COVID-19 is a worldwide health emergency, therapy for this disease is based on antiviral drugs and immunomodulators, however, there is no treatment to effectively reduce the COVID-19 mortality rate. ...Fucoidan is a polysaccharide obtained from marine brown algae, with anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and immune-enhancing properties, thus, fucoidan may be used as an alternative treatment (complementary to prescribed medical therapy) for the recovery of COVID-19. This work aimed to determine the effects of ex-vivo treatment with fucoidan on cytotoxicity, apoptosis, necrosis, and senescence, besides functional parameters of calcium flux and mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm) on human peripheral blood mononuclear cells isolated from SARS-CoV-2 infected, recovered and healthy subjects. Data suggest that fucoidan does not exert cytotoxicity or senescence, however, it induces the increment of intracellular calcium flux. Additionally, fucoidan promotes recovery of ΔΨm in PBMCs from COVID-19 recovered females. Data suggest that fucoidan could ameliorate the immune response in COVID-19 patients.
Diazinon is an organophosphate insecticide commonly used worldwide to chemically control different organisms considered as pests. In the past years, diazinon has been described to have immunotoxic ...effects in several species. Nile tilapia is a teleost fish with an ecological and economic importance, which is also one of the fishes with the highest consumption around the world. The aim of this study was to evaluate the production of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) from fish Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) exposed to diazinon (0.97, 1.95, and 3.91 mg/L) for 6 and 24 h. The results obtained indicate that the exposure to diazinon per se increases NETs production. Therefore, these results could be involved in the understanding of the inflammatory process induced by exposure to pesticides.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
How can knowledge management professionals position themselves for greatest success? Providing practical guidance for professionals, and including mini-case studies of successes and failures, this ...book demonstrates how to map knowledge resources to support business critical capabilities, and increase the impact of knowledge management projects.
The RPB1 mutants in the foot region of RNA polymerase II affect the assembly of the complex by altering the correct association of both the Rpb6 and the Rpb4/7 dimer. Assembly defects alter both ...transcriptional activity as well as the amount of enzyme associated with genes. Here, we show that the global transcriptional analysis of foot mutants reveals the activation of an environmental stress response (ESR), which occurs at a permissive temperature under optimal growth conditions. Our data indicate that the ESR that occurs in foot mutants depends mostly on a global post-transcriptional regulation mechanism which, in turn, depends on Rpb4–mRNA imprinting. Under optimal growth conditions, we propose that Rpb4 serves as a key to globally modulate mRNA stability as well as to coordinate transcription and decay. Overall, our results imply that post-transcriptional regulation plays a major role in controlling the ESR at both the transcription and mRNA decay levels.
•Environmental stress response (ESR) is modulated by post-transcriptional regulation.•RNA pol II assembly defects affect mRNA transcription/decay and induce ESR.•Rpb4 globally modulates mRNA stability and coordinate transcription and decay.
To clinicopathologically characterize the diagnosis of oral lichenoid disease (OLD) and its main subtypes: oral lichen planus (OLP) and oral lichenoid lesion (OLL), in order to correctly asses their ...prognosis.
Ambispective cohort study of 384 patients with diagnosis of OLD, based on pre-established clinical and histopathological criteria. We have analysed 272 (70.8%) women and 112 (29.2%), whose mean age was 57.1+/-11.8 years (range 21-90); minimum follow-up time was 36 months. A specific protocol was designed for this study, where we gathered the data of each patient, including malignant transformation.
OLP was diagnosed in 229 cases (77.9%) and OLL in 85 (22.1%). Tobacco consumption was found in 20.3% of the patients and alcohol intake in 41.1%. Liver pathology was present in 10.7% of the cases, thyroid pathology in 11.5%, arterial hypertension in 15.6%, diabetes mellitus in 7.6%, psycho-emotional disorders in 33.3%, skin involvement in 12% and genital involvement in 4.9%. Ten patients (2.6%) developed an oral squamous cell carcinoma, 5 (1.7%) with OLP and 5 (5.9%) with OLL.
OLD is a potentially malignant disorder of the oral mucosa which has to be correctly diagnosed as either OLP or OLL, since the risk of malignancy of these subtypes is significantly different.
Fecal samples or cloacal swabs are preferred over lethal dissections to study vertebrate gut microbiota for ethical reasons, but it remains unclear which nonlethal methods provide more accurate ...information about gut microbiota. We compared the bacterial communities of three gastrointestinal tract (GIT) segments, that is, stomach, small intestine (midgut), and rectum (hindgut) with the bacterial communities of the cloaca and feces in the mesquite lizard Sceloporus grammicus. The hindgut had the highest taxonomic and functional alpha diversity, followed by midgut and feces, whereas the stomach and cloaca showed the lowest diversities. The taxonomic assemblages of the GIT segments at the phylum level were strongly correlated with those retrieved from feces and cloacal swabs (rs > 0.84 in all cases). The turnover ratio of Amplicon Sequence Variants (ASVs) between midgut and hindgut and the feces was lower than the ratio between these segments and the cloaca. More than half of the core‐ASVs in the midgut (24 of 32) and hindgut (58 of 97) were also found in feces, while less than 5 were found in the cloaca. At the ASVs level, however, the structure of the bacterial communities of the midgut and hindgut were similar to those detected in feces and cloaca. Our findings suggest that fecal samples and cloacal swabs of spiny lizards provide a good approximation of the taxonomic assemblages and beta diversity of midgut and hindgut microbiota, while feces better represent the bacterial communities of the intestinal segments at a single nucleotide variation level than cloacal swabs.
