Gut microbiota has been suggested to modulate circulating lipids. However, the relationship between the gut microbiota and atherogenic dyslipidemia (AD), defined as the presence of both low HDL-C and ...hypertriglyceridemia, is not fully understood. Moreover, because obesity is among the main causes of secondary AD, it is important to analyze the effect of gut microbiota composition on lipid profiles after a weight loss intervention. We compared the microbial diversity and taxonomic composition in patients with AD (n = 41) and controls (n = 38) and sought correlations of genera abundance with serum lipid levels in 20 patients after weight loss induced by Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) surgery. Gut microbiota composition was profiled using next-generation sequencing of 16S rRNA. Gut microbiota diversity was significantly lower in atherogenic dyslipidemia. Moreover, relative abundance of two genera with LDA score >3.5 (Megasphaera and LPS-producing Escherichia-Shigella), was significantly higher in AD subjects, while the abundance of four short chain fatty acids (SCFA) producing-genera (Christensenellaceae R-7, Ruminococcaceae UCG-014; Akkermansia and Eubacterium eligens group) was significantly higher in controls. Notably, Eubacterium eligens group abundance was also significantly associated with higher HDL-C levels in RYGB patients one year after surgery. Although dietary polyunsaturated fatty acid/saturated fatty acid (PUFA/SFA) ratio and PUFA intake were higher in controls than in AD subjects, of the four genera differentiated in cases and controls, only Akkermansia abundance showed a positive and significant correlation with PUFA/SFA ratio. Our results suggest that SCFA-producing bacteria promote a healthy lipid homeostasis, while the presence of LPS-producing bacteria such Escherichia-Shigella may contribute to the development of atherogenic dyslipidemia.
Reef corals in the Mexican Reef System have been severely affected by the emergence of a white syndrome that resembles both White Plague II and SCTLD descriptions. Meandroid scleractinian coral ...species are among the most severely affected. To gain insight into this affliction we conducted a broad study in the brain coral
at a rear reef site in the NE Mexican Caribbean. We describe macro and microscopical signals of the disease, characterize the outbreak dynamics, the tissue histopathology, explore immunological responses in the individuals, and compare microbial assemblages associated with the surface mucus layer of healthy and unhealthy colonies. At the study site, the white syndrome outbreak on
showed a high incidence rate in summer-fall and a low one in winter, as well as low survival expectation of diseased colonies at the end of the study. After 306 days of observation, out of 96 tracked colonies, eight remained apparently healthy and seven were diseased. No effective resistance to colony disease progression was observed once white syndrome signs developed. Tissue loss rate during the study varied among colonies (mean = 10.8 cm
, s.d. = 7.8 cm
) suggesting a complex relation between causal agents and colony resistance. The deterioration of tissues was evidenced from the basal to the surface body wall of polyps (up to 66% hypertrophy and liquefactive necrosis in unhealthy colonies), implying that microscopic alterations begin before macroscopic signals develop, suggesting this may be a systemic disease. We measured high levels of phenoloxidase (two orders of magnitude higher PO activity than
affected by BBD) and antibacterial activity without significant reduction in unhealthy samples from the mucus layer, indicative of an enhanced immunological response. Results showed that opportunistic bacteria dominated damaged colonies, where six genera of the Bacteroidia class were found with significant changes in unhealthy colonies after DeSeq2 analysis. Nevertheless, histological observations did not support infection of the tissues. The opportunistic overload seems to be contained within the mucus layer but may be associated with the mortality of tissues in a yet unclear way. Future research should focus on experimental infections, the tracking of natural infections, and the immunocompetence of corals in the face of environmental pressures due to local, regional, and global impacts. If environmental deterioration is the primary cause of the continuing emergence and re-emergence of lethal coral diseases, as has been proposed by many authors, the only true option to effectively help preserve the coral reef biodiversity and services, is to restore the environmental quality of reef waters at the local scale and reduce greenhouse gases at the global scale.
This paper presents a First-Order Recurrent Neural Network activated by a wavelet function, in particular a Morlet wavelet, with a fixed set of parameters and capable of identifying multiple chaotic ...systems. By maintaining a fixed structure for the neural network and using the same activation function, the network can successfully identify the three state variables of several different chaotic systems, including the Chua, PWL-Rössler, Anishchenko–Astakhov, Álvarez-Curiel, Aizawa, and Rucklidge models. The performance of this approach was validated by numerical simulations in which the accuracy of the state estimation was evaluated using the Mean Square Error (MSE) and the coefficient of determination (r2), which indicates how well the neural network identifies the behavior of the individual oscillators. In contrast to the methods found in the literature, where a neural network is optimized to identify a single system and its application to another model requires recalibration of the neural algorithm parameters, the proposed model uses a fixed set of parameters to efficiently identify seven chaotic systems. These results build on previously published work by the authors and advance the development of robust and generic neural network structures for the identification of multiple chaotic oscillators.
