Search results for "Eukaryota"
showing 10 items of 235 documents
Crowdsourced analysis of fungal growth and branching on microfluidic platforms
2021
Fungal hyphal growth and branching are essential traits that allow fungi to spread and proliferate in many environments. This sustained growth is essential for a myriad of applications in health, agriculture, and industry. However, comparisons between different fungi are difficult in the absence of standardized metrics. Here, we used a microfluidic device featuring four different maze patterns to compare the growth velocity and branching frequency of fourteen filamentous fungi. These measurements result from the collective work of several labs in the form of a competition named the “Fungus Olympics.” The competing fungi included five ascomycete species (ten strains total), two basidiomycete…
Pharmacological blockade of the fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) alters neural proliferation, apoptosis and gliosis in the rat hippocampus, hypothal…
2015
Endocannabinoids participate in the control of neurogenesis, neural cell death and gliosis. The pharmacological effect of the fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) inhibitor URB597, which limits the endocannabinoid degradation, was investigated in the present study. Cell proliferation (phospho-H3(+) or BrdU(+) cells) of the main adult neurogenic zones as well as apoptosis (cleaved caspase-3(+)), astroglia (GFAP(+)), and microglia (Iba1(+) cells) were analyzed in the hippocampus, hypothalamus and striatum of rats intraperitoneally treated with URB597 (0.3 mg/kg/day) at one dose/4-days resting or 5 doses (1 dose/day). Repeated URB597 treatment increased the plasma levels of the N-acylethanolamine…
Validation of a novel automatic deposition of bacteria and yeasts on MALDI target for MALDI-TOF MS-based identification using MALDI Colonyst robot
2017
Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) -based identification of bacteria and fungi significantly changed the diagnostic process in clinical microbiology. We describe here a novel technique for bacterial and yeast deposition on MALDI target using an automated workflow resulting in an increase of the microbes' score of MALDI identification. We also provide a comparison of four different sample preparation methods. In the first step of the study, 100 Gram-negative bacteria, 100 Gram-positive bacteria, 20 anaerobic bacteria and 20 yeasts were spotted on the MALDI target using manual deposition, semi-extraction, wet deposition onto 70% formic …
Paleoceanography of the Late Cretaceous northwestern Tethys Ocean: Seasonal upwelling or steady thermocline?
2020
In this study we attempted to assess whether seasonal upwelling or a steady thermocline persisted at the western margin of the Tethys Ocean during the late Turonian-early Coniacian interval. For this scope, we employed novel and published stable oxygen isotope (δ18O) data of various organisms (bivalves, bivalves, brachiopods, fish and belemnites). New seasonally resolved temperature estimates were based on the δ18O record of sequentially sampled inoceramid (Inoceramus sp.) and rudist (Hippurites resectus) shells from the Scaglia Rossa and Gosau deposits of northern Italy and western Austria, respectively. Diagenetic screening was performed using reflected light, cathodoluminescence (CL), sc…
Tick-borne pathogens in Ixodes ricinus ticks collected from migratory birds in southern Norway
2020
Birds are important hosts for the first life stages of the Ixodes ricinus tick and they can transport their parasites over long distances. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, Anaplasma phagocytophilum, Neoehrlichia mikurensis and Rickettsia helvetica in ticks collected from migratory birds in Norway. A total of 815 Ixodes ricinus ticks from 216 birds trapped at Lista Bird Observatory in southern Norway during spring and autumn migration in 2008 were analysed by real-time PCR. B. burgdorferi s. l. was the most prevalent pathogen, detected in 6.1% of the ticks. The prevalence of N. mikurensis, A. phagocytophilum and R. helvetica was 1.2%…
A new styracosternan hadrosauroid (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the Early Cretaceous of Portell, Spain
2021
A new styracosternan ornithopod genus and species is described based on the right dentary of a single specimen from the Mirambell Formation (Early Cretaceous, early Barremian) at the locality of Portell, (Castellón, Spain).Portellsaurus sosbaynatigen. et sp. nov. is diagnosed by two autapomorphic features as well as a unique combination of characters. The autapomorphies include: the absence of a bulge along the ventral margin directly ventral to the base of the coronoid process and the presence of a deep oval cavity on the medial surface of the mandibular adductor fossa below the eleventh-twelfth tooth position. Phylogenetic analyses reveal that the new Iberian form is more closely related …
Importance of Propionibacterium acnes hemolytic activity in human intervertebral discs: A microbiological study
2018
Most patients with chronic lower back pain (CLBP) exhibit degenerative disc disease. Disc specimens obtained during initial therapeutic discectomies are often infected/colonized with Propionibacterium acnes, a Gram-positive commensal of the human skin. Although pain associated with infection is typically ascribed to the body's inflammatory response, the Gram-positive bacterium Staphylococcus aureus was recently observed to directly activate nociceptors by secreting pore-forming α-hemolysins that disrupt neuronal cell membranes. The hemolytic activity of P. acnes in cultured disc specimens obtained during routine therapeutic discectomies was assessed through incubation on sheep-blood agar. T…
Dental disease and dietary isotopes of individuals from St Gertrude Church cemetery, Riga, Latvia.
2018
This research explores oral health indicators and stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data to explore diet, and differences in diet, between people buried in the four different contexts of the St Gertrude Church cemetery (15th– 17th centuries AD): the general cemetery, two mass graves, and a collective mass burial pit within the general cemetery. The main aim is to assess whether people buried in the mass graves were rural immigrants, or if they were more likely to be the victims of plague (or another epidemic) who lived in Riga and its suburbs. The data produced (from dental disease assessments and isotope analyses) were compared within, as well as between, the contexts. Most differences em…
Complementary methods assessing short and long-term prey of a marine top predator ‒ Application to the grey seal-fishery conflict in the Baltic Sea.
2019
The growing grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) population in the Baltic Sea has created conflicts with local fisheries, comparable to similar emerging problems worldwide. Adequate information on the foraging habits is a requirement for responsible management of the seal population. We investigated the applicability of available dietary assessment methods by comparing morphological analysis and DNA metabarcoding of gut contents (short-term diet; n = 129/125 seals, respectively), and tissue chemical markers i.e. fatty acid (FA) profiles of blubber and stable isotopes (SIs) of liver and muscle (mid- or long-term diet; n = 108 seals for the FA and SI markers). The methods provided complementary inf…
Temperature-induced microstructural changes in shells of laboratory-grown Arctica islandica (Bivalvia).
2021
Bivalve shells are increasingly used as archives for high-resolution paleoclimate analyses. However, there is still an urgent need for quantitative temperature proxies that work without knowledge of the water chemistry–as is required for δ18O-based paleothermometry–and can better withstand diagenetic overprint. Recently, microstructural properties have been identified as a potential candidate fulfilling these requirements. So far, only few different microstructure categories (nacreous, prismatic and crossed-lamellar) of some short-lived species have been studied in detail, and in all such studies, the size and/or shape of individual biomineral units was found to increase with water temperat…