scholarly journals Results and prospects of geosystem monitoring in Prioksko-Terrasny biosphere reserve

Author(s):  
E. G. Kolomyts

The empirical-statistical models of spatial organization and function of forest biogeocoenoses of the Prioksko-Terrasny Reserve are developed. The edaphic climaxes of forest communities reflecting the diversity of zonal structures of this subtaiga region are revealed. The causal mechanisms of climax formation are described. The role of catenary organization of biogeocoenoses, as well as the lithogenic factor and the hydrological regime in the structure of forest cover is demonstrated. It is shown that the nature reserve can be a favorable testing ground for regional geosystem monitoring. However, the range of objects for solving the problems of global biosphere monitoring is very limited here due to ubiquitous forest regeneration successions. The two groups of forest biogeocoenoses are proposed as priority objects in respect to structural development and biological cycle parameters – (1) mesomorphic and meso-xeromorphic pine-lime-oak and pine-lime mixed grass and broad grass forests in a wide range of landscape interfaces (from eluvial geotopes to transaccumulative); (2) meso-hydromorphic spruce and spruce-pine acid-green forests of flat poorly drained watersheds (eluvial). This significantly diversifies the objects of geosystem monitoring.

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (13) ◽  
pp. 1486-1494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melinda E. Tóth ◽  
Brigitta Dukay ◽  
Zsófia Hoyk ◽  
Miklós Sántha

Serum lipid levels are closely related to the structure and function of blood vessels. Chronic hyperlipidemia may lead to damage in both the cardio- and the cerebrovascular systems. Vascular dysfunctions, including impairments of the blood-brain barrier, are known to be associated with neurodegenerative diseases. A growing number of evidence suggests that cardiovascular risk factors, such as hyperlipidemia, may increase the likelihood of developing dementia. Due to differences in lipoprotein metabolism, wild-type mice are protected against dietinduced hypercholesterolemia, and their serum lipid profile is different from that observed in humans. Therefore, several transgenic mouse models have been established to study the role of different apolipoproteins and their receptors in lipid metabolism, as well as the complications related to pathological lipoprotein levels. This minireview focused on a transgenic mouse model overexpressing an apolipoprotein, the human ApoB-100. We discussed literature data and current advancements on the understanding of ApoB-100 induced cardio- and cerebrovascular lesions in order to demonstrate the involvement of this type of apolipoprotein in a wide range of pathologies, and a link between hyperlipidemia and neurodegeneration.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Mattke ◽  
Srividya Vasu ◽  
Carly M. Darden ◽  
Kenjiro Kumano ◽  
Michael C. Lawrence ◽  
...  

Exosomes are known for their ability to transport nucleic acid, lipid, and protein molecules, which allows for communication between cells and tissues. The cargo of the exosomes can have a variety of effects on a wide range of targets to mediate biological function. Pancreatic islet transplantation is a minimally invasive cell replacement therapy to prevent or reverse diabetes mellitus and is currently performed in patients with uncontrolled type 1 diabetes or chronic pancreatitis. Exosomes have become a focus in the field of islet transplantation for the study of diagnostic markers of islet cell viability and function. A growing list of miRNAs identified from exosomes collected during the process of isolating islets can be used as diagnostic biomarkers of islet stress and damage, leading to a better understanding of critical steps of the isolation procedure that can be improved to increase islet yield and quality. Exosomes have also been implicated as a possible contributor to islet graft rejection following transplantation, as they carry donor major histocompatibility complex molecules, which are then processed by recipient antigen-presenting cells and sensed by the recipient immune cells. Exosomes may find their way into the therapeutic realm of islet transplantation, as exosomes isolated from mesenchymal stem cells have shown promising results in early studies that have seen increased viability and functionality of isolated and grafted islets in vitro as well as in vivo. With the study of exosomes still in its infancy, continued research on the role of exosomes in islet transplantation will be paramount to understanding beta cell regeneration and improving long-term graft function.


