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The research was carried out with the objectives of studying the molecular profiles of genetic diversity, comparing the variability and genetic distances of the molecular markers of potatoes (Solanum spp.) which were collected in farmers' field from 12 communities of the Secclla, Santo Tomás de Pata and Santillana districts. The 128 accessions were cultivated in polyethylene bags with two repetitions each. The sampling of the young leaflets was carried out 48 days after sowing. DNA extraction was performed by CTAB method, copies of DNA fragments were obtained by PCR, which were separated by PAGE. In the molecular analysis, 8 pairs of microsatellite markers were used. The results were analyzed by the statistics, Simple Matching coefficient, NTSYS 2.10p, UPGMA grouping method to estímate the polymorphism and the AMOVA was calculated using the Arlequín program (versión 3.0). The average PIC was 0.238, indicating the existence of polymorphism. The distance and genetic similarity, the populations that exhibit the greatest genetic relationship include Santillana and Santo Tomás de Pata, denoting that the accessions of these populations have greater common characteristics. The AMOVA shows that the variability is within populations (91.55%), and the genetic differentiation between the three populations is modérate (FST = 0.08448). more...

Introduction: Attachment style and working alliance are two fundamental variables in psychotherapy. This systematic review aims to provide data on the relationship between therapist attachment and alliance in psychotherapy, updating a previous review and providing a quantitative synthesis (meta-analysis)., Method: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement recommendations were followed. The databases PsycINFO, PubMed and Web of Science were searched from June 1, 2016, to May 30, 2024, supplemented by a manual search. A regulated study selection process was performed, followed by data extraction and risk of bias assessment. A qualitative and quantitative analysis of the included studies was performed., Results: Nine studies were selected for the systematic review that included 354 patients and 741 mental health professionals. In five studies, different types of attachment (secure, anxious and avoidant) were related to the alliance. In addition, this relationship was partially mediated by therapeutic optimism, role security, therapeutic commitment or emotional regulation strategy. Of the 23 articles selected from both systematic reviews, 12 studies were included in the meta-analysis. A systematic correlation between anxious attachment style and the alliance was found only when the assessment of the alliance was performed by therapists (r = -0.31)., Conclusions: There is evidence that therapist attachment may influence the formation and maintenance of a higher-quality working alliance. However, further studies with more precise measures of both constructs are needed to better understand this relationship and its clinical implications., (© 2025 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.) more...

Introduction: Freehand SPECT can be a useful imaging technique for preoperative planning of sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) as it allows localization of the sentinel node by 3D and real-time tomographic imaging and determines its depth after a few minutes of scanning. The aim of the study was to evaluate the correlation between the number of detected SNs between freehand SPECT images and lymphoscintigraphy (LS)., Materials and Methods: 100 patients with a diagnosis of invasive breast cancer and no clinical evidence of lymph node involvement prospectively underwent SLNB. The preoperative study included freehand SPECT imaging at 15min after injection and LS imaging at 25 and 60-90min after injection (early and late). The observed agreement was analyzed and a concordance study was performed between the number of SNs detected with freehand SPECT and LS., Results: The observed agreement in the detection of SNs between freehand SPECT and early LS was 72%; between freehand SPECT and late LS was 85%; and between early and late LS was 87%. In the concordance study, there was moderate concordance between freehand SPECT and early LS (kappa coefficient: 0.42); moderate-high concordance between freehand SPECT and late LS (kappa coefficient: 0.60); and moderate-high concordance between early and late LS (kappa coefficient: 0.70), with no significant differences between them (p-value=0.16)., Conclusion: Freehand SPECT showed a moderate-high concordance with conventional imaging studies and could be a valid alternative for the presurgical study of SLNB in breast cancer., (Copyright © 2023 Sociedad Española de Medicina Nuclear e Imagen Molecular. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.) more...

A single intradermal vaccination with an antibiotic-less version of BCGΔBCG1419c given to guinea pigs conferred a significant improvement in outcome following a low dose aerosol exposure to M. tuberculosis compared to that provided by a single dose of BCG Pasteur. BCGΔBCG1419c was more attenuated than BCG in murine macrophages, athymic, BALB/c, and C57BL/6 mice. In guinea pigs, BCGΔBCG1419c was at least as attenuated as BCG and induced similar dermal reactivity to that of BCG. Vaccination of guinea pigs with BCGΔBCG1419c resulted in increased anti-PPD IgG compared with those receiving BCG. Guinea pigs vaccinated with BCGΔBCG1419c showed a significant reduction of M. tuberculosis replication in lungs and spleens compared with BCG, as well as a significant reduction of pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculosis (TB) pathology measured using pathology scores recorded at necropsy. Evaluation of cytokines produced in lungs of infected guinea pigs showed that BCGΔBCG1419c significantly reduced TNF-α and IL-17 compared with BCG-vaccinated animals, with no changes in IL-10. This work demonstrates a significantly improved protection against pulmonary and extrapulmonary TB provided by BCGΔBCG1419c in susceptible guinea pigs together with an increased safety compared with BCG in several models. These results support the continued development of BCGΔBCG1419c as an effective vaccine for TB. more...