Herpesvirus infections in cetaceans have always been attributed to the Alphaherpesvirinae and Gammaherpesvirinae subfamilies. To date, gammaherpesviruses have not been reported in the central nervous ...system of odontocetes.
A mass stranding of 14 striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba) occurred in Cantabria (Spain) on 18th May 2019. Tissue samples were collected and tested for herpesvirus using nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and for cetacean morbillivirus using reverse transcription-PCR. Cetacean morbillivirus was not detected in any of the animals, while gammaherpesvirus was detected in nine male and one female dolphins. Three of these males were coinfected by alphaherpesviruses. Alphaherpesvirus sequences were detected in the cerebrum, spinal cord and tracheobronchial lymph node, while gammaherpesvirus sequences were detected in the cerebrum, cerebellum, spinal cord, pharyngeal tonsils, mesenteric lymph node, tracheobronchial lymph node, lung, skin and penile mucosa. Macroscopic and histopathological post-mortem examinations did not unveil the potential cause of the mass stranding event or any evidence of severe infectious disease in the dolphins. The only observed lesions that may be associated with herpesvirus were three cases of balanitis and one penile papilloma.
To the authors' knowledge, this is the first report of gammaherpesvirus infection in the central nervous system of odontocete cetaceans. This raises new questions for future studies about how gammaherpesviruses reach the central nervous system and how infection manifests clinically.
Display omitted
•PaV1 infection caused dysbiosis in gut microbiota of juvenile Panulirus argus.•Basal gut microbiota showed a sex-biased composition.•Increase of the genus Candidatus Bacilloplasma ...was observed in PaV1-infected lobsters.•A decrease in multiple gut-associated genera was observed in infected lobsters.•An alteration in the abundance of species of the genus Vibrio was observed.
The spiny lobster Panulirus argus (Latreille, 1804) is currently affected by an unenveloped, icosahedral, DNA virus termed Panulirus argus virus 1 (PaV1), a virulent and pathogenic virus that produces a long-lasting infection that alters the physiology and behaviour of heavily infected lobsters. Gut-associated microbiota is crucial for lobster homeostasis and well-being, but pathogens could change microbiota composition affecting its function. In PaV1 infection, the changes of gut-associated microbiota are yet to be elucidated. In the present study, we used high-throughput 16S rRNA sequencing technology to compare the bacterial microbiota in intestines of healthy and heavily PaV1-infected male and female juveniles of spiny lobsters P. argus captured in Puerto Morelos Reef lagoon, Quintana Roo, Mexico. We found that basal gut-associated microbiota composition showed a sex-dependent bias, with females being enriched in amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) assigned to Sphingomonas, while males were enriched in the genus Candidatus Hepatoplasma and Aliiroseovarius genera. Moreover, the alpha diversity of microbiota decreased in PaV1-infected lobsters. A significant increase of the genus Candidatus Bacilloplasma was observed in infected lobsters, as well as a significant decrease in Nesterenkonia, Caldalkalibacillus, Pseudomonas, Cetobacterium and Phyllobacterium. We also observed an alteration in the abundances of Vibrio species. Results from this study suggest that PaV1 infection impacts intestinal microbiota composition in Panulirus argus in a sex-dependent manner.
Currently, the Wallace Rule of Nines is the most widely used method to measure total body surface area (TBSA) in burned patients due to its practicality and speed in its application; however, it ...often provides inaccurate estimations in obese patients, affecting the fluid resuscitation process.
In this study, we aimed to modify and optimize the Rule of Nines’ values for its application in these patients.
We compared the estimations of the TBSA established by the Wallace Rule of Nines against the measurements of the three-dimensional (3D) software Skanect - Meshmixer 3.5Ⓡ in participants without different obesity grades. Based on our results, we generate an optimized guideline for the evaluation of TBSA in normal body mass index (BMI) and obese patients.
In our study, 32 participants were recruited with a mean age of 28.5 ± 3.3 years. In the general population, we observed a poor correlation between the Wallace Rule of Nines and the 3D method measures in all body regions (e.g., Anterior Trunk: 18.0 vs. 16.61 ± 2.11, p = 0.0008) except the anterior arm. Interestingly, these differences narrowed in the Trunk and Leg regions as the participants' BMI increased (e.g., Anterior Trunk in Obesity Grade II patients: 18.0 vs. 18.66 ± 1.69, p = 0.3089).
