Showing papers by "University of the Algarve published in 2021"

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (4th edition)

Abstract: In 2008, we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, this topic has received increasing attention, and many scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Thus, it is important to formulate on a regular basis updated guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Despite numerous reviews, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to evaluate autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. Here, we present a set of guidelines for investigators to select and interpret methods to examine autophagy and related processes, and for reviewers to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of reports that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a dogmatic set of rules, because the appropriateness of any assay largely depends on the question being asked and the system being used. Moreover, no individual assay is perfect for every situation, calling for the use of multiple techniques to properly monitor autophagy in each experimental setting. Finally, several core components of the autophagy machinery have been implicated in distinct autophagic processes (canonical and noncanonical autophagy), implying that genetic approaches to block autophagy should rely on targeting two or more autophagy-related genes that ideally participate in distinct steps of the pathway. Along similar lines, because multiple proteins involved in autophagy also regulate other cellular pathways including apoptosis, not all of them can be used as a specific marker for bona fide autophagic responses. Here, we critically discuss current methods of assessing autophagy and the information they can, or cannot, provide. Our ultimate goal is to encourage intellectual and technical innovation in the field.

Quality of life under the COVID-19 quarantine.

Abstract: COVID-19 has spread rapidly throughout the world, causing thousands of illnesses and deaths. To fight this pandemic, almost all governments and health authorities have focused on prevention. In March or April, most countries’ officials imposed home quarantine and lockdown measures nationwide. This study sought to assess health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and anxiety levels among people in Portugal under mandatory home quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The results were compared to the general Portuguese population’s HRQoL before the COVID-19 outbreak. This research also aimed to understand the factors that can influence the respondents’ HRQoL. A sample of Portugal’s population quarantined at home (n = 904) filled in an online survey comprising the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item and the EQ-5D-5L and other questions about sociodemographic characteristics, feelings, duties and activities during the quarantine. The sample was weighted to mirror the general population’s gender, age and education. Descriptive analyses and correlation coefficients were used to evaluation the respondents’ anxiety and HRQoL. Generalised linear models were estimated to identify determinants of HRQoL during the COVID-19 quarantine. The results show that individuals quarantined at home reported higher anxiety and lower HRQoL levels and that people with more anxiety tended to have a lower HRQoL. Females and elderly individuals experienced the highest levels of anxiety and poorest HRQoL. In addition, HRQoL during the quarantine can be explained by various occupational and attitudinal variables, as well as sociodemographic variables. Individuals’ mental health should be taken into consideration during pandemics or other emergency situations. Anxiety and other factors can decrease people’s HRQoL, in conjunction with the pandemic’s social and economic consequences.

The MPA Guide: A framework to achieve global goals for the ocean

Abstract: Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are conservation tools intended to protect biodiversity, promote healthy and resilient marine ecosystems, and provide societal benefits. Despite codification of MPAs i...

How the COVID-19 pandemic will change the future of critical care.

Abstract: Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) has posed unprecedented healthcare system challenges, some of which will lead to transformative change. It is obvious to healthcare workers and policymakers alike that an effective critical care surge response must be nested within the overall care delivery model. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted key elements of emergency preparedness. These include having national or regional strategic reserves of personal protective equipment, intensive care unit (ICU) devices, consumables and pharmaceuticals, as well as effective supply chains and efficient utilization protocols. ICUs must also be prepared to accommodate surges of patients and ICU staffing models should allow for fluctuations in demand. Pre-existing ICU triage and end-of-life care principles should be established, implemented and updated. Daily workflow processes should be restructured to include remote connection with multidisciplinary healthcare workers and frequent communication with relatives. The pandemic has also demonstrated the benefits of digital transformation and the value of remote monitoring technologies, such as wireless monitoring. Finally, the pandemic has highlighted the value of pre-existing epidemiological registries and agile randomized controlled platform trials in generating fast, reliable data. The COVID-19 pandemic is a reminder that besides our duty to care, we are committed to improve. By meeting these challenges today, we will be able to provide better care to future patients.

The essentials of marine biotechnology.

