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Evaluation of benazepril in cats with heart disease in a prospective, randomized, blinded, placebo‐controlled clinical trial
No full textBackground:Heart disease is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in cats,but there is limited evidence of the benefit of any medication.[br/]
Hypothesis:The angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor benazepril would delaythe time to treatment failure in cats with heart disease of various etiologies.[br/]
Animals:One hundred fifty-one client-owned cats[br/].[br/]
Methods:Cats with heart disease, confirmed by echocardiography, with or withoutclinical signs of congestive heart failure, were recruited between 2002 and 2005and randomized to benazepril or placebo in a prospective, multicenter, parallel-group, blinded clinical trial. Benazepril (0.5-1.0 mg/kg) or placebo was administeredPO once daily for up to 2 years. The primary endpoint was treatment failure. Ana-lyses were conducted separately for all-cause treatment failure (main analysis) andheart disease-related treatment failure (supportive analysis).[br/]
Results:No benefit of benazepril versus placebo was detected for time to all-causetreatment failure (P= .42) or time to treatment failure related to heart disease(P= .21). Hazard ratios (95% confidence interval [CI]) from multivariate analysis forbenazepril compared with placebo were 1.00 (0.57-1.74) for all-cause failure, and0.99 (0.50-1.94) for forward selection and 0.93 (0.48-1.81) for bidirectional selec-tion models for heart disease-related failure. There were no significant differencesbetween groups over time after administration of the test articles in left atriumdiameter, left ventricle wall thickness, quality of life scores, adverse events, orplasma biochemistry or hematology variables.[br/]
Conclusions and Clinical Relevance:Benazepril was tolerated well in cats withheart disease, but no evidence of benefit was detecte
New insights into the heat responses of grape leaves via combined phosphoproteomic and acetylproteomic analyses
No full textHeat stress is a serious and widespread threat to the quality and yield of many crop species, including grape (Vitis vinifera L.), which is cultivated worldwide. Here, we conducted phosphoproteomic and acetylproteomic analyses of leaves of grape plants cultivated under four distinct temperature regimes. The phosphorylation or acetylation of a total of 1011 phosphoproteins with 1828 phosphorites and 96 acetyl proteins with 148 acetyl sites changed when plants were grown at 35 degrees C, 40 degrees C, and 45 degrees C in comparison with the proteome profiles of plants grown at 25 degrees C. The greatest number of changes was observed at the relatively high temperatures. Functional classification and enrichment analysis indicated that phosphorylation, rather than acetylation, of serine/arginine-rich splicing factors was involved in the response to high temperatures. This finding is congruent with previous observations by which alternative splicing events occurred more frequently in grapevine under high temperature. Changes in acetylation patterns were more common than changes in phosphorylation patterns in photosynthesis-related proteins at high temperatures, while heat-shock proteins were associated more with modifications involving phosphorylation than with those involving acetylation. Nineteen proteins were identified with changes associated with both phosphorylation and acetylation, which is consistent with crosstalk between these posttranslational modification types
Amino acidic substitutions in the polymerase N-terminal region of a reassortant betanodavirus strain causing poor adaptation to temperature increase
No full textNervous necrosis virus (NNV), Genus Betanodavirus, is the causative agent of viral encephalopathy and retinopathy (VER), a neuropathological disease that causes fish mortalities worldwide. The NNV genome is composed of two single-stranded RNA molecules, RNA1 and RNA2, encoding the RNA polymerase and the coat protein, respectively. Betanodaviruses are classified into four genotypes: red-spotted grouper nervous necrosis virus (RGNNV), striped jack nervous necrosis virus (SJNNV), barfin flounder nervous necrosis virus (BFNNV) and tiger puffer nervous necrosis virus (TPNNV). In Southern Europe the presence of RGNNV, SJNNV and their natural reassortants (in both RNA1/RNA2 forms: RGNNV/SJNNV and SJNNV/RGNNV) has been reported. Pathology caused by these genotypes is closely linked to water temperature and the RNA1 segment encoding amino acids 1-445 has been postulated to regulate viral adaptation to temperature. Reassortants isolated from sole (RGNNV/SJNNV) show 6 substitutions in this region when compared with the RGNNV genotype (positions 41, 48, 218, 223, 238 and 289). We have demonstrated that change of these positions to those present in the RGNNV genotype cause low and delayed replication in vitro when compared with that of the wild type strain at 25 and 30 degrees C. The experimental infections confirmed the impact of the mutations on viral replication because at 25 degrees C the viral load and the mortality were significantly lower in fish infected with the mutant than in those challenged with the non-mutated virus. It was not possible to challenge fish at 30 degrees C because of the scarce tolerance of sole to this temperature
Intégration des systèmes de traitement et de modèles de plantes pour l’adaptation de la REUT aux usages
No full textBORDER proteins protect expression of neighboring genes by promoting 3′ Pol II pausing in plants
No full textEnsuring that one gene’s transcription does not inappropriately affect the expression ofits neighbors is a fundamental challenge to gene regulation in a genomic context. Inplants, which lack homologs of animal insulator proteins, the mechanisms that preventtranscriptional interference are not well understood. Here we show that BORDER proteins areenriched in intergenic regions and prevent interference between closely spaced genes on thesame strand by promoting the 3′pausing of RNA polymerase II at the upstream gene. In theabsence of BORDER proteins, 3′pausing associated with the upstream gene is reduced andshifts into the promoter region of the downstream gene. This is consistent with a model inwhich BORDER proteins inhibit transcriptional interference by preventing RNA polymerasefrom intruding into the promoters of downstream gene
How do trees respond to species mixing in experimental compared to observational studies?
