Aims
The aim of this study was to investigate the dynamic changes in the bacterial structure and potential interactions of an acclimatized marine microbial community during a light crude oil ...degradation experiment.
Methods and Results
The bacterial community effectively removed 76·49% of total petroleum hydrocarbons after 30 days, as evidenced by GC‐FID and GC‐MS analyses. Short‐chain alkanes and specific aromatic compounds were completely degraded within the first 6 days. High‐throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA gene indicated that the starting bacterial community was mainly composed by Marinobacter and more than 30 non‐dominant genera. Bacterial succession was dependent on the hydrocarbon uptake with Alcanivorax becoming dominant during the highest degradation period. Sparse correlations for compositional data algorithm revealed one operational taxonomic unit (OTU) of Muricauda and an assembly of six OTUs of Alcanivorax dieselolei and Alcanivorax hongdengensis as critical keystone components for the consortium network maintenance and stability.
Conclusions
This work exhibits a stabilized marine bacterial consortium with the capability to efficiently degrade light crude oil in 6 days, under laboratory conditions. Successional and interaction patterns were observed in response to hydrocarbon consumption, highlighting potential interactions between Alcanivorax and keystone non‐dominant OTUs over time.
Significance and Impact of the Study
Our results contribute to the understanding of interactions and potential roles of specific members of hydrocarbonoclastic marine bacterial communities, which will be useful for further bioaugmentation studies concerning the associations between indigenous and introduced micro‐organisms.
Breastfeeding is recognized worldwide as the best option for infant feeding. Expressing breast milk is an alternative for mothers to provide their infants all the benefits of maternal milk. During ...breast milk expression, mothers receive a distinct kind of sensory stimulation, because there is no direct bodily or affective interaction with their infants, many women report feeling isolated, generating a love-hate relation with pumping, and even low levels of satisfaction while expressing breast milk. While it is well known that the prefrontal, parietal, and temporal cortices play important roles in the emotional and cognitive processing of maternal stimuli, knowledge about how these cortical areas function during breastfeeding is lacking. This study was designed to characterize EEG activity in the prefrontal and parietal cortices and the affective scores of primiparous breastfeeding mothers during two conditions of milk expression: breast milk expression and direct breastfeeding. Participants reported higher valence and arousal and a pleasant state during direct breastfeeding. In the direct breastfeeding condition, both prefrontal areas showed a higher absolute power (AP) of the slow bands, with a lower AP of the alpha band in the parietal cortex. A lower correlation between frontopolar and dorsolateral areas with a higher correlation between prefrontal and parietal cortices was obtained mainly in the right hemisphere. This EEG activity could be linked to an internal state of focused attention and, simultaneously, open monitoring of the environment that suggests an integration of the motive-emotional and cognitive processes necessary for adequate mother-baby interaction during direct breastfeeding.
•During direct breastfeeding, prefrontal areas showed higher absolute power in the slow bands.•EEG activity during direct breastfeeding could be related to a motivational-cognitive state.•Direct breastfeeding is a pleasurable state for the mother.
We report measurements of ambient amines and ammonia with a fast response chemical ionization mass spectrometer (CIMS) in a southeastern US forest and a moderately polluted midwestern site during the ...summer. At the forest site, mostly C3-amines (from pptv to tens of pptv) and ammonia (up to 2 ppbv) were detected, and they both showed temperature dependencies. Aerosol-phase amines measured thermal-desorption chemical ionization mass spectrometer (TDCIMS) showed a higher mass fraction in the evening with cooler temperatures and lower in the afternoon with warmer temperatures, a trend opposite to the gas-phase amines. Concentrations of aerosol-phase primary amines measured with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) from micron and submicron particles were 2 orders of magnitude higher than the gas-phase amines. These results indicate that gas to particle conversion is one of the major processes that control the ambient amine concentrations at this forest site. Temperature dependencies of C3-amines and ammonia also imply reversible processes of evaporation of these nitrogen-containing compounds from soil surfaces in daytime and deposition to soil surfaces at nighttime. During the transported biomass burning plume events, various amines (C1-C6) appeared at the pptv level, indicating that biomass burning is a substantial source of amines in the southeastern US. At the moderately polluted Kent site, there were higher concentrations of C1- to C6-amines (pptv to tens of pptv) and ammonia (up to 6 ppbv). C1- to C3-amines and ammonia were well correlated with the ambient temperature. C4- to C6-amines showed frequent spikes during the nighttime, suggesting that they were emitted from local sources. These abundant amines and ammonia may in part explain the frequent new particle formation events reported from Kent. Higher amine concentrations measured at the polluted site than at the rural forested site highlight the importance of constraining anthropogenic emission sources of amines.
The COVID-19 pandemic represents a global health problem, which has been mitigated by the opportune introduction of vaccination programs. Although we already know the benefit that vaccines provide, ...these are not exempt from adverse events which can be mild to deadly, such as idiopathic inflammatory myopathies, in which a temporal association has not been defined. It is for this reason that we carried out a systematic review of all reported cases of vaccination against COVID-19 and myositis. To identify previously reported cases of idiopathic inflammatory myopathies associated with vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 we registered this protocol on the website of PROSPERO with identification number CRD42022355551. Of the 63 publications identified in MEDLINE and 117 in Scopus, 21 studies were included, reporting 31 cases of patients with vaccination-associated myositis. Most of these cases were women (61.3%); mean age was 52.3 years (range 19-76 years) and mean time of symptom onset post-vaccination was 6.8 days. More than half of the cases were associated with Comirnaty, 11 cases (35.5%) were classified as dermatomyositis, and 9 (29%) as amyopathic dermatomyositis. In 6 (19.3%) patients another probable trigger was identified. Case reports of inflammatory myopathies associated with vaccination have heterogeneous presentations without any specific characteristics: as a consequence, it is not possible to ensure a temporal association between vaccination and the development of inflammatory myopathies. Large epidemiological studies are required to determine the existence of a causal association.