Abstract: Coastal countries have traditionally relied on the existing marine resources (e.g., fishing, food, transport, recreation, and tourism) as well as tried to support new economic endeavors (ocean energy, desalination for water supply, and seabed mining). Modern societies and lifestyle resulted in an increased demand for dietary diversity, better health and well-being, new biomedicines, natural cosmeceuticals, environmental conservation, and sustainable energy sources. These societal needs stimulated the interest of researchers on the diverse and underexplored marine environments as promising and sustainable sources of biomolecules and biomass, and they are addressed by the emerging field of marine (blue) biotechnology. Blue biotechnology provides opportunities for a wide range of initiatives of commercial interest for the pharmaceutical, biomedical, cosmetic, nutraceutical, food, feed, agricultural, and related industries. This article synthesizes the essence, opportunities, responsibilities, and challenges encountered in marine biotechnology and outlines the attainment and valorization of directly derived or bio-inspired products from marine organisms. First, the concept of bioeconomy is introduced. Then, the diversity of marine bioresources including an overview of the most prominent marine organisms and their potential for biotechnological uses are described. This is followed by introducing methodologies for exploration of these resources and the main use case scenarios in energy, food and feed, agronomy, bioremediation and climate change, cosmeceuticals, bio-inspired materials, healthcare, and well-being sectors. The key aspects in the fields of legislation and funding are provided, with the emphasis on the importance of communication and stakeholder engagement at all levels of biotechnology development. Finally, vital overarching concepts, such as the quadruple helix and Responsible Research and Innovation principle are highlighted as important to follow within the marine biotechnology field. The authors of this review are collaborating under the European Commission-funded Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action Ocean4Biotech – European transdisciplinary networking platform for marine biotechnology and focus the study on the European state of affairs.

Revisiting lignin: a tour through its structural features, characterization methods and applications

Abstract: Lignin is a complex organic polymer found in the plant cell wall with important biological functions, such as water transport, mechanical support, and resistance to various stresses. It is considered the second most abundant biopolymer on earth and the largest natural source of aromatics. Despite being annually co-produced in massive amounts, during cellulose fragmentation in the pulp industry and ethanol biorefinery, it is clearly undervalued; most of it is discarded or burned as fuel for energy production and, so far, only ca. 1–2% of lignin has been utilized as a high-value product. This underuse makes lignin the future resource of choice to produce green fuels and a wide range of added-value biomaterials and chemicals, which can contribute to the transition to more sustainable industries. However, its great variability between plant families combined with its complex and chemically inert structure is challenging researchers who seek for strategies regarding its valorization. With this scope, several different approaches have emerged regarding the development of better and efficient isolation methods, purification and characterization techniques, and improved methodologies for lignin chemical modification and blending with other compounds. These improvements represent important opportunities for the creation of value-added lignin-based biopolymers and materials and some have already shown potential to be scaled up. All these aspects are pedagogically introduced and discussed in this review.

Stress granules, RNA-binding proteins and polyglutamine diseases: too much aggregation?

Abstract: Stress granules (SGs) are membraneless cell compartments formed in response to different stress stimuli, wherein translation factors, mRNAs, RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) and other proteins coalesce together. SGs assembly is crucial for cell survival, since SGs are implicated in the regulation of translation, mRNA storage and stabilization and cell signalling, during stress. One defining feature of SGs is their dynamism, as they are quickly assembled upon stress and then rapidly dispersed after the stress source is no longer present. Recently, SGs dynamics, their components and their functions have begun to be studied in the context of human diseases. Interestingly, the regulated protein self-assembly that mediates SG formation contrasts with the pathological protein aggregation that is a feature of several neurodegenerative diseases. In particular, aberrant protein coalescence is a key feature of polyglutamine (PolyQ) diseases, a group of nine disorders that are caused by an abnormal expansion of PolyQ tract-bearing proteins, which increases the propensity of those proteins to aggregate. Available data concerning the abnormal properties of the mutant PolyQ disease-causing proteins and their involvement in stress response dysregulation strongly suggests an important role for SGs in the pathogenesis of PolyQ disorders. This review aims at discussing the evidence supporting the existence of a link between SGs functionality and PolyQ disorders, by focusing on the biology of SGs and on the way it can be altered in a PolyQ disease context.

The Role of Hypoxia in Glioblastoma Radiotherapy Resistance.

Abstract: Glioblastoma (GB) (grade IV astrocytoma) is the most malignant type of primary brain tumor with a 16 months median survival time following diagnosis Despite increasing attention regarding the development of targeted therapies for GB that resulted in around 450 clinical trials currently undergoing, radiotherapy still remains the most clinically effective treatment for these patients Nevertheless, radiotherapy resistance (radioresistance) is commonly observed in GB patients leading to tumor recurrence and eventually patient death It is therefore essential to unravel the molecular mechanisms underpinning GB cell radioresistance in order to develop novel strategies and combinational therapies focused on enhancing tumor cell sensitivity to radiotherapy In this review, we present a comprehensive examination of the current literature regarding the role of hypoxia (O2 partial pressure less than 10 mmHg), a main GB microenvironmental factor, in radioresistance with the ultimate goal of identifying potential molecular markers and therapeutic targets to overcome this issue in the future

Hydrophobic interactions control the self-assembly of DNA and cellulose.

