The Northern Bald Ibis
is an endangered species, and recently it was reintroduced in Europe by the Waldrappteam. The reintroduction program has been strongly threatened by several sudden deaths, ...mainly in Italy. The present study used a forensic approach to analyze all of the 27 Northern Bald Ibises found dead in Italy between 2016 and 2022, which were suspected to have been victims of poaching, and it followed the veterinary forensic guidelines. Human-related causes accounted for 60% of the deaths, including illegal hunting (30%), blunt force trauma (26%), and electrocution (4%). Natural causes, starvation (15%), predation (11%) and disease (7%), accounted for 33% of the deaths. 7% of the causes of deaths remained undetermined. This study uses a forensic approach to analyze, for the first time, the main causes of death in
and highlights the relevance of detecting illegal actions related to endangered species and stopping the phenomenon of poaching.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Breast Cancer (BC) can be classified, due to its heterogeneity, into multiple subtypes that differ for prognosis and clinical management. Notably, triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) - the most ...aggressive BC form - is refractory to endocrine and most of the target therapies. In this view, taxane-based therapy still represents the elective strategy for the treatment of this tumor. However, due variability in patients' response, management of TNBC still represents an unmet medical need. Telomeric Binding Factor 2 (TRF2), a key regulator of telomere integrity that is over-expressed in several tumors, including TNBC, has been recently found to plays a role in regulating autophagy, a degradative process that is involved in drug detoxification. Based on these considerations, we pointed, here, at investigating if TRF2, regulating autophagy, can affect tumor sensitivity to therapy.
Human TNBC cell lines, over-expressing or not TRF2, were subjected to treatment with different taxanes and drug efficacy was tested in terms of autophagic response and cell proliferation. Autophagy was evaluated first biochemically, by measuring the levels of LC3, and then by immunofluorescence analysis of LC3-puncta positive cells. Concerning the proliferation, cells were subjected to colony formation assays associated with western blot and FACS analyses. The obtained results were then confirmed also in mouse models. Finally, the clinical relevance of our findings was established by retrospective analysis on a cohort of TNBC patients subjected to taxane-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
This study demonstrated that TRF2, inhibiting autophagy, is able to increase the sensitivity of TNBC cells to taxanes. The data, first obtained in in vitro models, were then recapitulated in preclinical mouse models and in a cohort of TNBC patients, definitively demonstrating that TRF2 over-expression enhances the efficacy of taxane-based neoadjuvant therapy in reducing tumor growth and its recurrence upon surgical intervention.
Based on our finding it is possible to conclude that TRF2, already known for its role in promoting tumor formation and progression, might represents an Achilles' heel for cancer. In this view, TRF2 might be exploited as a putative biomarker to predict the response of TNBC patients to taxane-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
•Iodine decreases plant growth and yield traits.•Biostimulants enhance mycorrhizal colonization, yield, fruit quality, chlorophyll, modulating plant stress indicators.•Microbial and non-microbial ...biostimulants synergistically act in reducing iodine phytotoxicity at 300 or 600 mg/L.•The combination of biostimulants enhanced the concentration of iodine in eggplants fruits.
Biofortification is a promising strategy to overcome iodine (I) deficiencies in the world population. However, since iodine is not essential for plants, its administration may cause phytotoxicity issues. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effects of two biostimulants arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AM) and plant protein hydrolysates (PH), used alone or in combination, on eggplant plants treated with three different I doses (0, 300 or 600 mg L−1). Results underlined that the highest I dosage significantly reduced plant growth, yield, fruit dry matter content, chlorophylls and stomatal conductance compared to the control. Whereas, I increased total anthocyanins, chlorogenic acid, antioxidant activity, fruit I concentration, proline, H2O2 and malondialdehyde of the biofortified plants compared to non-biofortified plants. The biostimulants enhanced eggplant growth and yield, fruit dry matter content, chlorophylls, total anthocyanins and chlorogenic acid compared to the control, especially when both biostimulants were supplied. Interestingly, it was often recorded an interaction between I and biostimulants, suggesting that PH and AM had a buffer effect on I toxicity, specifically when combined (PH+AM). Overall, our study pointed out that the mutual use of microbial (AM) and non-microbial (PH) biostimulants and the application of 300 mg I L−1 might be an helpful approach to relieve the detrimental effects of high I dosages and, simultaneously, to increase crop yield and fruit quality of eggplant.
