On November 2015, one of Brazil's most important watersheds was impacted by the mine waste from Fundão dam collapse in Mariana. The mine waste traveled over 600 km along the Doce River before ...reaching the sea, causing severe devastation along its way. Here we assessed trace element concentrations and cytogenotoxic effects of the released mine waste. Water samples were collected along the Doce River ten days after the disaster in two impacted sites and one non-impacted site. Sampling points were located hundreds of kilometers downstream of the collapsed dam. Water samples were used for trace element quantification and to run an experiment using Allium cepa to test cytogenotoxicity. We found extremely high concentrations of particulate Fe, Al, and Mn in the impacted sites. We observed cytogenotoxic effects such as alterations in mitotic and phase indexes, and enhanced frequency of chromosomal aberrations. Our results indicate interferences in the cell cycle in impacted sites located hundreds of kilometers downstream of the disaster. The environmental impacts of the dam collapse may not only be far-reaching but also very likely long-lasting, because the mine waste may persist in the Doce River sediment for decades.
•Higher concentrations of particulate metals were found in impacted sites.•Cytogenotoxic effects were found in the impacted sites.•Mining waste affected genetic aspects of Allium cepa.•Impacts of the tragedy are far-reaching and long-lasting.
Summary
The xyloglucan endotransglucosylase/hydrolases (XTHs) are enzymes involved in cell wall assembly and growth regulation, cleaving and re‐joining hemicellulose chains in the ...xyloglucan–cellulose network. Here, in a homologous system, we compare the secretion patterns of XTH11, XTH33 and XTH29, three members of the Arabidopsis thaliana XTH family, selected for the presence (XTH11 and XTH33) or absence (XTH29) of a signal peptide, and the presence of a transmembrane domain (XTH33). We show that XTH11 and XTH33 reached, respectively, the cell wall and plasma membrane through a conventional protein secretion (CPS) pathway, whereas XTH29 moves towards the apoplast following an unconventional protein secretion (UPS) mediated by exocyst‐positive organelles (EXPOs). All XTHs share a common C‐terminal functional domain (XET‐C) that, for XTH29 and a restricted number of other XTHs (27, 28 and 30), continues with an extraterminal region (ETR) of 45 amino acids. We suggest that this region is necessary for the correct cell wall targeting of XTH29, as the ETR‐truncated protein never reaches its final destination and is not recruited by EXPOs. Furthermore, quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction analyses performed on 4‐week‐old Arabidopsis seedlings exposed to drought and heat stress suggest a different involvement of the three XTHs in cell wall remodeling under abiotic stress, evidencing stress‐, organ‐ and time‐dependent variations in the expression levels. Significantly, XTH29, codifying the only XTH that follows a UPS pathway, is highly upregulated with respect to XTH11 and XTH33, which code for CPS‐secreted proteins.
Significance Statement
The cellular distribution of three xyloglucan endotransglucosylase/hydrolases (XTHs) was monitored comparatively while expressing respective fluorescent constructs in Arabidopsis cotyledons. We show that XTH11 and XTH33 follow conventional protein secretion towards cell wall and plasma membrane, respectively, whereas XTH29, the only XTH predicted to lack a signal peptide, is secreted into the wall via exocyst‐positive organelle‐mediated unconventional protein secretion (UPS). Significantly, XTH29, poorly expressed in physiological conditions, demonstrates upregulation under drought and high temperature conditions, suggesting a specific possible role for UPS‐secreted XTH29 in stress responses.
Changes in bioactive compounds and antioxidant activities of an ordinary (Rio Grande) and three high-lycopene (HLY 13, HLY 18 and Lyco 2) tomato cultivars (cvs) were studied at four different fruit ...ripening stages (green, green-orange, orange-red and red-ripe). Lipophilic and hydrophilic antioxidant activities (LAA and HAA, respectively) were determined and their correlations with ascorbic acid (AsA), dehydroascorbic acid (DHA), total vitamin C (AsA+DHA), phenolics, flavonoids, total carotenoid and lycopene contents were investigated. The stage of ripening significantly influenced the total carotenoid and lycopene contents, as well as the LAA of all investigated tomato cvs. Good correlations between LAA and both total carotenoid and lycopene contents were found using either the TEAC assay or the FRAP assay. During ripening, cvs HLY 13 and HLY 18 exhibited more than 100% higher total carotenoid and lycopene contents compared to Rio Grande. At the red-ripe stage, cv HLY 18 accumulated the highest phenolic and flavonoid contents. However, Lyco 2 showed the highest levels of DHA and total vitamin C. Although, the HAA of studied tomato cvs were also significantly influenced by the ripening stages, HAA resulted correlated only to the levels of phenolics and flavonoids when the TEAC assay was used. However, using the FRAP assay, the HAA were well correlated to the total vitamin C and DHA contents.
