16S metabarcoding analysis reveals the influence of organic and conventional farming practices on bacterial communities from the rhizospheric of Coffea arabica L.

Coffea sp. is cultivated in many tropical countries. Brazil has always adopted intensive agricultural practices, but organic coffee farming is an alternative system based on the non-use of agrochemicals and the rational management of soils. Metabarcoding 16S analysis using next-generation sequencing has been developed to identify and compare the diversity of the Coffea arabica L. rhizospheric bacterial community in two farming areas in São Paulo, Brazil. Dourado uses conventional farming, while Ribeirão Corrente uses organic. We found broad taxonomic composition, with sequences from 24 phyla, 55 classes, 61 orders, 146 families, and 337genus. The three most abundant phyla were Proteobacteria (38.27%), Actinobacteria (15.56%), and Acidobacteria (16.10%). In organic farming, the top 3 were the family Sphingomonadaceae, order Rhizobiales, genus Nocardioides, and Gp6. The genus Gp2 and the phylum Candidatus Saccharibacteria were the most abundant OTUs exclusively present in conventional farming. In the organic farming practice, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Acidobacteria were also present among the exclusive OTUs; we also found OTUs belonging to Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, and Verrucomicrobia. Our study indicates a positive effect of organic farming on microbial communities. Fertilization may directly affect soil microbiota, suggesting that a large and active microbial community low in functional diversity might not adapt to new climatic conditions. A diverse community could provide better resilience to environmental changes, improving the productivity of this important crop.

Antibacterial activity of Thymus vulgaris (thyme) essential oil against strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Staphylococcus saprophyticus isolated from meat product.

Meat products represent an important component of the human diet and are a good source of nutrients. Food-borne microorganisms are the main pathogens that cause human diseases as a result of food consumption, especially products of animal origin. The objective of the present research was to verify the antibacterial activity of the essential oil of Thymus vulgaris against strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus saprophyticus isolated from meat products. For this, the analyses of Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) and Minimum Bactericidal Concentration (MBC) were performed in microdilution plates. The association of the product with antimicrobials was also studied using disk diffusion. And the anti-adherent activity, which was determined in the presence of sucrose, in glass tubes. Thyme oil showed a strong inhibitory activity against K. pneumoniae, P. aeruginosa and S. saprophyticus, with the MIC values ranging from 64 to 512 µg/mL, and bactericidal effect for most strains, with MBC values ranging from 256 to 1,024 µg/mL. T. vulgaris oil exhibited varied interactions in association with the antimicrobials, with synergistic (41.67%), indifferent (50%) and antagonistic (8.33%) effects. Regarding the anti-adherent activity, the test product was effective in inhibiting the adherence of all bacterial strains under study. Therefore, thyme oil presents itself as an antibacterial and anti-adherent agent against K. pneumoniae, P. aeruginosa and S. saprophyticus, being a natural product that can represent an interesting alternative in the efforts to combat foodborne diseases.

Postpartum depression in rats causes poor maternal care and neurochemical alterations on dams and long-lasting impairment in sociability on the offspring.

Postpartum depression is a mentally disabling disease with multifactorial etiology that affects women worldwide. It can also influence child development and lead to behavioral and cognitive alterations. Despite the high prevalence, the disease is underdiagnosed and poorly studied. To study the postpartum depression caused by maternal separation model in rats, dams were separated from their litter for 3 h daily starting from lactating day (LD) 2 through LD12. Maternal studies were conducted from LD5 to LD21 and the offspring studies from postnatal day (PND) 2 through PND90. The stress caused by the dam-offspring separation led to poor maternal care and a transient increase in anxiety in the offspring detected during infancy. The female offspring also exhibited a permanent impairment in sociability during adult life. These changes were associated with neurochemical alterations in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, and low TSH concentrations in the dams, and in the hypothalamus, hippocampus and striatum of the offspring. These results indicate that the postpartum depression resulted in a depressive phenotype, changes in the brain neurochemistry and in thyroid economy that remained until the end of lactation. Changes observed in the offspring were long-lasting and resemble what is observed in children of depressant mothers.

One-dimensional silver(I) chain of lacunary alpha-Keggin anions.

A novel chain-like silver polyoxotungstophosphate is formed when Ag(I) metal centres, exhibiting an unusual eight-coordination fashion, bridge a monolacunary [PW11O39]7- anion to four bridging mu2-oxygen atoms of a neighbouring lacunary alpha-Keggin anion.