Comunicar ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (45) ◽  
pp. 95-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariano Sánchez-Martínez ◽  
Matthew Kaplan ◽  
Leah Bradley

Nowadays, as ageing increases in Western societies it has become more evident that multiple generations are ageing concurrently at any given time in history. Therefore, ageing must be approached as a multi-generational phenomenon, not just as a question of elders. In this context, situations that engender increased interactions between generations are garnering more attention. There is a growing emphasis on expanding the role of technology in intergenerational programmes, within the field of intergenerational studies. Consequently, this paper is focused on education and learning processes within intergenerational programmes with a strong technology component. Information from a total of 46 intergenerational programmes from 11 countries has been gathered through a survey. Level of impact, status of generational groups, and centrality of technology have been appraised for all programmes in the sample. Technology learning-teaching constitute the main area of intended impact of these programmes. However, the surveyed programmes employ as well a wide range of strategies to facilitate intergenerational communication, cooperation and relationship formation between generations involved. Interest of programmes examined does not just consist of teaching the use technology but of experimenting with technology in different forms and functions and exploring the positive potential for enhancing intergenerational relationships Actualmente, conforme el envejecimiento en las sociedades occidentales aumenta, resulta más evidente que en cualquier momento histórico dado hay varias generaciones envejeciendo simultáneamente. Por tanto, el envejecimiento debe ser estudiado como fenómeno multi-generacional y no solo como un asunto de personas mayores. En este contexto, están suscitando más atención las situaciones que implican más interacciones intergeneracionales. Dentro del campo intergeneracional está aumentando el interés en torno a las posibilidades de expandir el papel de la tecnología en los programas intergeneracionales. En consecuencia, este artículo se centra en los procesos de educación y aprendizaje acaecidos dentro de programas intergeneracionales con un fuerte componente tecnológico. Mediante un sondeo se recogió información sobre un total de 46 de este tipo de programas de 11 países. Todos se han evaluado en la muestra según su nivel de impacto, el estatus de los grupos generacionales y la centralidad de la tecnología. La enseñanza-aprendizaje de la tecnología constituye la principal área de impacto buscada por estos programas, que, no obstante, también utilizan una amplia variedad de estrategias para facilitar la comunicación, la cooperación y la formación de relaciones intergeneracionales entre las generaciones implicadas. El interés de los programas analizados no solo consiste en enseñar a utilizar la tecnología sino en experimentar diferentes formas y funciones con ella, así como en explorar el potencial positivo de la tecnología para mejorar las relaciones intergeneracionales


10.2196/18218 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (11) ◽  
pp. e18218
Author(s):  
Helen Atherton ◽  
Anne-Marie Boylan ◽  
Abi Eccles ◽  
Joanna Fleming ◽  
Clare R Goyder ◽  
...  

Background Increasingly, consultations in health care settings are conducted remotely using a range of communication technologies. Email allows for 2-way text-based communication, occurring asynchronously. Studies have explored the content and nature of email consultations to understand the use, structure, and function of email consultations. Most previous content analyses of email consultations in primary care settings have been conducted in North America, and these have shown that concerns and assumptions about how email consultations work have not been realized. There has not been a UK-based content analysis of email consultations. Objective This study aims to explore and delineate the content of consultations conducted via email in English general practice by conducting a content analysis of email consultations between general practitioners (GPs) and patients. Methods We conducted a content analysis of anonymized email consultations between GPs and patients in 2 general practices in the United Kingdom. We examined the descriptive elements of the correspondence to ascertain when the emails were sent, the number of emails in an email consultation, and the nature of the content. We used a normative approach to analyze the content of the email consultations to explore the use and function of email consultation. Results We obtained 100 email consultations from 85 patients, which totaled 262 individual emails. Most email users were older than 40 years, and over half of the users were male. The email consultations were mostly short and completed in a few days. Emails were mostly sent and received during the day. The emails were mostly clinical in content rather than administrative and covered a wide range of clinical presentations. There were 3 key themes to the use and function of the email consultations: the role of the GP and email consultation, the transactional nature of an email consultation, and the operationalization of an email consultation. Conclusions Most cases where emails are used to have a consultation with a patient in general practice have a shorter consultation, are clinical in nature, and are resolved quickly. GPs approach email consultations using key elements similar to that of the face-to-face consultation; however, using email consultations has the potential to alter the role of the GP, leading them to engage in more administrative tasks than usual. Email consultations were not a replacement for face-to-face consultations.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. McGuinness ◽  
D. H. McGuinness ◽  
J. A. McCaul ◽  
P. G. Shiels