Parity modulates the way in which women respond to infant's affective cues. It is known that the cognitive processing of mothers is affected by a baby crying; however, little information is available ...regarding the effect of reproductive and caregiving experience on efficiency in managing babies' emotional stimuli while other tasks are being attended. This study characterized the affective score, cognitive performance, and electroencephalographic correlation (rEEG) between prefrontal and parietal cortices in first- (FM) and second-time mothers (SM) while solving a working memory task (vsWM) and simultaneously listening to either an emotional or neutral distractor stimulus. During the vsWM-baby crying condition, both groups reported higher arousal. However, SM reported a lower valence and FM lower dominance. In the vsWM-baby crying condition did SM need less time to solve the cognitive task and present a decreased rEEG between prefrontal areas, and between left prefrontal and parietal areas, though an increased rEEG between parietal areas was observed while listening to both distractor stimuli during performance of the vsWM task. These degrees of cortical synchronization could constitute a cerebral mechanism required to achieve better information maintenance and enhance suppression of distractor effects, which allow the SM women to solve the vsWM task more efficiently.
Knowledge of the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal assemblages in the Trachypogon savanna ecosystems is very important to a better understanding of the ecological processes mediated by this soil ...microbial group that affects multiple ecosystem functions. Considering the hypothesis that the biocrusts can be linked to vegetation through the arbuscular fungi mycelial network, the objectives proposed in this study were to determine (i) whether there are arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in the biocrusts (ii) whether arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal assemblages are linked to the Trachypogon patches, and (iii) whether the composition of the assemblages is related to soil properties affected by microbiological activity. The community structure of the AMF was investigated in three habitats: rhizospheric soil and roots of Trachypogon vestitus, biological soil crusts, and bare soil. The canonical correspondence analysis showed that two soil properties related to enzymatic activity (protease and β-glucosidase) significantly affected the community composition of the AMF. The biocrusts in the Venezuelan savanna are colonized by an AM fungal community linked to that of the bare soil and significantly different from that hosted by the roots of the surrounding T. vestitus, suggesting that assemblages of AMF in biocrusts might be related more closely to those of annual plant species appearing in favorable conditions.
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•The biocrusts in the Trachypogon savanna are colonized by AMF.•AMF assemblages in biocrusts could be related to the occurrence of annual species.•Protease and β-glucosidase significantly affected the AMF community composition.
Objective
As in other health sciences, a career in dentistry is associated with numerous stressors in practitioners. The main objective of this research was to examine the prevalence of emotional ...exhaustion, burnout, and perceived stress among dental students in Mexico.
Methods
A cross-sectional study was conducted among 73 dental students attending a private university in Northern Mexico. Three scales were administered to students to identify emotional exhaustion, burnout, and perceived stress, and parametric data analysis was performed.
Results
Among participants (mean age 19.7 years), the proportion with emotional exhaustion, perceived high stress, and burnout was 52.0%, 42.3%, and 17.8%, respectively. All students with perceived stress also had burnout.
Conclusions
We found that emotional exhaustion and perceived stress are experienced by a large proportion of dentistry students enrolled in the third semester at this private university in Northern Mexico. The proportions were independent of age and sex.
Cell microencapsulation technology is likely to have an increasingly important role in new approaches rather than the classical and pioneering organ replacement. Apart from becoming a tool for ...protein and morphogen release and long-term drug delivery, it is becoming a new three-dimensional platform for stem cell research. Recent progress in the field has resulted in biodegradable scaffolds that are able to retain and release the cell content in different anatomical locations. Additional advances include the use biomimetic scaffolds that provide greater control over material–cell interactions and the development of more precise encapsulated cell-tracking systems. This review summarises the state of the art of cell microencapsulation and discusses the main directions and challenges of this field towards the controlled delivery of biological therapeutics.
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Lignocellulose is the most abundant biopolymer in the biosphere. It is inexpensive and therefore considered an attractive feedstock to produce biofuels and other biochemicals. Thermochemical and/or ...enzymatic pretreatment is used to release fermentable monomeric sugars. However, a variety of inhibitory by‐products such as weak acids, furans, and phenolics that inhibit cell growth and fermentation are also released. Phenolic compounds are among the most toxic components in lignocellulosic hydrolysates and slurries derived from lignin decomposition, affecting overall fermentation processes and production yields and productivity. Ligninolytic enzymes have been shown to lower inhibitor concentrations in these hydrolysates, thereby enhancing their fermentability into valuable products. Among them, laccases, which are capable of oxidizing lignin and a variety of phenolic compounds in an environmentally benign manner, have been used for biomass delignification and detoxification of lignocellulose hydrolysates with promising results. This review discusses the state of the art of different enzymatic approaches to hydrolysate detoxification. In particular, laccases are used in separate or in situ detoxification steps, namely in free enzyme processes or immobilized by cell surface display technology to improve the efficiency of the fermentative process and consequently the production of second‐generation biofuels and bio‐based chemicals.
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