We investigated liver protease activity in force-fed and non-force-fed ducks using zymography gels to better understand mechanisms underlying liver steatosis in palmipeds. Male Muscovy and Pekin ...ducks were slaughtered before and after a short period (13 d) while they were conventionally fed or force fed. The force-fed regimen contained a high level of carbohydrates and was delivered in large doses. Main hepatic proteases (matrix metalloprotease-2, calpains, and cathepsins) were extracted from raw liver and specifically activated within electrophoretic gels. Both force-fed Muscovy and Pekin ducks presented higher liver weights and BW associated with lower matrix metalloprotease-2 and m-calpain hepatic activities. On the other hand, hepatic cathepsin activity was not affected by force feeding. It was concluded that Muscovy and Pekin duck hepatic proteases are affected similarly by the force feeding. Thus, this cannot explain differences observed between Muscovy and Pekin ducks regarding their ability to develop hepatic steatosis generally reported in literature.
The aim of this experiment was to study the effect of chilling rates on the quality features of fatty livers. Three different chilling rates were applied: ultra-fast (UF), fast (FA), and slow (SL). ...Technological and proteomic results were compared at time T1 when the internal temperature of livers reached 10°C and at time T2 = 24 h post mortem. Samples from the UF group reached the T1 temperature at 50 min post mortem and had the least hard livers and the lowest cooking loss percentage (25 ± 9%) at time T2 = 24 h post mortem (P-value of < 0.01). The FA and SL groups reached the T1 temperature after 120 and 210 min post mortem and presented higher melting (36 ± 9 and 41 ± 9%, respectively, at time T2) and harder livers compared to the UF group. In parallel, we conducted semi-quantifications of proteins by electrophoresis and proteolytic activities by mono-dimensional zymography for three families of proteases: Matrix metalloproteases (MMP), Cathepsins, and Calpains. The proteomic assays revealed less modified proteolytic activities in samples from the UF group, and less associated proteins degradations than in samples from the FA and the SL groups. Effects of the different chilling rates were mainly significant at time T2 (24 h post mortem). As a conclusion we were able to highlight an indirect positive relation between proteolysis and melting yield in ducks’ fatty liver.
Currently, biological drug therapy for ocular angiogenesis treatment is based on the administration of anti‐VEGF agents via intravitreal route. The molecules approved with this purpose for ocular use ...include pegaptanib, ranibizumab, and aflibercept, whereas bevacizumab is commonly off‐label used in the clinical practice. The schedule dosage involves repeated intravitreal injections of anti‐VEGF agents to achieve and maintain effective concentrations in retina and choroids, which are administrated as solutions form. In this review article, we describe the features of different anti‐VEGF agents, major challenges for their ocular delivery and the nanoparticles in development as delivery system of them. In this way, several polymeric and lipid nanoparticles are explored to load anti‐VEGF agents with the aim of achieving sustained drug release and thus, minimize the number of intravitreal injections required. The main challenges were focused in the loading the molecules that maintain their bioactivity after their release from nanoparticulate system, followed the evaluation of them through studies of formulation stability, pharmacokinetic, and efficacy in in vitro and in vivo models. The analysis was based on the information published in peer‐reviewed published papers relevant to anti‐VEGF treatments and nanoparticles developed as ocular anti‐VEGF delivery system.
Higher concentrations of anti‐VEGF agents have been observed after ocular administration of nanoparticulate systems in the long‐term in comparison to those of solution formulations of the same agents. The improvements on therapy offered by these nanoparticulate systems have also been evidenced in the higher antiangiogenic properties reported in in vitro and in vivo efficacy models.
Reproductive division of labour is based on biased expression of complementary parental behaviours, brood production (egg-laying) by queens and brood care (in particular, brood-provisioning) by ...workers. In many social insect species, queens provision brood when establishing colonies at the beginning of a breeding season and reproductive division of labour begins with the emergence of workers. In many social insect species, the expression of foraging (for) mRNA is associated with the intensity of foraging behaviour and therefore brood-provisioning. However, only two studies have compared queen and worker for expression levels and neither accounted for transcript splice variation. In this study, we compare the expression level of the for-α transcript variant across four life stages of the queen caste, two behavioural groups of workers, and males of a eusocial sweat bee Lasioglossum laevissimum (Smith, 1853). Foundresses collected prior to the onset of the foraging season and males had the highest for-α expression levels. All active (post-hibernatory) queens and workers had similar for-α expression levels independent of behaviour. These results suggest that the for gene in L. laevissimum acts as a primer before foraging activity and that caste-specific expression patterns correlate with the timing of foraging activity in queens and workers.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The management of brain metastases (BM) remains an important and complex issue in the treatment of cancer-related neurological complications. BM are particularly common in patients diagnosed with ...lung, melanoma, or breast cancer. Over the past decade, therapeutic approaches for the majority of BM patients have changed. Considering and addressing the fact that patients with BM are living longer, the need to provide effective local control while preserving quality of life and neurocognition is fundamental. Over the past decade, SRS and SRT have become a more commonly chosen treatment option for BM. Despite significant advances in the treatment of BM, numerous questions remain regarding patient selection and optimal treatment sequencing. Clinical trials are critical to advancing our understanding of BM, especially as more therapeutic alternatives become available. Therefore, it is imperative for interdisciplinary teams to improve their understanding of the latest advances in SRS-SRT. This review aims to comprehensively explore SRS and SRT as treatments for BM, covering clinical considerations in their application (e.g., patient selection and eligibility), managing limited and multiple intact BM, addressing brainstem metastases, exploring combination therapies with systemic treatments, and considering the health economic perspective.
