Avaliação de microrganismos antagônicos, Saccharomyces cerevisiae e Bacillus subtilis para o controle de Penicillium Digitatum

Citrus fruits are affected by diverse diseases, mainly the fungal infections, which affect productivity and quality, especially when it targets the market of fresh fruit. Among the fungal diseases that occur in postharvest, there is the green mold caused by Penicillium digitatum. The control measures are based mainly in the treatment of fruits with different combinations of fungicides in packing-house. Due to restrictions on the presence of residues of fungicides in citrus fruits and the increasing development of resistant strains of pathogens to the fungicide used, it is necessary to search for control alternatives such as biological control. Therefore, this study aimed to: (i) verify the antagonistic effect of biological control agents (BCA), being 13 isolates of Bacillus subtilis and 06 isolates of Saccharomyces cerevisiae against P. digitatum, (ii) study in vitro interactions between pathogen and BCA (iii) determine the effect of integration of antagonists with sodium bicarbonate and carnauba wax in the control of green mold. The results showed that the majority of the isolates, and all yeast isolates inhibited the mycelial growth of the phytopathogen. Only one isolate of B. subtilis (ACB-84) was able to inhibit the germination of P. digitatum (72% of inhibition), whereas ACB-K1 and ACB-CR1 (S. cerevisiae) were the most effective with inhibition from 78 and 85.7% respectively. The addition of sucrose (0.5%) favored the inhibition of conidia germination by the yeast isolates. The results from the in vivo control showed the viability of S. cerevisiae ACB-K1 and ACB-CR1 to control P. digitatum in 'Tahiti' lime fruits and orange 'Hamlin' fruits, respectively. The combination of sodium bicarbonate and biocontrol agents did not result in improvements in the curative control of the green mold. Carnauba wax (18% of TSS) favored the antagonistic activity of S. cerevisiae, and this effect depended on the variety of fruits in the study and of the yeast isolate used for the biocontrol.

Submaximal cardiopulmonary thresholds on a robotics-assisted tilt table, a cycle and a treadmill: a comparative analysis

BACKGROUND: The robotics-assisted tilt table (RATT), including actuators for tilting and cyclical leg movement, is used for rehabilitation of severely disabled neurological patients. Following further engineering development of the system, i.e. the addition of force sensors and visual bio-feedback, patients can actively participate in exercise testing and training on the device. Peak cardiopulmonary performance parameters were previously investigated, but it also important to compare submaximal parameters with standard devices. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of the RATT for estimation of submaximal exercise thresholds by comparison with a cycle ergometer and a treadmill. METHODS: 17 healthy subjects randomly performed six maximal individualized incremental exercise tests, with two tests on each of the three exercise modalities. The ventilatory anaerobic threshold (VAT) and respiratory compensation point (RCP) were determined from breath-by-breath data. RESULTS: VAT and RCP on the RATT were lower than the cycle ergometer and the treadmill: oxygen uptake (V'O2) at VAT was [mean (SD)] 1.2 (0.3), 1.5 (0.4) and 1.6 (0.5) L/min, respectively (p < 0.001); V'O2 at RCP was 1.7 (0.4), 2.3 (0.8) and 2.6 (0.9) L/min, respectively (p = 0.001). High correlations for VAT and RCP were found between the RATT vs the cycle ergometer and RATT vs the treadmill (R on the range 0.69-0.80). VAT and RCP demonstrated excellent test-retest reliability for all three devices (ICC from 0.81 to 0.98). Mean differences between the test and retest values on each device were close to zero. The ventilatory equivalent for O2 at VAT for the RATT and cycle ergometer were similar and both were higher than the treadmill. The ventilatory equivalent for CO2 at RCP was similar for all devices. Ventilatory equivalent parameters demonstrated fair-to-excellent reliability and repeatability. CONCLUSIONS: It is feasible to use the RATT for estimation of submaximal exercise thresholds: VAT and RCP on the RATT were lower than the cycle ergometer and the treadmill, but there were high correlations between the RATT vs the cycle ergometer and vs the treadmill. Repeatability and test-retest reliability of all submaximal threshold parameters from the RATT were comparable to those of standard devices.

Predictive vaccinology: Optimisation of predictions using support vector machine classifiers

Promiscuous human leukocyte antigen (HLA) binding peptides are ideal targets for vaccine development. Existing computational models for prediction of promiscuous peptides used hidden Markov models and artificial neural networks as prediction algorithms. We report a system based on support vector machines that outperforms previously published methods. Preliminary testing showed that it can predict peptides binding to HLA-A2 and -A3 super-type molecules with excellent accuracy, even for molecules where no binding data are currently available.