Abstract: Desoxyribosenucleic acid, DNA, and cellulose molecules self-assemble in aqueous systems. This aggregation is the basis of the important functions of these biological macromolecules. Both DNA and cellulose have significant polar and nonpolar parts and there is a delicate balance between hydrophilic and hydrophobic interactions. The hydrophilic interactions related to net charges have been thoroughly studied and are well understood. On the other hand, the detailed roles of hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interactions have remained controversial. It is found that the contributions of hydrophobic interactions in driving important processes, like the double-helix formation of DNA and the aqueous dissolution of cellulose, are dominating whereas the net contribution from hydrogen bonding is small. In reviewing the roles of different interactions for DNA and cellulose it is useful to compare with the self-assembly features of surfactants, the simplest case of amphiphilic molecules. Pertinent information on the amphiphilic character of cellulose and DNA can be obtained from the association with surfactants, as well as on modifying the hydrophobic interactions by additives.

A decade to study deep-sea life

Abstract: The United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development presents an exceptional opportunity to effect positive change in ocean use. We outline what is required of the deep-sea research community to achieve these ambitious objectives.

A review of recent machine learning advances for forecasting harmful algal blooms and shellfish contamination

Abstract: Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are among the most severe ecological marine problems worldwide. Under favorable climate and oceanographic conditions, toxin-producing microalgae species may proliferate, reach increasingly high cell concentrations in seawater, accumulate in shellfish, and threaten the health of seafood consumers. There is an urgent need for the development of effective tools to help shellfish farmers to cope and anticipate HAB events and shellfish contamination, which frequently leads to significant negative economic impacts. Statistical and machine learning forecasting tools have been developed in an attempt to better inform the shellfish industry to limit damages, improve mitigation measures and reduce production losses. This study presents a synoptic review covering the trends in machine learning methods for predicting HABs and shellfish biotoxin contamination, with a particular focus on autoregressive models, support vector machines, random forest, probabilistic graphical models, and artificial neural networks (ANN). Most efforts have been attempted to forecast HABs based on models of increased complexity over the years, coupled with increased multi-source data availability, with ANN architectures in the forefront to model these events. The purpose of this review is to help defining machine learning-based strategies to support shellfish industry to manage their harvesting/production, and decision making by governmental agencies with environmental responsibilities.

A community perspective on the concept of marine holobionts: current status, challenges, and future directions

Abstract: Host-microbe interactions play crucial roles in marine ecosystems. However, we still have very little understanding of the mechanisms that govern these relationships, the evolutionary processes that shape them, and their ecological consequences. The holobiont concept is a renewed paradigm in biology that can help to describe and understand these complex systems. It posits that a host and its associated microbiota with which it interacts, form a holobiont, and have to be studied together as a coherent biological and functional unit to understand its biology, ecology, and evolution. Here we discuss critical concepts and opportunities in marine holobiont research and identify key challenges in the field. We highlight the potential economic, sociological, and environmental impacts of the holobiont concept in marine biological, evolutionary, and environmental sciences. Given the connectivity and the unexplored biodiversity specific to marine ecosystems, a deeper understanding of such complex systems requires further technological and conceptual advances, e.g., the development of controlled experimental model systems for holobionts from all major lineages and the modeling of (info)chemical-mediated interactions between organisms. Here we propose that one significant challenge is to bridge cross-disciplinary research on tractable model systems in order to address key ecological and evolutionary questions. This first step is crucial to decipher the main drivers of the dynamics and evolution of holobionts and to account for the holobiont concept in applied areas, such as the conservation, management, and exploitation of marine ecosystems and resources, where practical solutions to predict and mitigate the impact of human activities are more important than ever.

Biostimulant and biopesticide potential of microalgae growing in piggery wastewater

