Accuracy in Copy Number Calling by qPCR and PRT : A Matter of DNA

7 p.

The Foraging Ecology of the Mountain Long-Eared Bat Plecotus macrobullaris Revealed with DNA Mini-Barcodes

10 p.

¿Qué se puede hacer con la energía eléctrica que se produce por diferentes medios, para mejorar la actividad humana en todos sus aspectos?

Duración (en horas): Más de 50 horas. Destinatario: Estudiante y Docente

Association analyses of DNA polymorphisms in bovine SREBP-1, LXRα,FADS1 genes with fatty acid composition in Canadian commercial crossbred beef steers

Two previously reported DNA polymorphisms of sterol regulatory element binding transcription factor 1 (SREBP1) and liver X receptor alpha (LXRα) and two DNA polymorphisms of fatty acid desaturase 1 (FADS1) were evaluated for associations with fatty acids in brisket adipose tissue of Canadian cross-bred beef steers. The polymorphism of 84 bp insert/deletion in intron 5 of SREBP1 was significantly associated with the concentration of 9c C17:1 (P=0.013). The G>A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the exon 4 of LXRα gene was associated with the concentration of 9c, 11t C18:2 (P=0.04), sum of conjugated linoleic acids (CLA) (P=0.025) and 11c C20:1(P=0.042). Two DNA polymorphisms in the promoter region of FADS1, deletion/insertion of ->GTG in rs133053720 and SNP A>G in rs42187276, were significantly associated with concentrations of C17:0 iso, C17:0 ai, total branched chain fatty acids (BFA), 12t C18:1, 13t/14t C18:1, 15t C18:1, and 13c C18:1 (P<0.05). Further studies are needed to validate the associations and to delineate the roles of the gene polymorphisms in determining the fatty acid composition in beef tissues.

Ancient DNA from Hunter-Gatherer and Farmer Groups from Northern Spain Supports a Random Dispersion Model for the Neolithic Expansion into Europe

10 p.

DNA Damage and Transcriptional Changes in the Gills of Mytilus galloprovincialis Exposed to Nanomolar Doses of Combined Metal Salts (Cd, Cu, Hg)

[ENG]Aiming at an integrated and mechanistic view of the early biological effects of selected metals in the marine sentinel organism Mytilus galloprovincialis, we exposed mussels for 48 hours to 50, 100 and 200 nM solutions of equimolar Cd, Cu and Hg salts and measured cytological and molecular biomarkers in parallel. Focusing on the mussel gills, first target of toxic water contaminants and actively proliferating tissue, we detected significant dose-related increases of cells with micronuclei and other nuclear abnormalities in the treated mussels, with differences in the bioconcentration of the three metals determined in the mussel flesh by atomic absorption spectrometry. Gene expression profiles, determined in the same individual gills in parallel, revealed some transcriptional changes at the 50 nM dose, and substantial increases of differentially expressed genes at the 100 and 200 nM doses, with roughly similar amounts of up- and down-regulated genes. The functional annotation of gill transcripts with consistent expression trends and significantly altered at least in one dose point disclosed the complexity of the induced cell response. The most evident transcriptional changes concerned protein synthesis and turnover, ion homeostasis, cell cycle regulation and apoptosis, and intracellular trafficking (transcript sequences denoting heat shock proteins, metal binding thioneins, sequestosome 1 and proteasome subunits, and GADD45 exemplify up-regulated genes while transcript sequences denoting actin, tubulins and the apoptosis inhibitor 1 exemplify down-regulated genes). Overall, nanomolar doses of co-occurring free metal ions have induced significant structural and functional changes in the mussel gills: the intensity of response to the stimulus measured in laboratory supports the additional validation of molecular markers of metal exposure to be used in Mussel Watch programs

Preprocess and data analysis techniques for affymetrix DNA microarrays using bioconductor: a case study in Alzheimer disease

DNA microarray, or DNA chip, is a technology that allows us to obtain the expression level of many genes in a single experiment. The fact that numerical expression values can be easily obtained gives us the possibility to use multiple statistical techniques of data analysis. In this project microarray data is obtained from Gene Expression Omnibus, the repository of National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). Then, the noise is removed and data is normalized, also we use hypothesis tests to find the most relevant genes that may be involved in a disease and use machine learning methods like KNN, Random Forest or Kmeans. For performing the analysis we use Bioconductor, packages in R for the analysis of biological data, and we conduct a case study in Alzheimer disease. The complete code can be found in https://github.com/alberto-poncelas/ bioc-alzheimer

