylogeny and the respective Staphylococcus spp. infected, This work received financial support from the Xunta de Galicia and the European Union (European Social Fund-ESF), from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity Project AGL 2.013-48.244-R and from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (2007–2013). This work was also supported by the GAIN-Xunta de Galicia Project (IN607D 2017/01) and the Spanish AEI/EU-FEDER PID2019-103845RB-C21 project. Mónica Carrera was supported by the Ramón y Cajal contract (Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain)

20 pages, 2 tables.-- This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, Some Listeria species are important human and animal pathogens that can be found in contaminated food and produce a variety of virulence factors involved in their pathogenicity. Listeria strains exhibiting multidrug resistance are known to be progressively increasing and that is why continuous monitoring is needed. Effective therapy against pathogenic Listeria requires identification of the bacterial strain involved, as well as determining its virulence factors, such as antibiotic resistance and sensitivity. The present study describes the use of liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC–ESI–MS/MS) to do a global shotgun proteomics characterization for pathogenic Listeria species. This method allowed the identification of a total of 2990 non-redundant peptides, representing 2727 proteins. Furthermore, 395 of the peptides correspond to proteins that play a direct role in Listeria pathogenicity; they were identified as virulence factors, toxins and anti-toxins, or associated with either antibiotics (involved in antibiotic-related compounds production or resistance) or resistance to toxic substances. The proteomic repository obtained here can be the base for further research into pathogenic Listeria species and facilitate the development of novel therapeutics for these pathogens, This work has received financial support from the Xunta de Galicia and the European Union (European Social Fund—ESF), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity Project AGL 2.013-48.244-R and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (2007–2013). The study was also supported by the GAIN-Xunta de Galicia Project (IN607D 2017/01) and the Spanish AEI/EU-FEDER PID2019-103845RB-C21 project

Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria that can be found in foods, food preparation surfaces and the environment as virus particles or virions. Once they infect the specifically targeted bacterial cell, they can enter the lysogenic state, integrating into the genome of the host, or produce new phages that cause the lysis of the cell, releasing the new phages. Lytic or lysogenic phages can be detected in different manners. Lytic phages can be isolated and amplified in the specific host and analyzed by different techniques, such as electron microscopy, genomic or proteomic methodologies. Lysogenic phages are usually identified by analyzing the bacterial genome by means of genomic or proteomic methodologies. The use of omic methodologies, bioinformatic tools and specialized platforms will keep continuously transforming knowledge of the plasticity of foodborne pathogenic bacteria and their lytic and lysogenic phages, their inter-relationships and intra-relationships and the interactions with the surrounding environment, conferring the ability to create new tools for fast and accurate detection and typing and subtyping of problematic spoilage and pathogenic foodborne strains.

© 2020 by the authors., Staphylococcus aureus constitutes a major food-borne pathogen, as well as one of the main causative agents of mastitis in dairy ruminants. This pathogen can produce a variety of extracellular toxins; these include the shock syndrome toxin 1 (TSST-1), exfoliative toxins, staphylococcal enterotoxins (SE), hemolysins, and leukocidins. S. aureus expresses many virulence proteins, involved in evading the host defenses, hence facilitating microbial colonization of the mammary glands of the animals. In addition, S. aureus exotoxins play a role in the development of both skin infections and mastitis. Indeed, if these toxins remain in dairy products for human consumption, they can cause staphylococcal food poisoning (SFP) outbreaks. As a result, there is a need for procedures to identify the presence of exotoxins in human food, and the methods used must be fast, sensitive, reliable, and accurate. It is also essential to determine the best medical therapy for human patients suffering from S. aureus infections, as well as establishing the relevant veterinary treatment for infected ruminants, to avoid economic losses in the dairy industry. This review summarizes the role of S. aureus toxins in the development of mastitis in ruminants, their negative effects in the food and dairy industries, and the different methods used for the identification of these toxins in food destined for human consumption., This research was funded by GAIN-Xunta de Galicia Project (IN607D 2017/01) and M.C. is supported by the Ramón y Cajal Contract (RYC-2016-20419, Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of Spain).

