Search results for "Multidisciplinary"

2019

Urothelial cancer (UC) is one of the most common cancers in Europe and is also one of the costliest to treat. When first line therapies show initial success, around 50% of cancers relapse and proceed to metastasis. In this study we assessed the Protein inhibitor of activated signal transducers and activators of transcription (PIAS)1 as a potential therapeutic target in urothelial cancer. PIAS1 is a key regulator of STAT1 signalling and may be implicated in carcinogenesis. In contrast to other cancer types PIAS1 protein expression is not significantly different in malignant areas of UC specimens compared to non-malignant tissue. In addition, we found that down-regulation and overexpression o…

The endophytic microbiota of Citrus limon is transmitted from seed to shoot highlighting differences of bacterial and fungal community structures

2021

AbstractCitrus limon (L.) Burm. F. is an important evergreen fruit crop whose rhizosphere and phyllosphere microbiota  have been characterized, while seed microbiota is still unknown. Bacterial and fungal endophytes were isolated from C. limon surface-sterilized seeds. The isolated fungi—belonging to Aspergillus, Quambalaria and Bjerkandera genera—and bacteria—belonging to Staphylococcus genus—were characterized for indoleacetic acid production and phosphate solubilization. Next Generation Sequencing based approaches were then used to characterize the endophytic bacterial and fungal microbiota structures of surface-sterilized C. limon seeds and of shoots obtained under aseptic conditions fr…

Human Leukocyte Antigens Class II Alleles Affecting the Response to 5–7 Year Antiretroviral Therapy in A Latvian Cohort

2019

Abstract Antiretroviral therapy (ART) aims at suppressing viral replication and strengthening immune system in patients with HIV-1. Human Leukocyte Antigens (HLA) are among factors responsible for effectiveness of ART. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of HLA Class II alleles on the response to long-time ART, assessed by a change in CD4+ T-cell count in relation to viral load. The sample included 69 patients (17 females and 52 males) aged 20 to 50 with HIV-1 infection, who were undergoing ART in the Latvian Centre of Infectious Diseases. The median period of observation was 5.7 years. CD4+ T-cell count and viral load were analysed at the baseline and end of the period of obs…

Scientific Reports

2019

Anthropogenic climate change ranks among the major global-scale threats to modern biodiversity. Extinction risks are known to increase via the interactions between rapid climatic alterations and environmentally-sensitive species traits that fail to adapt to those changes. Accumulating evidence reveals the influence of ecophysiological, ecological and phenological factors as drivers underlying demographic collapses that lead to population extinctions. However, the extent to which life-history traits influence population responses to climate change remains largely unexplored. The emerging 'cul-de-sac hypothesis' predicts that reptilian viviparity ('live-bearing' reproduction), a 'key innovati…

Next stop: Language : the ?FOXP2? gene?s journey through time

2016

How did humans evolve language? The fossil record does not yield enough evidence to reconstruct its evolution and animals do not talk. But as the neural and molecular substrates of language are uncovered, their genesis and function can be addressed comparatively in other species. FOXP2 is such a case – a gene with a strong link to language that is also essential for learning in mice, birds and even flies. Comparing the role FOXP2 plays in humans and other animals is starting to reveal common principles that may have provided building blocks for language evolution.

Influence of pathway topology and functional class on the molecular evolution of human metabolic genes

2018

Metabolic networks comprise thousands of enzymatic reactions functioning in a controlled manner and have been shaped by natural selection. Thanks to the genome data, the footprints of adaptive (positive) selection are detectable, and the strength of purifying selection can be measured. This has made possible to know where, in the metabolic network, adaptive selection has acted and where purifying selection is more or less strong and efficient. We have carried out a comprehensive molecular evolutionary study of all the genes involved in the human metabolism. We investigated the type and strength of the selective pressures that acted on the enzyme-coding genes belonging to metabolic pathways …

Differential binding cell-SELEX method to identify cell-specific aptamers using high-throughput sequencing

2018

AbstractAptamers have in recent years emerged as a viable alternative to antibodies. High-throughput sequencing (HTS) has revolutionized aptamer research by increasing the number of reads from a few (using Sanger sequencing) to millions (using an HTS approach). Despite the availability and advantages of HTS compared to Sanger sequencing, there are only 50 aptamer HTS sequencing samples available on public databases. HTS data in aptamer research are primarily used to compare sequence enrichment between subsequent selection cycles. This approach does not take full advantage of HTS because the enrichment of sequences during selection can be due to inefficient negative selection when using live…

Twitter as a tool for teaching and communicating microbiology: the #micromoocsem initiative

2016

López-Goñi, Ignacio et al.

A comprehensive review of energy sources for unmanned aerial vehicles, their shortfalls and opportunities for improvements

2020

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles were first introduced almost 40 years ago and their applications have increased and diversified substantially since then, in both commercial and private use. One of the UAVs main issues when it comes to mobility is that the power sources available are inadequate, this highlights an area for improvement as the interest in drones is on the increase. There exist many different types of power supplies applied to UAVs, however each has their own limitations and strengths that pertain to weight contributions, charging and discharging times, size, payload capabilities, energy density and power density. The aim of this paper is to review the main power sources available for…

Topographic Independent Component Analysis reveals random scrambling of orientation in visual space

2017

Neurons at primary visual cortex (V1) in humans and other species are edge filters organized in orientation maps. In these maps, neurons with similar orientation preference are clustered together in iso-orientation domains. These maps have two fundamental properties: (1) retinotopy, i.e. correspondence between displacements at the image space and displacements at the cortical surface, and (2) a trade-off between good coverage of the visual field with all orientations and continuity of iso-orientation domains in the cortical space. There is an active debate on the origin of these locally continuous maps. While most of the existing descriptions take purely geometric/mechanistic approaches whi…