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Correlation of Micro-Computed Tomography Assessment of Valvular Mineralisation with Histopathological and Immunohistochemical Features of Calcific Aortic Valve Disease
Get PDFAortic valve stenosis is a serious disease with increasing prevalence in developed countries. Research aimed at uncovering the molecular mechanisms behind its main cause, aortic valve calcification, is thus crucial for the development of future therapies. It is frequently difficult to measure the extent of mineralisation in soft tissues and some methods require the destruction of the sample. Micro-computed tomography (µCT), a non-destructive technique, was used to quantify the density and volume of calcium deposits on cusps from 57 explanted aortic valves. Conventional and immunostaining techniques were used to characterise valve tissue degeneration and the inflammatory and osteogenic stage with several markers. Although most of the analysed cusps came from severe stenosis patients, the µCT parameter bone volume/tissue volume ratio distinguished several degrees of mineralisation that correlated with the degree of structural change in the tissue and the amount of macrophage infiltration as determined by CD68 immunohistochemistry. Interestingly, exosomal markers CD63 and Alix co-localised with macrophage infiltration surrounding calcium deposits, suggesting that those vesicles could be produced at least in part by these immune cells. In conclusion, we have shown that the ex vivo assessment of aortic valve mineralisation with µCT reflects the molecular and cellular changes in pathological valves during progression towards stenosis. Thus, our results give additional validity to quantitative μCT as a convenient laboratory tool for basic research on this type of cardiovascular calcification.This work was financed by the Spanish National Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation 2013-2016; ISCIII–FEDER/ERDF (PI1800694); Thematic Network for Collaborative Research in Health RETICS REDinREN from ISCIII (RD16/0009/0005); and Fundación Asturcor. G.S.-B. acknowledges receipt of a graduate fellowship from the Gobierno del Principado de Asturias (“Severo Ochoa” program). I.R. is financially supported by Fundación para la Investigación y la Innovación Biosanitaria del Principado de Asturias (FINBA).Funders had no role in the design, execution, interpretation, or writing of the study
Comparison of the microbial composition of African fermented foods using amplicon sequencing
Get PDFFermented foods play a major role in the diet of people in Africa, where a wide variety of raw materials are fermented. Understanding the microbial populations of these products would help in the design of specific starter cultures to produce standardized and safer foods. In this study, the bacterial diversity of African fermented foods produced from several raw materials (cereals, milk, cassava, honey, palm sap, and locust beans) under different conditions (household, small commercial producers or laboratory) in 8 African countries was analysed by 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing during the Workshop “Analysis of the Microbiomes of Naturally Fermented Foods Training Course”. Results show that lactobacilli were less abundant in fermentations performed under laboratory conditions compared to artisanal or commercial fermentations. Excluding the samples produced under laboratory conditions, lactobacilli is one of the dominant groups in all the remaining samples. Genera within the order Lactobacillales dominated dairy, cereal and cassava fermentations. Genera within the order Lactobacillales, and genera Zymomonas and Bacillus were predominant in alcoholic beverages, whereas Bacillus and Lactobacillus were the dominant genera in the locust bean sample. The genus Zymomonas was reported for the first time in dairy, cereal, cassava and locust bean fermentations
Lab-on-paper electroanalytical devices: towards the fully integration of steps
Get PDFThe authors would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO, CTQ2014-58826-R) and also University of Oviedo (PAPI-19-Puente), the EU and the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) / UEFISCDI / FORMAS for funding (consortium REWATER financed under the ERA-NET Cofund WaterWorks2015 Call. This ERA-NETis an integral part of the 2016 Joint Activities developed by the Water Challenges for a Changing World Joint Programme Initiative (Water JPI). E. Costa-Rama also thanks the Government of Principado de Asturias and Marie Curie-Cofund Actions for the post-doctoral grant “Clarín-Cofund” ACA17-20. A. González-López thanks the Governement of Principado de Asturias for a pre-doctoral “Severo Ochoa” grant and O. Amor-Gutiérrez the University of Oviedo for her pre-doctoral grant25th Latin-American Symposium on Biotechnology, Biomedical, Biopharmaceutical, and Industrial Applications of Capillary Electrophoresis and Microchip Technolog
Comparison of Different Approaches in Reflectarray Synthesis Based on Intersection Approach
Get PDFThis work presents a comparison between a number of numerical techniques for the copolar synthesis of reflectarray antennas. These techniques are based on the generalized intersection approach. The classical phase-only synthesis (POS) is considered using different methodologies to compute the gradient: the analytical approach by exactly calculating the derivative and two numerical methods based on finite differences, one using the FFT and another the technique of differential contributions (DFC). In addition, a direct layout optimization (DLO) for copolar synthesis is also considered. In order to make the DLO efficient, a surrogate model of the unit cell is employed. A computing time study is presented, showing that for copolar only synthesis at a single frequency, the POS technique using DFC has superior performance. Finally, a large reflectarray with European footprint for satellite broadcasting is synthesized, comparing the results obtained with all techniques.This work was supported in part by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades under project TEC2017-86619-R (ARTEINE); by the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad under project TEC2016-75103-C2-1-R (MYRADA); by the Gobierno del Principado de Asturias/FEDER under Project GRUPIN-IDI/2018/000191; by the Gobierno del Principado de Asturias through Programa "Clarín" de Ayudas Postdoctorales / Marie Curie-Cofund under project ACA17-09; by Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte / Programa de Movilidad “Salvador de Madariaga” (Ref. PRX18/00424).International Conference on Electromagnetics in Advanced Applications (ICEAA
Reseña: ALONSO RUIZ, Begoña, GÓMEZ MARTÍNEZ, Javier, POLO SÁNCHEZ, Julio J., SAZATORNIL RUIZ, Luis, y VILLASEÑOR SEBASTIÁN, Fernando (eds.), La Formación Artística: Creadores-Historiadores- Espectadores
No full textLos especialistas Begoña Alonso Ruiz, Javier Gómez Martínez, Julio J. Polo Sánchez, Luis Sazatornil Ruiz y Fernando Villaseñor Sebastián son los encargados de editar esta extensa obra estructurada en dos tomos. Se trata de un trabajo colectivo resultado de la celebración del XXI Congreso Nacional de Historia del Arte (CEHA) que tuvo lugar en el Palacio de la Magdalena de Santander (España) entre los días 20 y 23 de septiembre de 2016. Apenas dos años después, las actas de este congreso ven la luz en esta amplia publicación