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To assess whether morphokinetic features at the cleavage stage together with specific gene expression in cumulus cells (CCs) may be used to predict whether human embryos are able to achieve the ...expanded blastocyst stage on day 5. Eighty-one embryos were cultured using the Geri plus® time-lapse system. Twenty-seven embryos progressing to the expanded blastocyst stage (BL group) were compared with thirty-five embryos showing developmental arrest (AR group) and nineteen reaching the stage of early or not fully expanded blastocyst (nBL group). The analyzed morphokinetic variables were pronuclear appearance (tPNa), pronuclear fading (tPNf), and completion of cleavage to two, three, four, and eight cells (t2, t3, t4, and t8). CCs were analyzed by RT-qPCR for bone morphogenetic protein 15 (
BMP15
), cytochrome
c
oxidase subunit II (
COXII
), ATP synthase subunit 6 (
MT-ATP6
), connexin 43 (
Cx43
), and heme oxygenase-1 (
HO-1
). Embryos of BL group showed a significantly faster kinetic.
BMP15
,
COXII
, and
MT-ATP6
mRNA expression was significantly higher in CCs of BL group embryos, whereas
Cx43
and
HO-1
mRNA levels were higher in AR group. Kinetic parameters and gene expression were not significantly different between either the BL and nBL groups or the AR and nBL groups. ROC curves showed that the most predictive cut-offs were t2 < 26.25 for morphokinetics and
COXII
> 0.3 for gene expression. Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that morphokinetic variables and gene expression were both valuable, independent predictors of embryo development to expanded blastocyst. Our results suggest the possibility of developing integrated prediction models for early embryo selection at the cleavage stage.
Plant biostimulants, such as plant protein hydrolysates (PHs) and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AM), are natural products capable of increasing the yield and quality of crops and decreasing the ...ecological impact of plant growing cycles. However, there is little research on the mutual application of different categories of biostimulants (microbial and non-microbial). The current study was conducted to examine the effects of “Trainer” PH application (0 or 3 mL L−1) and AM (R. irregularis) inoculation on the growth, yield, quality and nitrogen indices of ”Birgah” F1 eggplant cultivated for two years (2020 and 2021). Results revealed that the combined application of PH and AM significantly enhanced total and marketable yields, average marketable fruit weight and number of marketable fruits by 23.7%, 36.4%, 19.0% and 11.1% compared to non-treated plants (control), respectively. Moreover, biostimulants increased the soluble solids content (SSC), chlorogenic acid, total anthocyanins, K and Mg in the fruits by 16%, 4.6%, 6.4%, 8.6% and 23.9% compared to control plants, respectively. Interestingly, the mutual application of PH and AM improved fruit quality by reducing the glycoalkaloid concentration (−19.8%) and fruit browning potential (−38%). Furthermore, both biostimulants exerted a synergistic action, enhancing nitrogen use efficiency and nitrogen uptake efficiency by 26.7% and 18.75%, respectively. On the other hand, productive and fruit-quality features were significantly influenced by the year due to remarkable differences in terms of maximum temperature between the first and second cultivation cycles. Overall, our research underlined that PH and AM can positively interact to improve the performance of eggplant cultivated in open fields.
Abstract
Background
It is unknown whether there is an advantage to using the wet-suction or slow-pull technique during endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle biopsy (EUS-FNB) with new-generation ...needles. We aimed to compare the performance of each technique in EUS-FNB.
Methods
This was a multicenter, randomized, single-blind, crossover trial including patients with solid lesions of ≥ 1 cm. Four needle passes with 22 G fork-tip or Franseen-type needles were performed, alternating the wet-suction and slow-pull techniques in a randomized order. The primary outcome was the histological yield (samples containing an intact piece of tissue of at least 550 μm). Secondary end points were sample quality (tissue integrity and blood contamination), diagnostic accuracy, and adequate tumor fraction.