15 pages, 3 figures, 1 table.-- This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), The present work focuses on LC-ESI-MS/MS (liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry) analysis of phage-origin tryptic digestion peptides from mastitis-causing Streptococcus spp. isolated from milk. A total of 2,546 non-redundant peptides belonging to 1,890 proteins were identified and analyzed. Among them, 65 phage-origin peptides were determined as specific Streptococcus spp. peptides. These peptides belong to proteins such as phage repressors, phage endopeptidases, structural phage proteins, and uncharacterized phage proteins. Studies involving bacteriophage phylogeny and the relationship between phages encoding the peptides determined and the bacteria they infect were also performed. The results show how specific peptides are present in closely related phages, and a link exists between bacteriophage phylogeny and the Streptococcus spp. they infect. Moreover, the phage peptide M∗ATNLGQAYVQIM∗PSAK is unique and specific for Streptococcus agalactiae. These results revealed that diagnostic peptides, among others, could be useful for the identification and characterization of mastitis-causing Streptococcus spp., particularly peptides that belong to specific functional proteins, such as phage-origin proteins, because of their specificity to bacterial hosts, This work has received financial support from the Xunta de Galicia and the European Union (European Social Fund – ESF), by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity Project AGL 2.013-48.244-R and by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (2007–2013). This work was also supported by the GAIN-Xunta de Galicia Project (IN607D 2017/01). MC is supported by the Ramón y Cajal contract (Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain)

RNA viruses, in general, exhibit high mutation rates; this is mainly due to the low fidelity displayed by the RNA-dependent polymerases required for their replication that lack the proofreading machinery to correct misincorporated nucleotides and produce high mutation rates. This lack of replication fidelity, together with the fact that RNA viruses can undergo spontaneous mutations, results in genetic variants displaying different viral morphogenesis, as well as variation on their surface glycoproteins that affect viral antigenicity. This diverse viral population, routinely containing a variety of mutants, is known as a viral ‘quasispecies’. The mutability of their virions allows for fast evolution of RNA viruses that develop antiviral resistance and overcome vaccines much more rapidly than DNA viruses. This also translates into the fact that pathogenic RNA viruses, that cause many diseases and deaths in humans, represent the major viral group involved in zoonotic disease transmission, and are responsible for worldwide pandemics.

The 'Pero of Cehegin' is a recently improved late Spanish cultivar of apple mainly cultivated in the Region of Murcia (Spain). It has high phenolic compounds content (PCC) and total antioxidant capacity (TAC). The aim of this work was to study the changes in the PCC, TAC and quality parameters after 6 months of storage at 4°C in a controlled atmosphere (CA) of 3 kPa CO2 and 3.5 kPa O2, and in air (control), as well as after complementary 10 days at 20°C (as market life simulation). The PCC was determined by Folin-Ciocalteu assay and the TAC by ABTS, DPPH and FRAP methods. The peel of apples kept under CA or air, showed higher PCC and TAC than the flesh. The PCC in the peel increased from 357±12 until 622±24 (control) and 593±29 mg GAE g-1 fw (CA) after 4 months of storage, but it decreased after 6 month, as well as during market life in both treatments, almost reaching the initial value. This decrease may be due to superficial scald developed in apples from both treatments, although their incidence was higher in the control. The ABTS method achieved the best correlation (r2=0.68-0.83). TAC in flesh increased during storage until market life being higher in CA than in Control apples. The initial value was 28±3 mg Trolox g-1 fw and increased in control and CA (88±14 and 113±10 mg Trolox g-1 fw, respectively) at the end of market life. As main conclusion, both storage treatments did not affect the quality attributes and induced peel PCC increments around 50 to 70% in control and CA apples respectively, while the TAC in flesh was four times higher than initial value at the end of the market life.