We compared the accuracy of two nonlethal methods for characterizing the gut microbiota of free‐ranging spiny lizards. The bacterial community composition in the three different gut segments were correlated to those retrieved from the fecal and cloacal samples (Spearman's rank correlations >0.85). Hence, we conclude that both fecal samples and cloacal swabs are reliable nonlethal methods to characterize the gut microbiota of lizards.
Diet composition and its ecological drivers are rarely investigated in coexisting closely related species. We used a molecular approach to characterize the seasonal variation in diet composition in ...four spiny lizard species inhabiting a mountainous ecosystem. DNA metabarcoding revealed that the lizards Sceloporus aeneus, S. bicanthalis, S. grammicus, and S. spinosus mostly consumed arthropods of the orders Hemiptera, Araneae, Hymenoptera, and Coleoptera. The terrestrial lizards S. aeneus and S. bicanthalis mostly predated ants and spiders, whereas the arboreal–saxicolous S. grammicus and saxicolous S. spinosus largely consumed grasshoppers and leafhoppers. The taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of the prey was higher during the dry season than the rainy season, likely because reduced prey availability in the dry season forced lizards to diversify their diets to meet their nutritional demands. Dietary and phylogenetic composition varied seasonally depending on the species, but only dietary composition varied with altitude. Seasonal dietary turnover was greater in S. spinosus than in S. bicanthalis, suggesting site‐specific seasonal variability in prey availability; no other differences among species were observed. S. bicanthalis, which lives at the highest altitude in our study site, displayed interseasonal variation in diet breadth. Dietary differences were correlated with the species’ feeding strategies and elevational distribution, which likely contributed to the coexistence of these lizard species in the studied geographic area and beyond.
By applying DNA metabarcoding approach, we explored the seasonal diet variation among four Sceloporus lizard species (S. aeneus, S. bicanthalis, S. grammicus, and S. spinosus) inhabiting a mountainous region in central Mexico. Our results demonstrated that these species are generalist predators feeding on different arthropod orders such as Coleoptera, Araneae, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, and Diptera. More importantly, taxonomic and phylogenetic richness of prey ingested was higher during the dry season compared to the rainy season. This finding probably implies that there is a greater abundance of food resources during the rainy season, which induces a homogeneous diet and reduces dietary diversity among lizard species.
Abstract
A new generation of resistive plate chambers, capable of withstanding high particle fluxes (up to 2000 Hz · cm
-2
) and instrumented with precise timing readout electronics is proposed to ...equip two of the four high pseudorapidity stations of the CMS muon system. Double-gap RPC detectors, with each gap made of two 1.4 mm High Pressure Laminate electrodes and separated by a gas gap of the same thickness, are proposed. The new layout reduces the amount of the avalanche charge produced by the passage of a charged particle through the detector. This improves the RPC rate capability by reducing the needed time to collect this charge. To keep the RPC efficiency high, a sensitive, low-noise and high time resolution front-end electronics is needed to cope with the lower charge signal of the new RPC. An ASIC called PETIROC that has all these characteristics has been selected to read out the strips of new chambers. Thin (0.6 mm) printed circuit board, 160 cm long, equipped with pickup strips of 0.75 cm average pitch, will be inserted between the two new RPC's gaps. The strips will be read out from both ends, and the arrival time difference of the two ends will be used to determine the hit position along the strip. Results from the improved RPC equipped with the new readout system and exposed to cosmic muons in the high irradiation environment at CERN GIF++ facility are presented in this work.
Abstract
During the upcoming High Luminosity phase of the Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC), the integrated luminosity of the accelerator will increase to 3000 fb
−1
. The expected experimental ...conditions in that period in terms of background rates, event pileup, and the probable aging of the current detectors present a challenge for all the existing experiments at the LHC, including the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment. To ensure a highly performing muon system for this period, several upgrades of the Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC) system of the CMS are currently being implemented. These include the replacement of the readout system for the present system, and the installation of two new RPC stations with improved chamber and front-end electronics designs. The current overall status of this CMS RPC upgrade project is presented.
During Phase-2 of the LHC, known as the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), the accelerator will increase its instantaneous luminosity to 5×1034 cm−2 s−1, delivering an integrated luminosity of 3000 fb−1 ...over 10 years of operation starting from 2027. In view of the HL-LHC, the CMS muon system will be upgraded to sustain efficient muon triggering and reconstruction performance. Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) serve as dedicated detectors for muon triggering due to their excellent timing resolution, and will extend the acceptance up to pseudorapidity values of |η|=2.4. Before Long Shutdown 3 (LS3), the RE3/1 and RE4/1 stations of the endcap will be equipped with new improved Resistive Plate Chambers (iRPCs) having different design and geometry than the present RPC system. The iRPC geometry configuration improves the detector's rate capability and its ability to survive the harsh background conditions of the HL-LHC . Also, new electronics with excellent timing performances (time resolution of less than 150 ps) are developed to read out the RPC detectors from both sides of the strips to allow for good spatial resolution along them. The performance of the iRPC has been studied with gamma radiation at the Gamma Irradiation Facility (GIF++) at CERN. Ongoing longevity studies will help to certify the iRPCs for the HL-LHC running period. The main detector parameters such as the current, rate and resistivity are regularly monitored as a function of the integrated charge. Preliminary results of the detector performance will be presented.
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