Results
Overall, 210 patients with 146 pancreatic and 64 nonpancreatic lesions were analyzed. A tissue core was retrieved in 150 (71.4 %) and 129 (61.4 %) cases using the wet-suction and the slow-pull techniques, respectively (
P
= 0.03). The mean tissue integrity score was higher using wet suction (
P
= 0.02), as was the blood contamination of samples (
P
< 0.001). In the two subgroups of pancreatic and nonpancreatic lesions, tissue core rate and tissue integrity score were not statistically different using the two techniques, but blood contamination was higher with wet suction. Diagnostic accuracy and tumor fraction did not differ between the two techniques.
Conclusion
Overall, the wet-suction technique in EUS-FNB resulted in a higher tissue core procurement rate compared with the slow-pull method. Diagnostic accuracy and the rate of samples with adequate tumor fraction were similar between the two techniques.
The Hippo pathway and its two key effectors, Yes-associated protein (YAP) and transcriptional coactivator with PDZ-binding motif (TAZ), are consistently altered in breast cancer. Pivotal regulators ...of cell metabolism such as the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), Stearoyl-CoA-desaturase 1 (SCD1), and HMG-CoA reductase (HMGCR) are relevant modulators of TAZ/YAP activity. In this prospective study, we measured the tumor expression of TAZ, YAP, AMPK, SCD1, and HMGCR by immunohistochemistry in 65 Her2+ breast cancer patients who underwent trastuzumab-based neoadjuvant treatment. The aim of the study was to assess the impact of the immunohistochemical expression of the Hippo pathway transducers and cell metabolism regulators on pathological complete response. Low expression of cytoplasmic TAZ, both alone and in the context of a composite signature identified by machine learning including also low nuclear levels of YAP and HMGCR and high cytoplasmic levels of SCD1, was a predictor of residual disease in the univariate logistic regression. This finding was not confirmed in the multivariate model including estrogen receptor > 70% and body mass index > 20. However, our findings were concordant with overall survival data from the TCGA cohort. Our results, possibly affected by the relatively small sample size of this study population, deserve further investigation in adequately sized, ad hoc prospective studies.
Phenolic compounds in lettuce can increase by the application of positive stress (eustress) such as moderate saline stress. Phenolic compounds possess antioxidant capacity that is a key factor in the ...detoxification of excess reactive oxygen species. A double-blinded randomized interventional and placebo- controlled study design was carried out to compare the effect of daily dietary eustress lettuce ingestion in hepatic, lipid, bone, glucose, and iron metabolism.
Forty-two healthy volunteers, 19 female and 23 male participants, were divided into two groups. Participants were randomized into a polyphenol-enriched treatment (PET) arm or control arm. Each arm consumed 100 g/day of control or eustress (polyphenols enriched treatment = PET) lettuce for 12 days. Primary study outcomes were serological analysis for assessing hepatic, lipid, bone, iron, and glucose markers at baseline and after 12 days. Secondary outcomes assessed body composition.
Salinity stress reduced plant yield but increased caffeic acid (+467%), chlorogenic acid (+320%), quercetin (+538%), and rutin (+1,095%) concentrations. The intake of PET lettuce reduced PTH, low-density lipoprotein (LDL), cholesterol, alanine transaminase (ALT), and aspartate transaminase (AST) enzyme levels and increased vitamin D and phosphate levels, while iron and glucose metabolism were unaffected.
Supplementation with eustress lettuce by increasing polyphenols concentration ameliorates hepatic, lipid, and bone homeostasis. Body composition was not affected.
https://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT06002672, identifier: NCT06002672.
The commingled technology is a promising technique for the manufacture of composites reinforced with natural fibers. This study presents the development, processing and basic characterization of a ...long fiber Jute/Polypropylene (Jute/PP) commingled composite. The Jute/PP fabric was produced in a handloom and the composite was consolidated by compression molding. The PP matrix was chemically and thermally characterized to certify its chemical composition and define its melting and crystallization temperatures. The degradation behavior of jute fibers was also studied by Friedman’s kinetic isoconversional model using thermogravimetric analyses (TGA). The mechanical properties of jute reinforcement and Jute/PP composite were characterized by tensile strength tests and by fractographic study of the fracture surfaces. Its tensile strength (44.62±6.02 MPa) and elasticity modulus (7.10±2.34 GPa) are approximate to the ones obtained by other processing techniques, suggesting that the developed commingled process can work as a low cost and practical alternative methodology for manufacturing of more sustainable composites in industries.
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