The Sirtuins are a family of orthologues of yeast Sir2 found in a wide range of organisms from bacteria to man. They display a high degree of conservation between species, in both sequence and function, indicative of their key biochemical roles. Sirtuins are heavily implicated in cell cycle, cell division, transcription regulation, and metabolism, which places the various family members at critical junctures in cellular metabolism. Typically, Sirtuins have been implicated in the preservation of genomic stability and in the prolongation of lifespan though many of their target interactions remain unknown. Sirtuins play key roles in tumourigenesis, as some have tumour-suppressor functions and others influence tumours through their control of the metabolic state of the cell. Their links to ageing have also highlighted involvement in various age-related and degenerative diseases. Here, we discuss the current understanding of the role of Sirtuins in age-related diseases while taking a closer look at their roles and functions in maintaining genomic stability and their influence on telomerase and telomere function.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9s2 ◽  
pp. JEN.S25480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Ana Maria ◽  
Moreno-Ramos Oscar Andréas ◽  
Neena B. Haider

The nuclear hormone receptor (NHR) superfamily is composed of a wide range of receptors involved in a myriad of important biological processes, including development, growth, metabolism, and maintenance. Regulation of such wide variety of functions requires a complex system of gene regulation that includes interaction with transcription factors, chromatin-modifying complex, and the proper recognition of ligands. NHRs are able to coordinate the expression of genes in numerous pathways simultaneously. This review focuses on the role of nuclear receptors in the central nervous system and, in particular, their role in regulating the proper development and function of the brain and the eye. In addition, the review highlights the impact of mutations in NHRs on a spectrum of human diseases from autism to retinal degeneration.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Boccazzi ◽  
Juliette Van Steenwinckel ◽  
Anne-Laure Schang ◽  
Valérie Faivre ◽  
Tifenn Le Charpentier ◽  
...  

AbstractA leading cause of preterm birth is the exposure to systemic inflammation (maternal/fetal infection), which leads to neuroinflammation and white matter injury (WMI). A wide range of cytokines and chemokines are expressed and upregulated in oligodendrocytes (OLs) in response to inflammation and numerous reports show that OLs express several receptors for immune related molecules, which enable them to sense inflammation and to react. However, the role of OL immune response in WMI is unclear. Here, we focus our study on toll-like receptor-3 (TLR3) that is activated by double-strand RNA (dsRNA) and promotes neuroinflammation. Despite its importance, its expression and role in OLs remain unclear. We used an in vivo mouse model, which mimics inflammation-mediated WMI of preterm born infants consisting of intraperitoneal injection of IL-1β from P1 to P5. In the IL-1β-treated animals, we observed the upregulation of Tlr3, IL-1β, IFN-β, Ccl2, and Cxcl10 in both PDGFRα+ and O4+ sorted cells. This upregulation was higher in O4+ immature OLs (immOLs) as compared to PDGFRα+ OL precursor cells (OPCs), suggesting a different sensitivity to neuroinflammation. These observations were confirmed in OL primary cultures: cells treated with TLR3 agonist Poly(I:C) during differentiation showed a stronger upregulation of Ccl2 and Cxcl10 compared to cells treated during proliferation and led to decreased expression of myelin genes. Finally, OLs were able to modulate microglia phenotype and function depending on their maturation state as assessed by qPCR using validated markers for immunomodulatory, proinflammatory, and anti-inflammatory phenotypes and by phagocytosis and morphological analysis. These results show that during inflammation the response of OLs can play an autonomous role in blocking their own differentiation: in addition, the immune activation of OLs may play an important role in shaping the response of microglia during inflammation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 91 (16) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mojgan H. Naghavi ◽  
Derek Walsh

