Publicaciones

The immune systems of all vertebrates contain cathelicidins, a family of antimicrobial peptides. Cathelicidins are a type of innate immune effector that have a number of biological functions, including a well-known direct antibacterial action and immunomodulatory function. In search of new templates for antimicrobial peptide discovery, we have identified and characterized the cathelicidin of the small mammal Talpa occidentalis. We describe the heterogeneity of cathelicidin in the order Eulipotyphla in relation to the Iberian mole and predict its antibacterial activity using bioinformatics tools. In an effort to correlate these findings, we derived the putative active peptide and performed in vitro hemolysis and antimicrobial activity assays, confirming that Iberian mole cathelicidins are antimicrobial. Our results showed that the Iberian mole putative peptide, named To-KL37 (KLFGKVGNLLQKGWQKIKNIGRRIKDFFRNIRPMQEA) has antibacterial and antifungal activity. Understanding the antimicrobial defense of insectivores may help scientists prevent the spread of pathogens to humans. We hope that this study can also provide new, effective antibacterial peptides for future drug development.

Cervical cancer (CC) caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) is one of the largest causes of malignancies in women worldwide. Cisplatin is one of the widely used drugs for the treatment of CC is rendered ineffective owing to drug resistance. This review highlights the cause of resistance and the mechanism of cisplatin resistance cells in CC to develop therapeutic ventures and strategies that could be utilized to overcome the aforementioned issue. These strategies would include the application of nanocarries, miRNA, CRIPSR/Cas system, and chemotherapeutics in synergy with cisplatin to not only overcome the issues of drug resistance but also enhance its anti-cancer efficiency. Moreover, we have also discussed the signaling network of cisplatin resistance cells in CC that would provide insights to develop therapeutic target sites and inhibitors. Furthermore, we have discussed the role of CC metabolism on cisplatin resistance cells and the physical and biological factors affecting the tumor microenvironments.

The surface and output of organic agriculture is growing steadily in recent years, being generally seen as a healthier, safer and more sustainable alternative to conventional agriculture. Comparisons between organic and conventional products are nonetheless scarce in the literature, especially in the case of wine. The aim of this study was to compare sulphite content and pesticide residues in both soils and wines under organic and conventional production. Fourteen samples of organic and conventional wines and vineyard soils were collected in pairs for each of the seven wine-producing islands of the Canary Islands. A QuEChERS-based method was employed to detect 218 pesticides and 49 POPs. Sulphites were measured by potentiometric titration with a double electrode. On average, higher levels of sulphites were found in conventional wines. Similarly, conventional wines presented higher numbers and concentrations of pesticide residues both in soils and wines than their organic counterparts. The overall pesticide concentrations in our sample was 4.2 µg/kg. Conventional wines presented a considerably higher average concentration than organic wines (8.2 against 0.25 µg/kg). In turn, concentrations in conventional soils averaged 8.7 against 2.8 µg/kg in organic soils, a 68.19 % lower residue concentration. The analytes most commonly found were PCB 28, p,p′-DDE, tebuconazole and the metabolite 4,4′-dichlorobenzophenone in soils and mefenoxam, tebuconazole, fluopyram and boscalid in wines. No single wine exceeded the 10 % of the MRLs established by the European Union for wine grapes. However, the presence of low levels of pesticides in organic wines should be monitored.

Improved imaging of the spatio-temporal growth of fault slip is crucial for understanding the driving mechanisms of earthquakes and faulting. This is especially critical to properly evaluate the evolution of seismic swarms and earthquake precursory phenomena. Fault slip inversion is an ill-posed problem and hence regularization is required to obtain stable and interpretable solutions. An analysis of compiled finite fault slip models shows that slip distributions can be approximated with a generic elliptical shape, particularly well for M ≤ 7.5 events. Therefore, we introduce a new physically informed regularization to constrain the spatial pattern of slip distribution. Our approach adapts a crack model derived from mechanical laboratory experiments and allows for complex slipping patterns by stacking multiple cracks. The new inversion method successfully recovered different simulated time-dependent patterns of slip propagation, that is, crack-like and pulse-like ruptures, directly using wrapped satellite radar interferometry (InSAR) phase observations. We find that the new method reduces model parameter space, and favors simpler interpretable spatio-temporal fault slip distributions. We apply the proposed method to the 2011 March–September normal-faulting seismic swarm at Hawthorne (Nevada, USA), by computing ENVISAT and RADARSAT-2 interferograms to estimate the spatio-temporal evolution of fault slip distribution. The results show that (a) aseismic slip might play a significant role during the initial stage and (b) this shallow seismic swarm had slip rates consistent with those of slow earthquake processes. The proposed method will be useful in retrieving time-dependent fault slip evolution and is expected to be widely applicable to studying fault mechanics, particularly in slow earthquakes.