The ultimate consequence of horizontal, or lateral, gene transfer, as it is usually understood, is the transient or permanent acquisition by the recipient cell(s) of new, positive or negative, functional characteristics by virtue of the incorporation of the DNA from the donor into their own genome. In reality, it is simply the manifestation of a novel gene expression repertoire(s). It has been recognized for some time that gene expression changes in human cells were primarily the result of structural alterations of their own DNA (mutations, deletions, amplification, or major rearrangements). At present, despite some degree of controversy, it is becoming an increasingly accepted notion that gene expression changes in human cells may be brought about also by their acquisition of exogenous DNA from microorganisms, particularly bacteria, present in the human microbiome. Recent published analyses of information deposited in publicly available data bases of human normal and tumor genome sequences reported a high frequency of detection of bacterial DNA integrated in the human DNA, thus providing solid evidence in support for bacteria-to-human lateral gene transfer. In addition, and most importantly, these studies also showed a much more frequent presence of bacterial DNA in human cancer samples (e.g., acute myeloid leukemia, gastric cancers) than in the DNA samples from healthy individuals, raising the possibility that the bacterial sequences might be directly or indirectly involved in the development of cancer, either by encoding protein/enzyme products with pro-carcinogenic activity or by causing epigenetic alterations that ultimately could lead to genomic instability in the host cells and, later, to carcinogenic progression. This chapter will examine the current status and landmark developments in this still growing and highly innovative research field, focusing on the role of resident bacteria in the onset and/or progression of human gastrointestinal malignancies. We will also discuss the exciting possibility of exploiting bacteria-to-human lateral gene transfer to deliver anticancer therapeutic tools to human tumors.

Different forms of programmed cell death are known to happen at different stages in the course of normal development as well as during the life of healthy adult organisms to maintain physiologic homeostasis. Cell death causes the release into the surrounding environment of nucleic acids, proteins, and other macromolecules that can be discharged as free entities or incorporated into vesicles derived from intracellular membranes, including nuclear fragments, or from the cell membrane. Nucleic acids (DNA, RNA, non-coding RNAs) can be taken up by neighboring or distant cells and may promote in them significant changes in fundamental biological processes such as stress-response, gene expression, proliferation, differentiation, secretory patterns, substrate attachment, and many other functions. In the context of cancer progression, once tumors reach a certain size, prior to the establishment of a tumor-associated vasculature system, cancer cells in the inner portion of the tumor mass are subjected to stress conditions (e.g., hypoxia, acidic pH, limited nutrient availability), which in many cases result in cell death, with the consequent release of cellular malignancy-promoting materials (e.g., oncogenes, oncogenic miRNAs, and others) that, when taken up by normal cells, can promote their malignant transformation. In addition to such form of cell death-associated horizontal gene transfer, cancer cells have been shown to be particularly proficient at releasing cell membrane-derived vesicles, most frequently of the exosome type, carrying a variety of cancer-promoting cellular constituents. Exosomes are used by the tumor cells to shuttle reciprocal signals to stromal cells proximal to the tumors to favor the creation of a more favorable environment for cancer growth or to transport oncogenic molecules to remote destinations where they contribute to create a pro-metastatic niche in healthy tissues. In addition, exosome-mediated horizontal gene transfer has been shown to contribute to provide and spread resistance in response to diverse anticancer therapies. This review will summarize our current knowledge on the contribution of horizontal gene transfer from circulating cell-free nucleic acids (CNAs) or from exosome-encapsulated materials to the various stages of human tumor progression.

