Publicaciones

Selective covalent labelling of enzymes using small molecule probes has advanced the scopes of protein profiling. The covalent bond formation to a specific target is the key step of activity-based protein profiling (ABPP), a method which has become an indispensable tool for measuring enzyme activity in complex matrices. With respect to carbohydrate processing enzymes, strategies for ABPP so far involve labelling the active site of the enzyme, which results in permanent loss of activity. Here, we report in a proof of concept study the use of ligand-directed chemistry (LDC) for labelling glycoside hydrolases near – but not in – the active site. During the labelling process, the competitive inhibitor is cleaved from the probe, departs the active site and the enzyme maintains its catalytic activity. To this end, we designed a building block synthetic concept for small molecule probes containing iminosugar-based reversible inhibitors for labelling of two model β-glucosidases. The results indicate that the LDC approach can be adaptable for covalent proximity labelling of glycoside hydrolases.

Water scarcity is a serious constraint for agriculture, and global warming and climate change can exacerbate it in many areas. Therefore, sustainable approaches must be implemented to deal with current and future water scarcity scenarios. Genetic and chemical approaches are being applied to manage this limitation and maintain crop yields. In particular, biostimulants obtained from natural sources such as marine algae are promising aids for coping with water deficit stress in agriculture. Here we present a bioprospection study of extracts of the macroalgae Bonnemaisonia hamifera, Galaxaura rugosa, Dasycladus vermicularis, Ulva clathrata, Cystoseira foeniculacea, Cystoseira humilis, Lobophora dagamae, Colpomenia sinuosa and Halopteris scoparia from the north coast of Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. The aqueous extracts of Bonnemaisonia hamifera, Galaxaura rugosa, Dasycladus vermicularis and Cystoseira humilis show biostimulant activity against water deficit stress in tomato seedlings under controlled conditions, providing higher tolerance than the mock-treated control. The Galaxaura rugosa extract showed the highest biostimulant activity against water deficit stress. We demonstrate that this positive effect involves the activation of the abscisic acid (ABA) pathway in Arabidopsis thaliana (arabidopsis) and Solanum lycopersicum (tomato). Application of G. rugosa extract to the root system by drenching tomato seedlings subjected to water deficit leads to improved CO2 assimilation and water use efficiency (WUEp), compared to mock-treated plants. These results highlight a new potential seaweed source of substances with osmoprotectant properties, useful for biostimulant development. Future studies may provide further insight into which components of the seaweed extract induce activation of the ABA pathway.

Syneruptive magma mixing is widespread in volcanic eruptions, affecting explosivity and composition of products, but its evidence in basaltic systems is usually cryptic. Here we report direct evidence of mixing between basanitic and tephritic magmas in the first days of the 2021 Tajogaite eruption of Cumbre Vieja, La Palma. Groundmass glass in tephritic tephra from the fifth day of the eruption is locally inhomogeneous, showing micron-scale filamentary structures of Si-poor and Fe-, Mg-rich melt, forming complex filaments attached to bubbles. Their compositional distribution attests the presence of primitive basanitic magma, with compositions similar to late-erupted melts, interacting with an evolved tephritic melt during the first week of the event. From filament morphology, we suggest their generation by dragging and folding of basanitic melt during bubble migration through melt interfaces. Semi-quantitative diffusion modelling indicates that the filamentary structures are short-lived, dissipating in timescales of tens of seconds. In combination with thermobarometric constraints, we suggest a mixing onset by sub-Moho remobilization of a tephritic reservoir by basanite input, followed by turbulent ascent of a mingled magma. In the shallow conduit or lava fountain, bubble nucleation and migration triggered further mingling of the distinct melt-phases. This phenomenon might have enhanced the explosive behaviour of the eruption in such period, where violent strombolian explosions were common.

A review of the last 10 years of diastereoselective halogenation methods is presented. They have been divided by reactions into alkenes, alkynes, and heterocycles. In many of the cases, the use of transition metals is described. In all of them, the mechanistic approach proposed by the authors and justifying the obtained diastereoselection is discussed. A miscellaneous section is also included in which allylic fluorinations, double bond isomerizations, ring expansion, and ring-opening halogenations are discussed.

We present a 1:5,000,000 geological map of the Imdr Regio area of Venus. Geological mapping was conducted using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images, altimetry and stereo-derived topography data from NASA's Magellan mission. The map covers an area of approximately 7.9 × 106 km2 and exhibits a variety of tectonic structures and units of volcanic origin related to the evolution of Imdr Regio and surrounding plains. We have differentiated primary structures related to the emplacement of the different units from tectonic structures that deform them. These structures are also organized between those that are regional in extent and those that are related to the evolution of local large tectono-volcanic structures. The units in the map area represent different geologic processes (e.g. volcanism) that took place during the evolution of the large topographic rise. Geologic mapping illustrates a complex evolution with different styles of deformation and volcanism in this part of the planet.

Natural wine is produced with organic grapes without the use of additives. As a social phenomenon, it comprises rural winemakers and urban consumers interconnected by a vibrant global community of distributors, bloggers, experts, and associations. Despite its continuous growth since the early 2000s, the movement has sparked global public interest since the French recognition of the vin méthode nature certification in 2020. Here we delineate the evolution of the natural wine phenomenon from its origins to its current situation. It will be argued that rather than a social movement or an alternative food network, natural wine can be better understood as a food phenomenon exhibiting a sustainable alternative mode of production and consumption that unites a loose coalition of diverse actors. In exploring the constant tensions involved in the ongoing redefinition of natural wine by social actors, we will analyze their different understandings of locality, naturalness, and ethical food production.

