Search results for "FIT"

2020

Physical exercise induces acute physiological changes leading to enhanced tissue cross-talk and a liberation of extracellular vesicles (EVs) into the circulation. EVs are cell-derived membranous entities which carry bioactive material, such as proteins and RNA species, and are important mediators of cell-cell-communication. Different types of physical exercise interventions trigger the release of diverse EV subpopulations, which are hypothesized to be involved in physiological adaptation processes leading to health benefits and longevity. Large EVs (“microvesicles” and “microparticles”) are studied frequently in the context of physical exercise using straight forward flow cytometry approach…

Fat-soluble nutrients and Omega-3 fatty acids as modifiable factors influencing preterm birth risk

2019

Preterm birth is a leading cause of child morbidity and mortality, so strategies to reduce early birth must remain a priority. One key approach to enhancing birth outcomes is improving maternal dietary intake. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to discuss mechanisms on perinatal status of fat-soluble nutrients (carotenoids, retinol, tocopherols) and omega-3 fatty acids and how they impact risk for preterm birth. Literature review demonstrates that maternal dietary intake and biological (blood and placental tissue) levels of fat-soluble nutrients during pregnancy may provide antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, and immunomodulatory health benefits. Omega-3 fatty acids also promote increas…

Epigenetic mutations can both help and hinder adaptive evolution.

2015

Epigenetic variation is being integrated into our understanding of adaptation, yet we lack models on how epigenetic mutations affect evolution that includes de novo genetic change. We model the effects of epigenetic mutations on the dynamics and endpoints of adaptive walks—a process where a series of beneficial mutations move a population towards a fitness optimum. We use an individual-based model of an asexual population, where mutational effects are drawn from Fisher's geometric model. We find cases where epigenetic mutations speed adaptation or result in populations with higher fitness. However, we also find cases where they slow adaptation or result in populations with lower fitness. Th…

Prickly Pear By-Product in the Feeding of Livestock Ruminants: Preliminary Investigation

2020

Simple Summary The question of sustainability of animal nutrition has become a popular topic. The gains made by recycling safe, yet otherwise valueless, by-products and wastes from human food and fiber production (green feeds) may lessen the competition between humans and animals for crops and decrease the environmental impact of food production. In this context, prickly pear by-product, which results from Opuntia ficus-indica (L.) Mill. fruits processed for juice extraction, could be an optimum by-product to ruminant feeding. This study evaluates the nutritional characteristics and its stability during storage using potassium metabisulfite as a preservative agent. This preliminary investig…

Viral fitness correlates with the magnitude and direction of the perturbation induced in the host’s transcriptome: the tobacco etch Potyvirus—tobacco…

2018

Determining the fitness of viral genotypes has become a standard practice in virology as it is essential to evaluate their evolutionary potential. Darwinian fitness, defined as the advantage of a given genotype with respect to a reference one, is a complex property that captures, in a single figure, differences in performance at every stage of viral infection. To what extent does viral fitness result from specific molecular interactions with host factors and regulatory networks during infection? Can we identify host genes in functional classes whose expression depends on viral fitness? Here, we compared the transcriptomes of tobacco plants infected with seven genotypes of tobacco etch potyv…

Physical fitness assessment in Goalball: A scoping review of the literature

2020

Background Goalball is a Paralympic sport for visually impaired athletes. Although it is widely practiced, a great variety of tests are adopted to evaluate athletes' physical fitness. Therefore, the objective was to identify the physical fitness tests adopted in this sport to find the common aspects between them and, eventually, to propose a standard operating procedure. Methods The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines were adopted. The studies were extracted from PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus. A selection process by title, abstract, and full-text, according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, was …

Statistically robust methylation calling for whole-transcriptome bisulfite sequencing reveals distinct methylation patterns for mouse RNAs

2017

AbstractCytosine-5 RNA methylation plays an important role in several biologically and pathologically relevant processes. However, owing to methodological limitations, the transcriptome-wide distribution of this mark has remained largely unknown. We previously established RNA bisulfite sequencing as a method for the analysis of RNA cytosine-5 methylation patterns at single-base resolution. More recently, next-generation sequencing has provided opportunities to establish transcriptome-wide maps of this modification. Here we present a computational approach that integrates tailored filtering and data-driven statistical modeling to eliminate many of the artifacts that are known to be associate…

A generalization of Kingman's model of selection and mutation and the Lenski experiment.

2017

Kingman’s model of selection and mutation studies the limit type value distribution in an asexual population of discrete generations and infinite size undergoing selection and mutation. This paper generalizes the model to analyze the long-term evolution of Escherichia. coli in Lenski experiment. Weak assumptions for fitness functions are proposed and the mutation mechanism is the same as in Kingman’s model. General macroscopic epistasis are designable through fitness functions. Convergence to the unique limit type distribution is obtained.

Viral replication modes in single-peak fitness landscapes: A dynamical systems analysis

2017

Positive-sense, single-stranded RNA viruses are important pathogens infecting almost all types of organisms. Experimental evidence from distributions of mutations and from viral RNA amplification suggest that these pathogens may follow different RNA replication modes, ranging from the stamping machine replication (SMR) to the geometric replication (GR) mode. Although previous theoretical work has focused on the evolutionary dynamics of RNA viruses amplifying their genomes with different strategies, little is known in terms of the bifurcations and transitions involving the so-called error threshold (mutation-induced dominance of mutants) and lethal mutagenesis (extinction of all sequences du…

One-Cell Doubling Evaluation by Living Arrays of Yeast, ODELAY!

2016

Abstract Cell growth is a complex phenotype widely used in systems biology to gauge the impact of genetic and environmental perturbations. Due to the magnitude of genome-wide studies, resolution is often sacrificed in favor of throughput, creating a demand for scalable, time-resolved, quantitative methods of growth assessment. We present ODELAY (One-cell Doubling Evaluation by Living Arrays of Yeast), an automated and scalable growth analysis platform. High measurement density and single-cell resolution provide a powerful tool for large-scale multiparameter growth analysis based on the modeling of microcolony expansion on solid media. Pioneered in yeast but applicable to other colony formin…