7 páginas, 3 figuras, 3 tablas, A bacterial strain, designated BC09T, was isolated from a contaminated sample of condensed milk. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences placed strain BC09T into the genus Bacillus with its closest relatives being Bacillus safensis and Bacillus australimaris with 100 and 99.9 % similarity, respectively. Analysis of the gyrB gene confirmed the closeness of strain BC09T with respect to the species B. safensis since it presented 97.8 and 95.2 % similarity values, respectively, to the type strains of B. safensis and B. australimaris. DNA–DNA hybridization confirmed these results showing averages of 67 and 56 %, respectively, between strain BC09T and the type strains of B. safensis and B. australimaris. Average nucleotide identity blast values obtained for BC09T compared to the closest relative type strains were 95.7 and 67.6 %, respectively, and predicted DNA–DNA hybridization values were 93.1 and 51.9 %, respectively. However, strain BC09T differs from the type strains of its closest relatives in several phenotypic characteristics. MK-7 was the only menaquinone detected and iso-C15:0 and anteiso-C15:0 were the major fatty acids. The polar lipid profile consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, two unidentified phospholipids, two unidentifed glycolipids, three unidentified lipids and one unidentifed phosphoglycolipid. Meso-diaminopimelic acid was detected in the peptidoglycan. The G+C content was 40.9 mol%. Phylogenetic, chemotaxonomic and phenotypic analyses showed that strain BC09T represents a new subspecies of B. safensis, for which the name Bacillus safensis subsp. osmophilus subsp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is BC09T (=LMG 30124T, =CECT 9344T)., This work has received financial support from the Xunta de Galicia and the European Union (European Social Fund – ESF), by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity Project AGL 2.013–48.244 R and by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (2007–2013).

Abundant research has been devoted to understanding the complexity of the biogeochemical and physical processes that are responsible for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from hydropower reservoirs. These systems may have spatially complex and heterogeneous GHG emissions due to flooded biomass, river inflows, primary production and dam operation. In this study, we investigated the relationships between the water–air CO2 fluxes and the phytoplanktonic biomass in the Funil Reservoir, which is an old, stratified tropical reservoir that exhibits intense phytoplankton blooms and a low partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2). Our results indicated that the seasonal and spatial variability of chlorophyll concentrations (Chl) and pCO2 in the Funil Reservoir are related more to changes in the river inflow over the year than to environmental factors such as air temperature and solar radiation. Field data and hydro\-dynamic simulations revealed that river inflow contributes to increased heterogeneity during the dry season due to variations in the reservoir retention time and river temperature. Contradictory conclusions could be drawn if only temporal data collected near the dam were considered without spatial data to represent CO2 fluxes throughout the reservoir. During periods of high retention, the average CO2 fluxes were 10.3 mmol m−2 d−1 based on temporal data near the dam versus −7.2 mmol m−2 d−1 with spatial data from along the reservoir surface. In this case, the use of solely temporal data to calculate CO2 fluxes results in the reservoir acting as a CO2 source rather than a sink. This finding suggests that the lack of spatial data in reservoir C budget calculations can affect regional and global estimates. Our results support the idea that the Funil Reservoir is a dynamic system where the hydrodynamics represented by changes in the river inflow and retention time are potentially a more important force driving both the Chl and pCO2 spatial variability than the in-system ecological factors.

Objetivo Conocer el perfil del solicitante de atencion domiciliaria en nuestra area de salud, como primer paso para intentar aplicar soluciones que mejoren la calidad de la asistencia sanitaria en nuestro centro y, posiblemente, en otros centros de similares caracteristicas. Material y metodos Se realiza un estudio transversal analitico. Se incluyeron todas las llamadas recibidas para atencion medica domiciliaria en nuestro centro de salud durante los 3 primeros meses del ano 2007. Los avisos domiciliarios son divididos en urgentes y demorables. Se incluyeron distintas variables de filiacion, datacion, diagnostico y tratamiento. La fuente de informacion fue la historia clinica informatizada y el libro de registro de urgencias de nuestro centro. Los datos se trataron estadisticamente. Resultados Durante el periodo de estudio se realizaron 1.665 avisos a domicilio, de los cuales el 48% se atendieron como urgentes. La edad media fue de 68 anos, con un rango de edad de 1 a 101 anos. La mayoria de los avisos fue demandada por mujeres (64%). En el 80% de los casos no era la primera vez que el paciente solicitaba la atencion domiciliaria. Los diagnosticos varian en funcion de si el paciente es visto de urgencias o en forma de domicilio a demanda. Se considero que el aviso no estaba justificado en el 40% de las ocasiones. Conclusiones Creemos que existe una sobreutilizacion de la atencion domiciliaria, tanto urgente como de demanda, malgastando recursos en actos medicos innecesarios, existiendo multiples factores involucrados. La educacion sanitaria, la recepcion telefonica del aviso por el medico, la modulacion de la dependencia por su medico y un buen programa de atencion al paciente inmovilizado y cronico-dependiente son medidas propuestas para optimizar la atencion domiciliaria.