Biofilm formed in vitro by mycobacteria has been associated with increased antibiotic tolerance as compared with planktonic cells. Cellulose has been identified as a component of DTT-exposed biofilms formed by M. tuberculosis. The celA1 gene of M. tuberculosis encodes a cellulase, which could affect the formation of biofilm by slow-growing mycobacteria. In this work, the celA1 gene of M. tuberculosis was cloned into the integrative pMV361 plasmid and then transformed into M. bovis BCG Pasteur to produce BCG:celA1, to have celA1 expressed from the strong promoter hsp60. We compared planktonic and biofilm growth, possible presence of CelA1 in whole protein extracts, quantitated biofilm, presence of monosaccharides, and bacillary burden in lungs after aerosol infection in BALB/c mice. Differences in the appearance of the surface pellicle and of the biofilm attached to the substrate were observed. In biofilms, we observed a significant decrease of glucosamine in BCG:celA1 compared with BCG:pMV361. Finally, BCG:celA1 had lower viable bacteria than the BCG:pMV361 strain after 24 h and 3 weeks post-infection, but no difference was found at 9 weeks post-infection., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.) more...

Background: Relatively few studies have analyzed the mortality of follicular lymphoma (FL) patients in comparison with a sex- and age-matched general population. This study analyzed the overall survival (OS) of patients with FL and compared their survival with the expected survival of a general population., Methods: Patients diagnosed with FL were prospectively enrolled from 1980 to 2013. Standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) were obtained from yearly sex- and age-specific mortality rates in Spain, and OS was compared with age- and sex-matched general population data., Results: A total of 1074 patients with newly diagnosed FL were enrolled. The median OS was 231 months (95% confidence interval [CI], 195-267 months). Event-free survival at 12 months (EFS12) and event-free survival at 24 months (EFS24) were associated with an increased probability of early death, with an SMR of 10.27 (95% CI, 8.26-12.77) for EFS12. The overall SMR, including all causes of death, was 2.55 (95% CI, 2.23-2.92), and it was higher for women (SMR, 3.02; 95% CI, 2.48-3.67) and young adults (SMR, 6.01; 95% CI, 3.13-11.55). More than 10 years after the diagnosis, mortality rates for FL patients were lower than those for the general population (SMR, 0.47; 95% CI, 0.28-0.78). When FL was excluded as a cause of death, the overall SMR was 1.35 (95% CI, 1.11-1.65) without a statistically significant mortality increase in the >60-year-old group in comparison with age- and sex-matched general population data. More than 15% of the patients included in the study (n = 158) had more than 10 years of follow-up., Conclusions: EFS12 and EFS24 predict an early increase in mortality. The long-term SMR, over the course of 10 years of follow-up, shows that patients with FL have a risk of dying similar to that of a sex- and age-matched general population. Cancer 2017;123:3709-3716. © 2017 American Cancer Society., (© 2017 American Cancer Society.) more...

The authors of this study evaluated the factor structure, internal consistency, and concurrent and discriminant validity of the Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory (PTCI; Foa et al. 1999) in a sample of 107 female survivors of sexual assault with a mean age of 29.1 years (SD = 7.7). All participants were recruited between July 2010 and December 2014 from a care center for sexual assault victims in Madrid, Spain. Results supported the three-factor structure of the PTCI: (1) negative cognition about self, (2) negative cognition about the world, and (3) self-blame. The negative cognitions about self and the world subscales showed adequate internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.92 and 0.82, respectively), as well as good concurrent and discriminant validity. Nevertheless, the subscale measuring self-blame showed poor internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.75) and discriminant validity. The PTCI presents sound psychometric characteristics and has the potential to contribute to women's sexual posttrauma assessment. more...