In this work a process for obtaining high vitamin E and carotenoid yields by supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO₂) extraction from pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata Duch.) is described. The results show ...that the use of a vacuum oven-dried residual moisture (∼8%) and milled (70 mesh sieve) pumpkin flesh matrix increased SC-CO₂ extraction yields of total vitamin E and carotenoids of ∼12.0- and ∼8.5-fold, respectively, with respect to the use of a freeze-dried and milled flesh matrix. The addition of milled (35 mesh) pumpkin seeds as co-matrix (1:1, w/w) allowed a further ∼1.6-fold increase in carotenoid yield, besides to a valuable enrichment of the extracted oil in vitamin E (274 mg/100 g oil) and polyunsaturated fatty acids. These findings encourage further studies in order to scale up the process for possible industrial production of high quality bioactive ingredients from pumpkin useful in functional food or cosmeceutical formulation.
Ideal Adsorbed Solution Theory (IAST) is a common method for modelling mixture adsorption isotherms based on pure component isotherms. When the adsorbent has distinct adsorption sites, the segregated ...version of IAST (SIAST) provides improved adsorbed loadings compared to IAST. We have adopted the concept of SIAST and applied it to an explicit isotherm model which takes into account the different sizes of the adsorbates: the so called Segregated Explicit Isotherm (SEI). The purpose of SEI is to have an explicit adsorption model that can consider both size-effects of the co-adsorbed molecules and surface heterogeneities. In sharp contrast to IAST and SIAST, no iterative scheme is required in case of SEI, which leads to much faster simulations. A comparative study has been performed to analyse the adsorption isotherms calculated using these three methods. The adsorbed loadings predicted by SEI and SIAST are in excellent agreement with the Grand-Canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) simulation data. The loadings estimated by IAST show considerable deviations from the GCMC data at high pressures. Breakthrough curve modelling is used to compare the effects of these three models at dynamic conditions. The explicit model (SEI) leads to the fastest simulation run time, followed by SIAST.
The objective of this review was to summarize the evidence concerning the benefit of varicocele treatment to improve natural fertility in subfertile males. We also analyzed the effect of varicocele ...treatment on conventional semen parameters and sperm functional tests. An electronic search to collect the data was performed using the PubMed/MEDLINE databases until July 2015. Data pooled from a variety of study designs indicate that varicocelectomy improves semen parameters in the majority of the treated men with clinical varicocele and abnormal semen parameters regardless of the chosen surgical method. Surgical varicocele repair was beneficial not only for alleviating oxidative stress-associated infertility but also to improve sperm nuclear DNA integrity. However, given the low magnitude of the effect size in sperm DNA integrity, further research is needed to elucidate its clinical significance. Conflicting results on the effect of varicocele treatment on natural fertility seem to be due to heterogeneous study designs and, more importantly, patient selection criteria. When these issues are controlled, current evidence indicates that treatment of subclinical varicocele is not warranted, as it does not seem to improve fertility. On the contrary, fair evidence indicates that varicocele treatment should be offered to infertile patients with palpable varicocele and abnormal semen parameters. This evidence supports the current guidelines issued by the American Urological Association and European Association of Urology, which state that varicocele treatment should be offered to male partners of infertile couples presenting for evaluation with clinical varicocele and semen parameters alterations.
Abstract Weight gain is an important side effect of most atypical antipsychotic drugs such as olanzapine. Moreover, although many animal models with metabolic side effects have been well defined, the ...interaction with other pathways has to be considered. The endocannabinoid system and the CB1 receptor (CB1R) are among the most promising central and peripheral targets involved in weight and energy balance. In this study we developed a rat model based 15-days treatment with olanzapine that shows weight gain and an alteration of the blood parameters involved in the regulation of energy balance and glucose metabolism. Consequently, we analysed whether, and by which mechanism, a co-treatment with the novel CB1R neutral antagonist NESS06SM, could attenuate the adverse metabolic effects of olanzapine compared to the reference CB1R inverse agonist rimonabant. Our results showed alterations of the cannabinoid markers in the nucleus accumbens and of orexigenic/anorexigenic markers in the hypothalamus of female rats treated with olanzapine. These molecular modifications could explain the excessive food intake and the resulting weight gain. Moreover, we confirmed that a co-treatment with CB1R antagonist/inverse agonist compounds decreased food intake and weight increment and restored all blood parameters, without altering the positive effects of olanzapine on behaviour. Furthermore, rimonabant and NESS06SM restored the metabolic enzymes in the liver and fat tissue altered by olanzapine. Therefore, CB1 receptor antagonist/inverse agonist compounds could be good candidate agents for the treatment of weight gain induced by olanzapine.