In contrast to its small surface area, the coastal zone plays a disproportionate role in the global carbon cycle. Carbon production, transformation, emission and burial rates at the land–ocean interface are still poorly known, especially in tropical regions. Surface water pCO2 and ancillary parameters were monitored during nine field campaigns between April 2013 and April 2014 in Guanabara Bay, a tropical eutrophic to hypertrophic semi-enclosed estuarine embayment surrounded by the city of Rio de Janeiro, SE-Brazil. Water pCO2 varied between 22 and 3715 ppmv in the Bay showing spatial, diurnal and seasonal trends that mirrored those of dissolved oxygen (DO) and Chlorophyll a (Chl a). Marked pCO2 undersaturation was prevalent in the shallow, confined and thermally stratified waters of the upper bay, whereas pCO2 oversaturation was restricted to sites close to the small river mouths and small sewage channels, which covered only 10% of the bay's area. Substantial daily variations in pCO2 (up to 395 ppmv between dawn and dusk) were also registered and could be integrated temporally and spatially for the establishment of net diurnal, seasonal and annual CO2 fluxes. In contrast to other estuaries worldwide, Guanabara Bay behaved as a net sink of atmospheric CO2, a property enhanced by the concomitant effects of strong radiation intensity, thermal stratification, and high availability of nutrients, which promotes phytoplankton development and net autotrophy. In the inner part of the bay, the calculated annual CO2 sink (−19.6 mol C m2 yr-1) matched the organic carbon burial in the sediments reported in the literature. The carbon sink and autotrophy of Guanabara Bay was driven by planktonic primary production promoted by eutrophication, and by its typology of marine embayment lacking the classical extended estuarine mixing zone, in contrast to river-dominated estuarine systems, which are generally net heterotrophic and CO2 emitters. Our results show that global CO2 budgetary assertions still lack information on tropical estuarine embayments and lagoons, which are affected by thermal stratification and eutrophication and behave specifically with respect to atmospheric CO2.

Inland waters have been recognized as a~significant source of carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere at the global scale. Fluxes of CO2 between aquatic systems and the atmosphere are calculated from the gas transfer velocity and the water-air gradient of the partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2). Nowadays, direct measurements of water pCO2 remain scarce in freshwaters and most published pCO2 data are calculated from temperature, pH and total alkalinity (TA). Here, we compare calculated (pH and TA) and measured (Equilibrator and headspace) water pCO2 in a large array of temperate and tropical freshwaters. The 761 data points cover a wide range of values for TA (0 to 14.2 mmol L−1), pH (3.94 to 9.17), measured pCO2 (36 to 23 000 ppmv), and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) (29 to 3970 μmol L−1). Calculated pCO2 were > 10% higher than measured pCO2 in 60% of the samples (with a median overestimation of calculated pCO2 compared to measured pCO2 of 2560 ppmv) and were > 100% higher in the 25% most organic-rich and acidic samples (with a median overestimation of 9080 ppmv). We suggest these large overestimations of calculated pCO2 with respect to measured pCO2 are due to the combination of two cumulative effects: (1) a more significant contribution of organic acids anions to TA in waters with low carbonate alkalinity and high DOC concentrations; (2) a lower buffering capacity of the carbonate system at low pH, that increases the sensitivity of calculated pCO2 to TA in acidic and organic-rich waters. We recommend that regional studies on pCO2 should not be based on pH and TA data only, and that direct measurements of pCO2 should become the primary method in inland waters in general, and in particular in acidic, poorly buffered, freshwaters.