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•Vg mRNA levels are associated with phenotypic variation in social insect castes.•Traits associated with vg vary during a breeding season in eusocial sweat bees.•We compared vg levels ...in castes of a sweat bee species during a breeding season.•Vg expression was associated with ovarian development and therefore with caste.•Females without ovarian development expressed vg while males did not.
Vitellogenin (vg) expression is consistently associated with variation in insect phenotypes, particularly egg-laying. Primitively eusocial species, such as eusocial sweat bees, have behaviourally totipotent castes, in which each female is capable of high levels of ovarian development. Few studies have investigated vg expression patterns in primitively eusocial insects, and only one study has focused on a primitively eusocial bee. Here we use a primitively eusocial sweat bee, Lasioglossum laevissimum, and Real Time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) to investigate the relationship between vg expression, castes, and variation in phenotypes associated with castes differences. These assays showed that females with high ovarian development had the highest levels of vg expression, and that vg expression levels reflected the reproductive status of females first and caste second. This is in contrast to vg expression patterns observed in advanced eusocial queens and workers, which differ in vg expression based on caste and have caste-specific vg expression patterns. Furthermore, future queens (gynes) do not have ovarian development and had similar vg expression levels to early spring foundresses, which do have ovarian development, supporting Vg’s function as a transporter of lipids and amino acids before diapause.
The environmental conditions an organism encounters during development vary in their lasting impact on adult phenotypes. In the context of ongoing climate change, it is particularly relevant to ...understand how high developmental temperatures can impact adult traits, and whether these effects persist or diminish during adulthood. Here, we assessed the effects of pupal temperature (17 °C - normal temperature, 26 °C - increased temperature, or 35 °C - heat wave) on adult Harmonia axyridis thermal stress tolerance, immune function, starvation resistance, and fecundity. The temperature during pupation significantly affected all investigated traits in fresh adults. Heat acclimation decreased adult haemocyte concentration, cold tolerance, and total egg production, and had a positive effect on heat tolerance and starvation resistance. The negative effects of heat acclimation on cold tolerance diminished after seven days. In contrast, heat acclimation had a lasting positive effect on adult heat tolerance. Our results provide a broad assessment of the effects of developmental thermal acclimation on H. axyridis adult phenotypes. The relative plasticity of several adult traits after thermal acclimation may be consequential for the future geographic distribution and local performance of various insect species.
Scoring thermal tolerance traits live or with recorded video can be time consuming and susceptible to observer bias, and as with many physiological measurements, there can be trade-offs between ...accuracy and throughput. Recent studies show that automated particle tracking is a viable alternative to manually scoring videos, although some of the software options are proprietary and costly. In this study, we present a novel strategy for automated scoring of thermal tolerance videos by inferring motor activity with motion detection using an open-source Python command line application called DIME (detector of insect motion endpoint). We apply our strategy to both dynamic and static thermal tolerance assays, and our results indicate that DIME can accurately measure thermal acclimation responses, generally agrees with visual estimates of thermal limits, and can significantly increase throughput over manual methods.
This article deals with an original haptic teleoperation and human-robot interaction (HRI) for microrobotic tasks involving optics and more generally light information. It aims to demonstrate the ...proof of concept of using light information in haptic teleoperation for component alignment with submicrometer accuracy. The case study focuses on the alignment of a laser optical fiber on the active surface of a photodiode using a microrobotic system and a pantograph. Since an alignment error of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">1\,\mu \text{m}</tex-math></inline-formula> leads to a loss of more than 35<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">\%</tex-math></inline-formula> in signal transmission, it is shown that the transparency of the pantograph is a key element for the success of the operation. A user evaluation is performed to quantify the interest and acceptability of the different HRI scenarios proposed in this work. The result shows the effectiveness of the methods when the interface transparency is managed with a disturbance observer. The HRI allows the human to experience small variations of light intensity, typically a few <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">\mu \text{W}</tex-math></inline-formula>, over a large range, typically several hundred <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">\mu \text{W}</tex-math></inline-formula>. This capability enables the participant to intuitively align the optical fiber in the region of interest with a sub-<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">\mu \text{m}</tex-math></inline-formula> accuracy and a success rate of about 94.7%.
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