Abstract: Pig farming generates highly polluting wastewaters which entail serious environmental issues when not adequately managed. Microalgae systems can be promising for cost, energy and environment-efficient treatment of piggery wastewater (PWW). Aside from clean water, the produced biomass can be used as biostimulants and biopesticides contributing to a more sustainable agriculture. Three microalgae (Tetradesmus obliquus, Chlorella protothecoides, Chlorella vulgaris) and one cyanobacterium (Synechocystis sp.) were selected after a preliminary screening in diluted wastewater (1:20) to treat PWW. The nutrient removals were 62-79% for COD (chemical oxygen demand), 84-92% for TKN (total Kjeldahl nitrogen), 79-92% for NH4+ and over 96% for PO43−. T. obliquus and C. protothecoides were the most efficient ones. After treating PWW, the produced biomass, at 0.5 g L−1, was assessed as a biostimulant for seed germination, root/shoot growth, and pigment content for tomato, watercress, cucumber, soybean, wheat, and barley seeds. We observed an overall increase on germination index (GI) of microalgae-treated seeds, owing to the development of longer roots, especially in T. obliquus and C. vulgaris treatments. The microalgae treatments were especially effective in cucumber seeds (75-138% GI increase). The biopesticide activity against Fusarium oxysporum was also evaluated at 1, 2.5 and 5 g L−1 of microalgae culture. Except for Synechocystis sp., all the microalgae tested inhibited the fungus growth, with T. obliquus and C. vulgaris achieving inhibitions above 40% for all concentrations.

Intracellular Sources of ROS/H2O2 in Health and Neurodegeneration: Spotlight on Endoplasmic Reticulum.

Abstract: Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are produced continuously throughout the cell as products of various redox reactions. Yet these products function as important signal messengers, acting through oxidation of specific target factors. Whilst excess ROS production has the potential to induce oxidative stress, physiological roles of ROS are supported by a spatiotemporal equilibrium between ROS producers and scavengers such as antioxidative enzymes. In the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), a non-radical ROS, is produced through the process of oxidative folding. Utilisation and dysregulation of H2O2, in particular that generated in the ER, affects not only cellular homeostasis but also the longevity of organisms. ROS dysregulation has been implicated in various pathologies including dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases, sanctioning a field of research that strives to better understand cell-intrinsic ROS production. Here we review the organelle-specific ROS-generating and consuming pathways, providing evidence that the ER is a major contributing source of potentially pathologic ROS.

Current strategies and prospects in algae for remediation and biofuels: An overview

Abstract: Phycoremediation is an environmentally sustainable method that utilizes macro and microalgae to remediate polluted land and water. Phycoremediation consists of two elements: the microbial niche around the algae and the second by the algae itself, which absorb and degrade the toxic pollutants into less or non-toxic components. The advanced gene cloning technology on algae could improve gene efficiency and produce the active xenobiotic degrading enzyme. As a result, remedial rates have improved, allowing large areas of contaminated sites to be addressed in the process of large-scale application. Many organizations worldwide are already focusing on this bioremediation element, special attention on algae to replace the costly physical or chemical remediation methods. Thus, this review reported the Scenedesmus sp. algae used in the polluted tannery site, and the maximum removal was observed in Pb: 75–98% and Zn: 65–98%. Scenedesmus obliquus illustrated the significant Fe3+ (100%) removal applied in the polluted soil. Moreover, since nuclear and chloroplast transformations are important in commercial applications, C. reinhardtii remains the most effective transgenic algae applied for pollutant deduction. It was discovered that Chlorella, Chlamydomonas, and Scenedesmus sp. had the highest pollutant removal efficacy in medicine polluted sites. Furthermore, Kirchneriella sp. and Enteromorpha clathrate were observed to have the largest algal oil yield than other algal species.

Residents’ pro-tourism behaviour in a time of COVID-19

Abstract: Given the expediency with which some U.S. governors have reopened their states to tourists, this research focuses on residents’ responses to pro-tourism behaviour within the State of Georgia—one su...

Targeted plant improvement through genome editing: from laboratory to field.

Abstract: This review illustrates how far we have come since the emergence of GE technologies and how they could be applied to obtain superior and sustainable crop production. The main challenges of today’s agriculture are maintaining and raising productivity, reducing its negative impact on the environment, and adapting to climate change. Efficient plant breeding can generate elite varieties that will rapidly replace obsolete ones and address ongoing challenges in an efficient and sustainable manner. Site-specific genome editing in plants is a rapidly evolving field with tangible results. The technology is equipped with a powerful toolbox of molecular scissors to cut DNA at a pre-determined site with different efficiencies for designing an approach that best suits the objectives of each plant breeding strategy. Genome editing (GE) not only revolutionizes plant biology, but provides the means to solve challenges related to plant architecture, food security, nutrient content, adaptation to the environment, resistance to diseases and production of plant-based materials. This review illustrates how far we have come since the emergence of these technologies and how these technologies could be applied to obtain superior, safe and sustainable crop production. Synergies of genome editing with other technological platforms that are gaining significance in plants lead to an exciting new, post-genomic era for plant research and production. In previous months, we have seen what global changes might arise from one new virus, reminding us of what drastic effects such events could have on food production. This demonstrates how important science, technology, and tools are to meet the current time and the future. Plant GE can make a real difference to future sustainable food production to the benefit of both mankind and our environment.