Ground cover by foliage is a biophysical property of vegetation linked both to the interception of photosynthetically active radiation and to the crop transpiration rate. The spectral information provided by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on board the Aqua (Aqua-MODIS) satellite, which has a spatial resolution of 250 m, is an observation and monitoring resource that may be appropriate for estimating the ground cover of maize when plots exceed 40 ha. In this research, 10 maize plots were monitored in the central region of the province of Córdoba, Argentina, during the 2005–2006 growing season, obtaining photographic records of ground cover and soil moisture data. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of the Aqua-MODIS images showed a significant linear relationship with maize ground cover which, when the complete cycle is taken into account, is sufficient to explain 87% of the variability of ground cover, with an RMSE of 9%, a level of accuracy that increases when the crop is in the vegetative stage and the moisture conditions of the soil are less limiting. Other vegetation indices and linear mixed models were assessed. In addition to using data from the red and near-infrared channels, they incorporate information about soil conditions, but they showed no predictive advantages compared to the NDVI, resulting in simple models that explained between 77% and 87% of the variability of ground cover, with RMSE values of between 9% and 14%. Fil: de la Casa, Antonio Carlos. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Agropecuarias; Argentina Fil: Ovando, Gustavo. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Agropecuarias; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina Fil: Ravelo, Andres Carlos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina Fil: Abril, Ernesto Guillermo. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina Fil: Bergamaschi, H.. Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul; Brasil

Globally, terrestrial ecosystems have absorbed about 30% of anthropogenic emissions over the period 20007–2007 and inter-hemispheric gradients indicate that a significant fraction of terrestrial carbon sequestration must be north of the Equator. We present a compilation of the CO2, CO, CH4 and N2O balance of Europe following a dual constraint approach in which (1) a land-based balance derived mainly from ecosystem carbon inventories and (2) a land-based balance derived from flux measurements are confronted with (3) the atmospheric-based balance derived from inversion informed by measurements of atmospheric GHG concentrations. Good agreement between the GHG balances based on fluxes (1249 ± 545 Tg C in CO2-eq y−1), inventories (1299 ± 200 Tg C in CO2-eq y−1) and inversions (1210 ± 405 Tg C in CO2-eq y−1) increases our confidence that current European GHG balances are accurate. However, the uncertainty remains large and largely lacks formal estimates. Given that European net land-atmosphere balances are determined by a few dominant fluxes, the uncertainty of these key components needs to be formally estimated before efforts could be made to reduce the overall uncertainty. The dual-constraint approach confirmed that the European land surface, including inland waters and urban areas, is a net source for CO2, CO, CH4 and N2O. However, for all ecosystems except croplands, C uptake exceeds C release and us such 210 ± 70 Tg C y−1 from fossil fuel burning is removed from the atmosphere and sequestered in both terrestrial and inland aquatic ecosystems. If the C cost for ecosystem management is taken into account, the net uptake of ecosystems was estimated to decrease by 45% but still indicates substantial C-sequestration. Also, when the balance is extended from CO2 towards the main GHGs, C-uptake by terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems is compensated for by emissions of GHGs. As such the European ecosystems are unlikely to contribute to mitigating the effects of climate change.

We report here a study on the environmental dependence of the occurrence, at low temperature, of ultra-sharp field induced avalanches in phase separated manganites. Despite the high reproducibility of avalanches, it has already been observed that the critical fields shift with the magnetic field sweep rate and that different sample sizes lead to different ignition fields for the avalanches. Critical growing rates have been suggested to describe the avalanche ignition though the role of thermal coupling has hardly been considered. We qualitatively analyze here a set of experimental data on avalanches in manganites and discuss the role of thermal coupling as a key parameter of the instability in a dynamical system.