Mineral dust produced by wind erosion of arid and semi-arid surfaces is a major component of atmospheric aerosol that affects climate, weather, ecosystems, and socio-economic sectors such as human health, transportation, solar energy, and air quality. Understanding these effects and ultimately improving the resilience of affected countries requires a reliable, dense, and diverse set of dust observations, fundamental for the development and the provision of skillful dust forecasts tailored products. The last decade has seen a notable improvement of dust observational capabilities in terms of considered parameters, geographical coverage, and delivery times, as well as of tailored products of interest to both the scientific community and the various end-users. Given this progress, here we review the current state of observational capabilities including in-situ, ground-based and satellite remote sensing observations, in Northern Africa, the Middle East and Europe for the provision of dust information considering the needs of various users. We also critically discuss observational gaps and related unresolved questions while providing suggestions for overcoming the current limitations. Our review aims to be a milestone for discussing dust observational gaps at a global level to address the needs of users, from research communities to non-scientific stakeholders.

This work is focused on the Almonte-Marismas aquifer located within Doñana Natural Space (SW Spain); this aquifer is threatened by droughts, irrigation-driven groundwater overexploitation, urban use, and the potential reactivation of gas extraction and storage projects. We present ground deformation measurements from Sentinel-1 Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) data ranging from 1 to 2.5 cm, covering ∼2,500 km2 from 2014 to 2020. Detecting spatially distributed ground deformation over this agricultural area is challenging due to the low-coherence radar signals; consequently, the ground movement results are on the same order of magnitude as the errors associated with InSAR data. We have approached this issue by considering auxiliary information such as groundwater levels, climatic time series, and pumping rates and analyzing their spatio-temporal connections to ground displacements. We correlate InSAR and hydrogeological information through wavelet analysis, developing a Python package that allows applying the same methodology in other similar study areas. For the first time in the Doñana area, a significant relationship between distances to pumping wells and the displacement extent is detected. Moreover, other subsidence-related triggering factors are identified, such as the soil moisture balance, clay shrinking-swelling processes, and creep of geological formations. These results are highly valuable to support aquifer management decisions in the Doñana Natural Space; in this border region, three groundwater bodies were officially declared overexploited in 2020. Our findings provide a ground motion baseline assessment to help differentiate historical variations from any future anthropogenic effect in this complex marsh land ecosystem.

Atmospheric deposition of desert dust and other aerosols influence on the open ocean ecosystem and climate. These aerosols provide iron, phosphorus and bio-essential trace elements, which affect the composition and growth of phytoplankton, generating new organic matter that is distributed across the food web. Although this process has an impact on upper trophic levels and fisheries, direct evidence is lacking. Skipjack tropical tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) is the most important commercial tuna in the Atlantic, main stocks occur in the tropical and subtropical North-East Atlantic. We found that the migrations and fisheries of skipjack are connected to Saharan dust variability. From boreal winter to summer, skipjack performs an Atlantic-Saharan migration, from equatorial (0-5°N) to subtropical waters of the North-East Atlantic (regularly reaching open waters off Mauritania ∼20°N and the Canary Islands ∼28°N), tracking the seasonal shift of dust deposition in the North-East Atlantic. The observed long-term associations of skipjack catch with the seasonal cycles, anomalies and meridional variability of dust over the North-East Atlantic, shows that along the year skipjack catches mainly occur in waters affected by massive dust deposition linked (i) to dust wet deposition in tropical waters and (ii) to dust dry deposition in the Saharan desert-dust outflow. Atmospheric deposition of dust in the open ocean and in upwelling waters contributes to support zooplankton-rich areas, which are optimal for feeding small fish, molluscs and cephalopods, and suitable for feeding large predators, as skipjacks, where they are caught in abundance. The most important fishing area of Atlantic skipjack tuna is located off North West Africa in the waters affected by massive dust deposition that underly the dusty airstream from the North Africa desert. The role of dust as fertilizing and supporter of phytoplankton and zooplankton rich areas also has implications for other species of fishing interest, including other tropical tuna (e.g. bigeye and yellowfin), which are often exploited simultaneously with skipjack by the same fisheries. As far as we know this is the first study showing the connexions between atmospheric inputs of desert dust to ocean and the migrations and fisheries of marine species. These results have important implications on our understanding on the influence of atmospheric dust on marine ecosystems and on the management of fisheries.

Invasive alien species have widespread impacts on native biodiversity and ecosystem services. Since the number of introductions worldwide is continuously rising, it is essential to prevent the entry, establishment and spread of new alien species through a systematic examination of future potential threats. Applying a three-step horizon scanning consensus method, we evaluated non-established alien species that could potentially arrive, establish and cause major ecological impact in Spain within the next 10 years. Overall, we identified 47 species with a very high risk (e.g. Oreochromis niloticus, Popillia japonica, Hemidactylus frenatus, Crassula helmsii or Halophila stipulacea), 61 with high risk, 93 with moderate risk, and 732 species with low risk. Many of the species categorized as very high or high risk to Spanish biodiversity are either already present in Europe and neighbouring countries or have a long invasive history elsewhere. This study provides an updated list of potential invasive alien species useful for prioritizing efforts and resources against their introduction. Compared to previous horizon scanning exercises in Spain, the current study screens potential invaders from a wider range of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine organisms, and can serve as a basis for more comprehensive risk analyses to improve management and increase the efficiency of the early warning and rapid response framework for invasive alien species. We also stress the usefulness of measuring agreement and consistency as two different properties of the reliability of expert scores, in order to more easily elaborate consensus ranked lists of potential invasive alien species.