ABSTRACT Microtubules (MTs) form a rapidly adaptable network of filaments that radiate throughout the cell. These dynamic arrays facilitate a wide range of cellular processes, including the capture, transport, and spatial organization of cargos and organelles, as well as changes in cell shape, polarity, and motility. Nucleating from MT-organizing centers, including but by no means limited to the centrosome, MTs undergo rapid transitions through phases of growth, pause, and catastrophe, continuously exploring and adapting to the intracellular environment. Subsets of MTs can become stabilized in response to environmental cues, acquiring distinguishing posttranslational modifications and performing discrete functions as specialized tracks for cargo trafficking. The dynamic behavior and organization of the MT array is regulated by MT-associated proteins (MAPs), which include a subset of highly specialized plus-end-tracking proteins (+TIPs) that respond to signaling cues to alter MT behavior. As pathogenic cargos, viruses require MTs to transport to and from their intracellular sites of replication. While interactions with and functions for MT motor proteins are well characterized and extensively reviewed for many viruses, this review focuses on MT filaments themselves. Changes in the spatial organization and dynamics of the MT array, mediated by virus- or host-induced changes to MT regulatory proteins, not only play a central role in the intracellular transport of virus particles but also regulate a wider range of processes critical to the outcome of infection.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (11) ◽  
pp. eaau0695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Venhar Celik Ozgen ◽  
Wentao Kong ◽  
Andrew E. Blanchard ◽  
Feng Liu ◽  
Ting Lu

In microbial communities, social interactions such as competition occur ubiquitously across multiple spatial scales from local proximity to remote distance. However, it remains unclear how such a spatial variation of interaction contributes to the structural development of microbial populations. Here, we developed synthetic consortia, biophysical theory, and simulations to elucidate the role of spatial interference scale in governing ecosystem organization during range expansion. For consortia with unidirectional interference, we discovered that, at growing fronts, the extinction time of toxin-sensitive species is reciprocal to the spatial interference scale. In contrast, for communities with bidirectional interference, their structures diverge into distinct monoculture colonies under different initial conditions, with the corresponding separatrix set by the spatial scale of interference. Near the separatrix, ecosystem development becomes noise-driven and yields opposite structures. Our results establish spatial interaction scale as a key determinant for microbial range expansion, providing insights into microbial spatial organization and synthetic ecosystem engineering.


Author(s):  
Federica Corrieri ◽  
Francesco Piras ◽  
Marwa Abou Assi ◽  
Marco Focacci ◽  
Leonardo Conti

AbstractThis work aims to characterize the agricultural heritage system surrounding the Shouf Biosphere Reserve (SBR) in Lebanon, through a landscape analysis based on assessing current ecosystems. In the past, the SBR landscape was intensively terraced and cultivated to produce many different crops. Today, although the terraced surface has been reduced, it is still a characteristic of the area, encouraging the quality of the landscape and increasing local biodiversity. During and after the war (the 1950s), the migration of population caused the abandonment of many cultivated terraces with the loss of a wide range of ecosystem services. This trend should be reversed to ensure these ecosystem services. The diversity of the land uses, and the richness of fauna and flora species raise the importance of the role of the SBR in maintaining the complex ecosystem and increasing its resilience capacity. The objectives of preserving biocultural diversity and traditional local agricultural practices can be achieved through sustainable development policies for the dynamic conservation of landscapes. In this study, it was shown that distance from roads to terraced areas is a fundamental factor in the preservation and maintenance of terraces. As well as the aspect and the slope influence the positioning of the terraces and therefore the species cultivated on them.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document