Significant differences were detected among tomato cvs in all studied antioxidant components, as well as in the antioxidant activity of their hydrophilic and lipophilic fractions. High-lycopene ...tomato cvs showed higher lycopene, β-carotene, HAA and LAA when compared to cv Donald. Cv HLY 18 showed the highest lycopene and β-carotene content with 232.9
mg/kg fresh weight (fw) and 19.4
mg/kg fw, respectively. Except for Kalvert, high-lycopene tomato cvs also obtained higher total vitamin C levels, with cv HLY 13 top ranking with an average of 352.8
mg/kg fw. LAA ranged from 133.5
μM Trolox/100
g fw in cv Donald to 540.1
μM Trolox/100
g fw in cv Lyco 2 and was significantly correlated to lycopene (
r
=
0.53;
p
<
0.01) and β-carotene (
r
=
0.56;
p
<
0.01) contents. A variation between 2.7- and 4.0-fold was found in LAA of high-lycopene tomato cvs compared to Donald. HAA was significantly correlated to the amount of DHA (
r
=
0.61;
p
<
0.01) and total vitamin C (
r
=
0.60;
p
<
0.01). Although these data require confirmation over a longer period of time, this investigation suggests a promising use of the high-lycopene tomato cvs for the production of tomatoes with higher nutritional quality.
In this study, the antioxidant components and of six high-lycopene (Lyco 1, Lyco 2, HLY 02, HLY 13, HLY 18 and Kalvert) and one ordinary (Donald) tomato cultivars (cvs) grown simultaneously in an open-field of the Southern Italy were investigated. Lycopene, β-carotene, lutein, total phenols, flavonoids, ascorbic acid (AsA), dehydroascorbic acid (DHA) and total vitamin C (AsA
+
DHA) contents, as well as hydrophilic and lipophilic antioxidant activities (HAA and LAA) were determined. Significant differences were detected among tomato cvs in all studied antioxidant components, as well as in the antioxidant activity of their hydrophilic and lipophilic fractions. High-lycopene tomato cvs showed higher lycopene, β-carotene, HAA and LAA when compared to cv Donald. Cv HLY 18 showed the highest lycopene and β-carotene content with 232.9
mg/kg fresh weight (fw) and 19.4
mg/kg fw, respectively. Except for Kalvert, high-lycopene tomato cvs also obtained higher total vitamin C levels, with cv HLY 13 top ranking with an average of 352.8
mg/kg fw. LAA ranged from 133.5
μM Trolox/100
g fw in cv Donald to 540.1
μM Trolox/100
g fw in cv Lyco 2 and was significantly correlated to lycopene (
r
=
0.53;
p
<
0.01) and β-carotene (
r
=
0.56;
p
<
0.01) contents. A variation between 2.7- and 4.0-fold was found in LAA of high-lycopene tomato cvs compared to Donald. HAA was significantly correlated to the amount of DHA (
r
=
0.61;
p
<
0.01) and total vitamin C (
r
=
0.60;
p
<
0.01). Although these data require confirmation over a longer period of time, this investigation suggests a promising use of the high-lycopene tomato cvs for the production of tomatoes with higher nutritional quality.
Many fruits, including watermelon, are proficient in carotenoid accumulation during ripening. While most genes encoding steps in the carotenoid biosynthetic pathway have been cloned, few ...transcriptional regulators of these genes have been defined to date. Here we describe the identification of a set of putative carotenoid-related transcription factors resulting from fresh watermelon carotenoid and transcriptome analysis during fruit development and ripening. Our goal is to both clarify the expression profiles of carotenoid pathway genes and to identify candidate regulators and molecular targets for crop improvement.
Total carotenoids progressively increased during fruit ripening up to ~55 μg g(-1) fw in red-ripe fruits. Trans-lycopene was the carotenoid that contributed most to this increase. Many of the genes related to carotenoid metabolism displayed changing expression levels during fruit ripening generating a metabolic flux toward carotenoid synthesis. Constitutive low expression of lycopene cyclase genes resulted in lycopene accumulation. RNA-seq expression profiling of watermelon fruit development yielded a set of transcription factors whose expression was correlated with ripening and carotenoid accumulation. Nineteen putative transcription factor genes from watermelon and homologous to tomato carotenoid-associated genes were identified. Among these, six were differentially expressed in the flesh of both species during fruit development and ripening.
Taken together the data suggest that, while the regulation of a common set of metabolic genes likely influences carotenoid synthesis and accumulation in watermelon and tomato fruits during development and ripening, specific and limiting regulators may differ between climacteric and non-climacteric fruits, possibly related to their differential susceptibility to and use of ethylene during ripening.
The immune system is essential to maintain the mutualistic homeostatic interaction between the host and its micro- and mycobiota. Living as a commensal, Saccharomyces cerevisiae could potentially ...shape the immune response in a significant way. We observed that S. cerevisiae cells induce trained immunity in monocytes in a strain-dependent manner through enhanced TNFα and IL-6 production upon secondary stimulation with TLR ligands, as well as bacterial and fungal commensals. Differential chitin content accounts for the differences in training properties observed among strains, driving induction of trained immunity by increasing cytokine production and direct antimicrobial activity both in vitro and in vivo. These chitin-induced protective properties are intimately associated with its internalization, identifying a critical role of phagosome acidification to facilitate microbial digestion. This study reveals how commensal and passenger microorganisms could be important in promoting health and preventing mucosal diseases by modulating host defense toward pathogens and thus influencing the host microbiota-immune system interactions.
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