Volcanoes can produce tsunamis through earthquakes, caldera and flank collapses, pyroclastic flows, or underwater explosions1,2,3,4. These mechanisms rarely displace enough water to trigger transoceanic tsunamis. Violent volcanic explosions, however, can cause global tsunamis1,5 by triggering acoustic-gravity waves6,7,8 that excite the atmosphere-ocean interface. The colossal eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano and ensuing tsunami is the first global volcano-triggered tsunami recorded by modern, worldwide dense instrumentation, thus providing a unique opportunity to investigate the role of air-water coupling processes in tsunami generation and propagation. Here we use sea-level, atmospheric and satellite data from across the globe, along with numerical and analytical models, to demonstrate that this tsunami was driven by a constantly moving source in which the acoustic-gravity waves radiating from the eruption excite the ocean and transfer energy into it via resonance. A direct correlation between the tsunami and the acoustic-gravity waves’ arrival times confirms that these phenomena are closely linked. Our models also show that the unusually fast travel times and long duration of the tsunami, as well as its global reach, are consistent with an air-water coupled source. This coupling mechanism has clear hazard implications, since it leads to higher waves along landmasses that rise abruptly from long stretches of deep ocean waters.

Although COVID-19 has captured most of the public health attention, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has not disappeared. To prevent the escape of resistant microorganisms in animals or environmental reservoirs a “one health approach” is desirable. In this context of COVID-19, AMR has probably been affected by the inappropriate or over-use of antibiotics. The increased use of antimicrobials and biocides for disinfection may have enhanced the prevalence of AMR. Antibiotics have been used empirically in patients with COVID-19 to avoid or prevent bacterial coinfection or superinfections. On the other hand, the measures to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 could have reduced the risk of the emergence of multidrug-resistant microorganisms. Since we do not currently have a sterilizing vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the virus may still multiply in the organism and new mutations may occur. As a consequence, there is a risk of the appearance of new variants. Nature-derived anti-infective agents, such as antibodies and antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), are very promising in the fight against infectious diseases, because they are less likely to develop resistance, even though further investigation is still required.

Heriaeus buffoni (Audouin, 1826) is reported for the first time from the Canary Islands, where it was found on Lanzarote. This also represents the first record of the genus in the archipelago. All individuals were collected with pitfall traps installed in nitrophilous synanthropic shrub vegetation near urban areas. Species identification was based on male genitalia only as females were not sampled. A map including all known records from Lanzarote, drawings of the pedipalps and photographs of living and preserved specimens are presented.

Specialisation to the soil environment is expected to constrain the spatial scale of diversification within animal lineages. In this context, flightless arthropod lineages, adapted to soil environments, but with broad geographical ranges, rep-resent something of an anomaly. Here we investigate the diversification process within one such ‘anomalous’ soil specialist, an eyeless and flightless beetle species strongly adapted to the endogean environment but distributed across several oce-anic islands.

Dispersal ability is known to influence geographical structuring of genetic variation within species, with a direct relationship between low vagility and population genetic structure, which can potentially give rise to allopatric speciation. However, our general understanding of the relationship between dispersal ability, population differentiation and lineage diversification is limited. To address this issue, we sampled mitochondrial DNA variation within lineages of beetles and spiders across the Canary Islands to explore the relationships between dispersal ability, differentiation within lineages and diversification. We found positive relationships between population genetic structure and diversification for both beetles and spiders. Comparisons between dispersive and non-dispersive lineages revealed significant differences for both lineage differentiation and diversification. For both taxa, non-dispersive lineages had stronger population genetic structure. Genus-level endemic species richness and proxies for diversification rate within genera were higher in non-dispersive taxa for both beetles and spiders. Comparisons of average and maximum node divergences within genera suggest that species turnover may be higher in non-dispersive genera. Our results reveal a model where dispersal limitation may shape the diversity of lineages across evolutionary timescales by positively influencing intraspecific and species diversity, moderated by higher extinction rates compared to more dispersive lineages.

Vitamin E and dietary flavonoids are natural substances with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities, showing little or no side effects. Fruit and vegetable diets based on flavonoids and vitamin E provide a benefit to hypertensive subjects by regulating blood pressure. However, the exact mechanism of their anti-inflammatory properties has not been chemically explained. It has been proposed that their anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties may be related to their ability to scavenge free radicals. We here describe the chemical considerations that flavonoids and tocopherols required to act as potential scavengers of the •NO2 radical, a key radical in the cellular oxidative process. Moreover, we provide a theoretical study of the energy content of the nitrated compounds in the different possible positions. With this analysis, it was predicted that five flavonoids from different families (quercetin (flavanol), naringenin (flavanone), luteolin (flavone), catechin (flavanol) and aurantinidin (anthocyanin)) and three tocopherols (β-, γ-, and δ-tocopherol, but not α-tocopherol) could act as potential scavengers of the harmful •NO2 radical. These results may help to explain their beneficial effect on cardiovascular health through its antioxidant role. To validate our theoretical considerations, we also examined uric acid, a well-known •NO2-scavenger. We hope this study could help to elucidate the potential scavenging activity of other dietary antioxidants.