Search results for "technique"
showing 10 items of 5596 documents
Marinomonas spartinae sp. nov., a novel species with plant-beneficial properties.
2016
Two strains of Gram-stain-negative, chemo-organotrophic, aerobic and halophilic gammaproteobacteria, isolated from within the stem and roots of Spartina maritima in salt marshes from the south Atlantic Spanish coast, were found to represent a novel species in the genus Marinomonas through phylogenetic analysis of their 16S rRNA genes and phenotypic characterization. 16S rRNA gene sequences of the two strains shared < 96.2 % similarity with other Marinomonas species, with Marimonas alcarazii being the most similar in sequence. They required sodium ions for growth, were able to thrive at low (4 °C) temperatures and at salinities of 12–15 %, were unable to hydrolyse any tested macromolecule ex…
Marinomonas blandensis sp. nov., a novel marine gammaproteobacterium.
2016
A novel Gram-staining-negative, chemoorganotrophic, moderately halophilic, strictly aerobic bacterium, strain MED121T, was isolated from a seawater sample collected at the Blanes Bay Microbial Observatory in the north-western Mediterranean Sea. Analysis of its 16S rRNA gene sequence, retrieved from the whole-genome sequence, showed that this bacterium was most closely related to Marinomonas dokdonensis and other Marinomonas species (96.3 and 93.3–95.7 % sequence similarities, respectively), within the family Oceanospirillaceae . Strain MED121T was included into a whole-genome sequencing study and, subsequently, it was characterized using a polyphasic taxonomic approach. It was found to be o…
Composition and geographic variation of the bacterial microbiota associated with the coelomic fluid of the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus
2020
AbstractIn the present work, culture-based and culture-independent investigations were performed to determine the microbiota structure of the coelomic fluid of Mediterranean sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus individuals collected from two distinct geographical sites neighboring a high-density population bay and a nature reserve, respectively. Next Generation Sequencing analysis of 16S rRNA gene (rDNA) showed that members of the Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Fusobacteria phyla, which have been previously reported to be commonly retrieved from marine invertebrates, dominate the overall population of microorganisms colonizing this liquid tissue, with minority bacterial genera exhibiting rem…
Neuronal LRP4 regulates synapse formation in the developing CNS
2017
The low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 4 (LRP4) is essential in muscle fibers for the establishment of the neuromuscular junction. Here, we show that LRP4 is also expressed by embryonic cortical and hippocampal neurons, and that downregulation of LRP4 in these neurons causes a reduction in density of synapses and number of primary dendrites. Accordingly, overexpression of LRP4 in cultured neurons had the opposite effect inducing more but shorter primary dendrites with an increased number of spines. Transsynaptic tracing mediated by rabies virus revealed a reduced number of neurons presynaptic to the cortical neurons in which LRP4 was knocked down. Moreover, neuron-specific kno…
Regulation of Dendritic Spine Morphology in Hippocampal Neurons by Copine-6.
2015
Dendritic spines compartmentalize information in the brain, and their morphological characteristics are thought to underly synaptic plasticity. Here we identify copine-6 as a novel modulator of dendritic spine morphology. We found that brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) - a molecule essential for long-term potentiation of synaptic strength - upregulated and recruited copine-6 to dendritic spines in hippocampal neurons. Overexpression of copine-6 increased mushroom spine number and decreased filopodia number, while copine-6 knockdown had the opposite effect and dramatically increased the number of filopodia, which lacked PSD95. Functionally, manipulation of post-synaptic copine-6 level…
Measuring spectrally-resolved information transfer.
2020
Information transfer, measured by transfer entropy, is a key component of distributed computation. It is therefore important to understand the pattern of information transfer in order to unravel the distributed computational algorithms of a system. Since in many natural systems distributed computation is thought to rely on rhythmic processes a frequency resolved measure of information transfer is highly desirable. Here, we present a novel algorithm, and its efficient implementation, to identify separately frequencies sending and receiving information in a network. Our approach relies on the invertible maximum overlap discrete wavelet transform (MODWT) for the creation of surrogate data in t…
Design, synthesis and preliminary evaluation of dopamine-amino acid conjugates as potential D1 dopaminergic modulators.
2016
Abstract The dopamine-amino acid conjugate DA-Phen was firstly designed to obtain a useful prodrug for the therapy of Parkinson's disease, but experimental evidence shows that it effectively interacts with D1 dopamine receptors (D1DRs), leading to an enhancement in cognitive flexibility and to the development of adaptive strategies in aversive mazes, together with a decrease in despair-like behavior. In this paper, homology modelling, molecular dynamics, and site mapping of D1 receptor were carried out with the aim of further performing docking studies on other dopamine conjugates compared with D1 agonists, in the attempt to identify new compounds with potential dopaminergic activity. Two n…
Usefulness of Caco-2/HT29-MTX and Caco-2/HT29-MTX/Raji B Coculture Models To Predict Intestinal and Colonic Permeability Compared to Caco-2 Monocultu…
2017
The Caco-2 cellular monolayer is a widely accepted in vitro model to predict human permeability but suffering from several and critical limitations. Therefore, some alternative cell cultures to mimic the human intestinal epithelium, as closely as possible, have been developed to achieve more physiological conditions, as the Caco-2/HT29-MTX coculture and the triple Caco-2/HT29-MTX/Raji B models. In this work the permeability of 12 model drugs of different Biopharmaceutical Classification System (BCS) characteristics, in the coculture and triple coculture models was assessed. Additionally, the utility of both models to classify compounds according to the BCS criteria was scrutinized. The obta…
Advances in drug-induced cholestasis: Clinical perspectives, potential mechanisms and in vitro systems
2018
Despite growing research, drug-induced liver injury (DILI) remains a serious issue of increasing importance to the medical community that challenges health systems, pharmaceutical industries and drug regulatory agencies. Drug-induced cholestasis (DIC) represents a frequent manifestation of DILI in humans, which is characterised by an impaired canalicular bile flow resulting in a detrimental accumulation of bile constituents in blood and tissues. From a clinical point of view, cholestatic DILI generates a wide spectrum of presentations and can be a diagnostic challenge. The drug classes mostly associated with DIC are anti-infectious, anti-diabetic, anti-inflammatory, psychotropic and cardiov…
Autophagy is required for sea urchin oogenesis and early development.
2016
SummaryAutophagy is a major intracellular pathway for the degradation and recycling of cytosolic components. Emerging evidence has demonstrated its crucial role during the embryo development of invertebrates and vertebrates. We recently demonstrated a massive activation of autophagy in Paracentrotus lividus embryos under cadmium stress conditions, and the existence of a temporal relationship between induced autophagy and apoptosis. Although there have been numerous studies on the role of autophagy in the development of different organisms, information on the autophagic process during oogenesis or at the start of development in marine invertebrates is very limited. Here we report our recent …