Finanzas para una economía humana sostenible: hacia la banca ética

El presente trabajo analiza el papel que deben jugar las finanzas en un mundo globalizado que vive una profunda crisis multidimensional, económica, financiera, energética, alimentaria, medioambiental, etc. que se manifiesta en graves problemas de pobreza, desigualdad, violación de derechos humanos, exclusión y deterioro ecológico. Esas nuevas finanzas deben constituirse en la herramienta básica de una nueva economía que tenga como objetivo el Desarrollo Humano Sostenible (DHS), que constituye el gran reto al que se enfrenta la humanidad en los próximos años. Todas las personas y las organizaciones tenemos la Responsabilidad Social de hacer frente a ese reto. El sector financiero por su poder e influencia tiene la gran responsabilidad social (RSE) de tener en cuenta, además de su rentabilidad económica, el impacto social y medioambiental de su actividad tanto en el diseño de productos de pasivo, en las estrategias de captación del ahorro y en las políticas de crédito e inversión, recuperando de esta manera el valor social del dinero. La Inversión Socialmente Responsable (ISR) al añadir criterios sociales y medioambientales a los tradicionales criterios financieros permite a las personas o entidades inversoras combinar objetivos financieros con valores sociales. La máxima expresión de la ISR lo constituye la Banca Ética ya que todo su negocio lo gestiona con criterios sociales y medioambientales además de los de rentabilidad económica y bajo una transparencia total. Dentro de la Banca Ética destaca el proyecto Fiare, único nacido en el Estado, que se desarrolla como cooperativa de crédito de ámbito europeo, sin ánimo de lucro, con escala salarial de 1 a 3 y sustentada en redes territoriales de organizaciones sociales que trabajan en el ámbito de la transformación de las estructuras generadoras de injusticia.

Phosphorylation of the carboxy-terminal domain of histone H1: effects on secondary structure and DNA condensation

Linker histone H1 plays an important role in chromatin folding. Phosphorylation by cyclin-dependent kinases is the main post-translational modification of histone H1. We studied the effects of phosphorylation on the secondary structure of the DNA-bound H1 carboxy-terminal domain (CTD), which contains most of the phosphorylation sites of the molecule. The effects of phosphorylation on the secondary structure of the DNA-bound CTD were site-specific and depended on the number of phosphate groups. Full phosphorylation significantly increased the proportion of -structure and decreased that of -helix. Partial phosphorylation increased the amount of undefined structure and decreased that of -helix without a significant increase in -structure. Phosphorylation had a moderate effect on the affinity of the CTD for the DNA, which was proportional to the number of phosphate groups. Partial phosphorylation drastically reduced the aggregation of DNA fragments by the CTD, but full phosphorylation restored to a large extent the aggregation capacity of the unphosphorylated domain. These results support the involvement of H1 hyperphosphorylation in metaphase chromatin condensation and of H1 partial phosphorylation in interphase chromatin relaxation. More generally, our results suggest that the effects of phosphorylation are mediated by specific structural changes and are not simply a consequence of the net charge.

Design and synthesis of biofunctional magnetic/fluorescent glyco-nanoparticles and quantum dots and their application as specific molecular imaging probes

206 p.

New DNA based hybrid catalysis

46 p.

Prácticas de histología humana

La Histología en su quehacer diario es una disciplina eminentemente práctica. La docencia de la Histología Humana se desarrolla básicamente a través de clases magistrales, seminarios y clases prácticas. Para la realización de estas últimas el alumno dispone de un microscopio óptico y diferentes preparaciones histológicas, así como de fotografías de microscopía electrónica. El programa práctico de la asignatura se desglosa a lo largo de veinticinco temas, que comienzan con la Histología General, donde se estudian los tejidos, para dar paso a la Histología Especial. Los temas se ordenan de forma paralela al desarrollo del programa teórico de la asignatura. De esta manera el alumno adquiere los conocimientos teóricos y después los aplica a la práctica. Sin embargo, el desarrollo del curso académico hace que esta sincronización tan solo sea posible durante las primeras prácticas, y llega un momento en el que las prácticas llegan a preceder al estudio teórico. Para ello, en la presente guía de “Prácticas de Histología Humana” se hacen comentarios que si bien pueden parecer algo “extraños” a una persona con conocimiento de la disciplina, si es cierto que se revelan muy útiles al alumno, como nos ha enseñado su utilización en el aula práctica a lo largo de los años.

Ancient DNA from South-East Europe Reveals Different Events during Early and Middle Neolithic Influencing the European Genetic Heritage

The importance of the process of Neolithization for the genetic make-up of European populations has been hotly debated, with shifting hypotheses from a demic diffusion (DD) to a cultural diffusion (CD) model. In this regard, ancient DNA data from the Balkan Peninsula, which is an important source of information to assess the process of Neolithization in Europe, is however missing. In the present study we show genetic information on ancient populations of the South-East of Europe. We assessed mtDNA from ten sites from the current territory of Romania, spanning a time-period from the Early Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age. mtDNA data from Early Neolithic farmers of the Starcevo Cris culture in Romania (Carcea, Gura Baciului and Negrilesti sites), confirm their genetic relationship with those of the LBK culture (Linienbandkeramik Kultur) in Central Europe, and they show little genetic continuity with modern European populations. On the other hand, populations of the Middle-Late Neolithic (Boian, Zau and Gumelnita cultures), supposedly a second wave of Neolithic migration from Anatolia, had a much stronger effect on the genetic heritage of the European populations. In contrast, we find a smaller contribution of Late Bronze Age migrations to the genetic composition of Europeans. Based on these findings, we propose that permeation of mtDNA lineages from a second wave of Middle-Late Neolithic migration from North-West Anatolia into the Balkan Peninsula and Central Europe represent an important contribution to the genetic shift between Early and Late Neolithic populations in Europe, and consequently to the genetic make-up of modern European populations.

Cellular and molecular responses of zebrafish to legacy and emerging pollutants: the specific cases of PAHs and metal oxide nanoparticles

270 p.