We found important differences in TBSA determination using the 3D Skanect-MeshmixerⓇ software compared with the Wallace Rule of Nines. Therefore, we generated a modified and optimized Wallace Rule of Nines estimations based on BMI. Future studies are needed to assess the safety and efficacy of this optimized table.
Introducción. Las infecciones por bacterias resistentes a los antibióticos convencionales constituyen un problema de salud mundial. Igualmente, el parásito causante de la malaria, principal ...enfermedad parasitaria tropical, ha desarrollado resistencia a los medicamentos tradicionales. En este sentido, las aminopeptidasas ePepN, de la bacteriaEscherichia coli, y PfA-M1, del parásito Plasmodium falciparum, constituyen nuevos blancos en estas enfermedades. El objetivo de este trabajo fue la identificación de inhibidores sintéticos de ePepN y PfA-M1, con potencialidades como agentes antibacterianos y antimaláricos. Métodos. Mediante dos reacciones multicomponentes de Ugi se sintetizaron dos bibliotecas de 33 peptidomiméticos basados en la bestatina y la actinonina, y se evaluaron frente a PfA-M1. Además, se sintetizaron 22 peptidomiméticos tetrazoles, los cuales se evaluaron frente a ePepN. Resultados. Frente a esta enzima, se identificaron 3 tetrazoles (YTE003, YTE007 y YTE008) como inhibidores potentes y selectivos de ePepN, en comparación con la aminopeptidasa M1 porcina (APNp). El YTE003 presenta actividad antibacteriana in vitro, lo que refuerza sus potencialidades como compuesto líder en el campo de los agentes antibacterianos. Frente a PfA-M1, se identificó el compuesto KBE009 como un inhibidor potente, con actividad antimalárica in vitro, que no inhibe a la APNp a concentraciones de relevancia terapéutica, y no es citotóxico hasta 200 µmol/L frente a la línea de células humanas HUVEC. Se comprobó que el KBE009 inhibe la actividad aminopeptidasa en el parásito íntegro y aislado en el mismo orden de magnitud que su actividad antimalárica in vitro. Estas propiedades permiten considerar al peptidomimético una molécula promisoria como compuesto líder contra la malaria.
Neuromyelitis Optica (NMO) is an autoimmune disease with a higher prevalence in non-European populations. Because the Mexican population resulted from the admixture between mainly Native American and ...European populations, we used genome-wide microarray, HLA high-resolution typing and AQP4 gene sequencing data to analyze genetic ancestry and to seek genetic variants conferring NMO susceptibility in admixed Mexican patients. A total of 164 Mexican NMO patients and 1,208 controls were included. On average, NMO patients had a higher proportion of Native American ancestry than controls (68.1% vs 58.6%; p = 5 × 10
). GWAS identified a HLA region associated with NMO, led by rs9272219 (OR = 2.48, P = 8 × 10
). Class II HLA alleles HLA-DQB1*03:01, -DRB1*08:02, -DRB1*16:02, -DRB1*14:06 and -DQB1*04:02 showed the most significant associations with NMO risk. Local ancestry estimates suggest that all the NMO-associated alleles within the HLA region are of Native American origin. No novel or missense variants in the AQP4 gene were found in Mexican patients with NMO or multiple sclerosis. To our knowledge, this is the first study supporting the notion that Native American ancestry significantly contributes to NMO susceptibility in an admixed population, and is consistent with differences in NMO epidemiology in Mexico and Latin America.
Abstract
VIrus Particle ExploreR data base (VIPERdb) (http://viperdb.scripps.edu) is a curated repository of virus capsid structures and a database of structure-derived data along with various virus ...specific information. VIPERdb has been continuously improved for over 20 years and contains a number of virus structure analysis tools. The release of VIPERdb v3.0 contains new structure-based data analytics tools like Multiple Structure-based and Sequence Alignment (MSSA) to identify hot-spot residues within a selected group of structures and an anomaly detection application to analyze and curate the structure-derived data within individual virus families. At the time of this writing, there are 931 virus structures from 62 different virus families in the database. Significantly, the new release also contains a standalone database called ‘Virus World database’ (VWdb) that comprises all the characterized viruses (∼181 000) known to date, gathered from ICTVdb and NCBI, and their capsid protein sequences, organized according to their virus taxonomy with links to known structures in VIPERdb and PDB. Moreover, the new release of VIPERdb includes a service-oriented data engine to handle all the data access requests and provides an interface for futuristic data analytics using machine leaning applications.
PDF