Understanding the biological parameters of some triatomine subspecies of Meccus phyllosomus (Burmeister) is a crucial first step in estimating the epidemiological importance of this group. Biological parameters related to egg eclosion, egg-to-adult development time, number of blood meals to moult, percentage of females at the end of the cycle, number of laid eggs, and the accumulative mortality for each instar of three M. phyllosomus subspecies [Meccus phyllosomus pallidipennis (Stål), Meccus phyllosomus longipennis (Usinger), and Meccus phyllosomus picturatus (Usinger)] as well as their laboratory hybrids were evaluated and compared. No significant differences (P > 0.05) were recorded among the experimental hybrids (M. p. longipennis × M. p. pallidipennis, M. p. longipennis × M. p. picturatus, M. p. pallidipennis × M. p. picturatus) and reciprocal cohorts. In five of the six studied parameters (egg eclosion, egg-to-adult development time, number of blood meals to moult, number of laid eggs and accumulative mortality), with the exception of the non-significant percentage of females obtained among all the studied cohorts, at least one of the parental cohorts in each set of crosses exhibited better fitness results than by those of their hybrid descendants. The lack of hybrid fitness in our study indicates the maintenance of reproductive isolation of parental genotypes. Moreover, the results lead us to propose that an incipient speciation process by distance is currently developing among the three studied subspecies, increasing the differences between them that modify the transmission efficiency of Trypanosoma cruzi to human beings in Mexico. more...

The Salmonella enterica ompS1 gene encodes a quiescent porin that belongs to the OmpC/OmpF family. In the present work we analysed the regulatory effects of OmpR phosphorylation on ompS1 expression. We found that in vivo, OmpR in its phosphorylated form (OmpR-P) was important in the regulation of the two ompS1 promoters: OmpR-P activated the P1 promoter and repressed the P2 promoter in an EnvZ-dependent manner; expression occurs from the P2 promoter in an ompR mutant. In vitro, OmpR-P had a higher DNA-binding-affinity to the ompS1 promoter region than OmpR and OmpRD55A, showing an affinity even higher than that of equivalent DNA regions in the 5'-upstream regulatory sequence of the major porin-encoding genes ompC and ompF. By analysing different environmental conditions, we found that glucose and glycerol enhanced ompS1 expression in the wild-type strain. Interestingly the stimulation by glycerol was OmpR-dependent while the effect of glucose was still observed in the absence of OmpR. Acetyl phosphate produced by the AckA-Pta pathway did not influence ompS1 regulation. These data indicate the important role of the phosphorylation in the activity of OmpR on the differential regulation of both ompS1 promoters and its impact on the pathogenesis. more...

Background: Gram-negative bacilli are the most common bacteria causing nosocomial bloodstream infections (NBSIs) in Latin American countries., Methods: The antibiotic resistance profiles of Gram-negative bacilli isolated from blood cultures in pediatric patients with NBSIs over a 3-year period in a tertiary care pediatric hospital in Mexico City were determined using the VITEK-2 system. Sixteen antibiotics were tested to ascertain the resistance rate and the minimum inhibitory concentration using the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) broth micro-dilution method as a reference., Results: A total of 931 isolates were recovered from 847 clinically significant episodes of NBSI. Of these, 477 (51.2%) were caused by Gram-negative bacilli. The most common Gram-negative bacilli found were Klebsiella pneumoniae (30.4%), Escherichia coli (18.9%), Enterobacter cloacae (15.1%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (9.9%), and Acinetobacter baumannii (4.6%). More than 45 and 60% of the K. pneumoniae and E. coli isolates, respectively, were resistant to cephalosporins, and 64% of the E. coli isolates were resistant to fluoroquinolones. A. baumannii exhibited low rates of resistance to antibiotics tested. In the E. cloacae and P. aeruginosa isolates, no rates of resistance higher than 38% were observed., Conclusions: In this study, we found that the proportion of NBSIs due to antibiotic-resistant organisms is increasing in a tertiary care pediatric hospital of Mexico. more...

The DNA static curvature has been described to play a key role as a regulatory element in the transcription process of several bacterial genes. Here, the role of DNA curvature in the expression of the ompS1 porin gene in Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi is described. The web server mutacurve was used to predict mutations that diminished or restored the extent of DNA curvature in the 5' regulatory region of ompS1. Using these predictions, curvature was diminished by site-directed mutagenesis of only two residues, and curvature was restored by further mutagenesis of the same two residues. Lowering the extent of DNA curvature resulted in an increase in ompS1 expression and in the diminution of the affinity of the silencer proteins H-NS and StpA for the ompS1 5' regulatory region. These mutations were in a region shown not to contain the H-NS nucleation site, consistent with the notion that the effect on expression was due to changes in DNA structural topology. more...