No full textFor decades, ecologists have investigated the effects of tree species diversity on tree productivity at different scales and with different approaches ranging from observational to experimental study designs. Using data from five European national forest inventories (16,773 plots), six tree species diversity experiments (584 plots), and six networks of comparative plots (169 plots), we tested whether tree species growth responses to species mixing are consistent and therefore transferrable between those different research approaches. Our results confirm the general positive effect of tree species mixing on species growth (16% on average) but we found no consistency in species-specific responses to mixing between any of the three approaches, even after restricting comparisons to only those plots that shared similar mixtures compositions and forest types. These findings highlight the necessity to consider results from different research approaches when selecting species mixtures that should maximize positive forest biodiversity and functioning relationships
Comparison of Dry Versus Wet Milling to Improve Bioethanol or Methane Recovery from Solid Anaerobic Digestate
No full textBiogas plants for waste treatment valorization are presently experiencing rapid development, especially in the agricultural sector, where large amounts of digestate are being generated. In this study, we investigated the effect of vibro-ball milling (VBM) for 5 and 30 min at a frequency of 20 s−1 on the physicochemical composition and enzymatic hydrolysis (30 U g−1 total solids (TS) of cellulase and endo-1,4-xylanase from Trichoderma longibrachiatum) of dry and wet solid separated digestates from an agricultural biogas plant. We found that VBM of dry solid digestate improved the physical parameters as both the particle size and the crystallinity index (from 27% to 75%) were reduced. By contrast, VBM of wet solid digestate had a minimal effect on the physicochemical parameters. The best results in terms of cellulose and hemicelluloses hydrolysis were noted for 30 min of VBM of dry solid digestate, with hydrolysis yields of 64% and 85% for hemicelluloses and cellulose, respectively. At the condition of 30 min of VBM, bioethanol and methane production on the dry solid separated digestate was investigated. Bioethanol fermentation by simultaneous saccharification and fermentation resulted in an ethanol yield of 98 geth kg−1 TS (corresponding to 90% of the theoretical value) versus 19 geth kg−1 TS for raw solid digestate. Finally, in terms of methane potential, VBM for 30 min lead to an increase of the methane potential of 31% compared to untreated solid digestate
Functional shifts in bird communities from semi-natural oak forests to conifer plantations are not consistent across Europe
No full textWhile the area of plantation forest increased globally between 2010 and 2015, more than twice the area of natural forests was lost over the same period (6.5 million ha natural forest lost per year versus 3.2 million ha plantation gained per year). Consequently, there is an increasing need to understand how plantation land use affects biodiversity. The relative conservation value of plantation forests is context dependent, being influenced by previous land use, management regimes and landscape composition. What is less well understood, and of importance to conservation management, is the consistency of diversity patterns across regions, and the degree to which useful generalisations can be provided within and among bioregions. Here, we analyse forest birds in Ireland, France and Portugal, representing distinct regions across the Atlantic biogeographic area of Europe. We compared taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity of bird communities among conifer plantations and semi-natural oak forests, and assessed correlations between species traits and forest type across these regions. Although bird composition (assessed with NMDS ordination) differed consistently between plantation and oak forests across all three regions, species richness and Shannon diversity did not show a consistent pattern. In Ireland and France, metrics of taxonomic diversity (richness and Shannon diversity), functional diversity, functional dispersion and phylogenetic diversity were greater in oak forests than plantations. However, in Portugal taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity did not differ significantly between forest types, while functional diversity and dispersion were statistically significantly greater in plantations. No single bird trait-forest type association correlated in a consistent direction across the three study regions. Trait associations for the French bird communities appeared intermediate between those in Ireland and Portugal, and when trait correlations were significant in both Ireland and Portugal, the direction of the correlation was always opposite. The variation in response of bird communities to conifer plantations indicates that care is needed when generalising patterns of community diversity and assembly mechanisms across regions
Coelomocytes regulate starvation-induced fat catabolism and lifespan extension through the lipase LIPL-5 in Caenorhabditis elegans
No full textDietary restriction is known to extend the lifespan and reduce fat stores in most species tested to date, but the molecular mechanisms linking these events remain unclear. Here, we found that bacterial deprivation of Caenorhabditis elegans leads to lifespan extension with concomitant mobilization of fat stores. We find that LIPL-5 expression is induced by starvation and that the LIPL-5 lipase is present in coelomocyte cells and regulates fat catabolism and longevity during the bacterial deprivation response. Either LIPL-5 or coelomocyte deficiency prevents the rapid mobilization of intestinal triacylglycerol and enhanced lifespan extension in response to bacterial deprivation, whereas the combination of both defects has no additional or synergistic effect. Thus, the capacity to mobilize fat via LIPL-5 is directly linked to an animal's capacity to withstand long-term nutrient deprivation. Our data establish a role for LIPL-5 and coelomocytes in regulating fat consumption and lifespan extension upon DR