Spatial distribution and abundance of nonindigenous coral genus Tubastraea (Cnidaria, Scleractinia) around Ilha Grande, Brazil

A distribuição e abundância do coral azooxantelado Tubastraea Lesson, 1829 foram estimadas em diferentes profundidades e inferido seu ângulo preferencial de ocorrência em costões rochosos da Ilha Grande, Brasil. Tubastraea é um escleractínio ahermatípico introduzido no Brasil que, provavelmente, chegou incrustado em casco de navios e/ou plataformas de petróleo na década de 80. O coral exótico foi encontrado em uma extensão geográfica de 25 km no Canal Central da Ilha Grande. A abundância de Tubastraea foi quantificada em relação à profundidade usando três diferentes métodos: densidade de colônias e porcentagem de cobertura por estimativa visual e pontos de intersecção. O coral Tubastraea demonstrou ter ampla tolerância à temperatura e dessecação, sendo encontrado em águas muito rasas (0,1-0,5 m), apesar de haver substrato consolidado disponível em maiores profundidades em todas as estações amostradas. Em todas as estações 1-5 colônias foram mais freqüentemente encontradas em cada 0,25 m2, porém, ocasionalmente, mais que 50 colônias por 0,25 m2 foram encontradas, indicando um padrão de agregação na distribuição espacial deste coral. Tubastraea foi encontrado ocupando todos os possíveis ângulos de inclinação no Canal Central da Ilha Grande, porém, a maior parte das colônias foram encontradas ocupando ângulos entre 80-100°. Desta forma, a amplitude de inclinação de substrato e profundidades viáveis ao recrutamento do coral indicam que este organismo, de grande tolerância ecológica, tem a potencialidade de colonizar novas áreas e aumentar sua distribuição no Brasil.

Spatial distribution and abundance of nonindigenous coral genus Tubastraea (Cnidaria, Scleractinia) around Ilha Grande, Brazil.

The distribution and abundance of azooxanthellate coral Tubastraea Lesson, 1829 were examined at different depths and their slope preference was measured on rocky shores on Ilha Grande, Brazil. Tubastraea is an ahermatypic scleractinian nonindigenous to Brazil, which probably arrived on a ship's hull or oil platform in the late 1980's. The exotic coral was found along a great geographic range of the Canal Central of Ilha Grande, extending over a distance of 25 km. The abundance of Tubastraea was quantified by depth, using three different sampling methods: colony density, visual estimation and intercept points (100) for percentage of cover. Tubastraea showed ample tolerance to temperature and desiccation since it was found more abundantly in very shallow waters (0.1-0.5 m), despite the fact that hard substratum is available at greater depths at all the stations sampled. At most sites, 1 to 5 colonies per 0.25 m2 were found most frequently, but occasionally more than 50 colonies were found per 0.25 m2, indicating a somewhat gregarious spatial distribution for this coral. The coral Tubastraea was found to occupy slopes of every possible angle in the Canal Central of Ilha Grande, but more colonies were found occupying slopes of 80 to 100 degrees. Therefore, its insensitivity to angles of recruitment and its tolerance for different depths makes it an organism with great ecological tolerance, with a potential to colonize new areas and increase its current range in Brazil's coastal waters.

Prognostic factors in cystic fibrosis in a single center in Brazil: A survival analysis.

The purpose of the present study was to identify prognostic factors related to death in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). Records of 127 patients with CF submitted to a systematic protocol were retrospectively reviewed. Prognostic factors associated with demographic, nutritional, clinical, and laboratory findings on admission were studied. The median follow-up was 44 months. The analysis was conducted in two steps. First, in a univariate analysis, variables associated with death outcome were identified by the log-rank test. Then the variables that were significantly associated with adverse outcome were included in a multivariate analysis. This analysis, using the Cox proportional hazards model, was performed to identify variables that were independently associated with a worse prognosis. Only variables that remained independently associated with adverse outcome were included in the final model. Three variables were identified as independent predictors of adverse outcome: age at diagnosis under 3 months (relative risk (RR) = 13, 95% CI = 4.5-34, P < 0.001); Shwachman-Kulczycki (S-K score) score below 70; and birth weight under 3,000 g. An interaction effect between S-K score and birth weight was identified. The relative risk of death for the S-K score was 24 (95% CI = 3-195) when birth weight was lower than 3,000 g; on the other hand, when birth weight was 3,000 g or more, the relative risk for the S-K score was 1.4 (95% CI = 0.24-8.83). The combination of three factors (low S-K score, low birth weight, and young age at diagnosis) is indicative of a poor prognosis in CF patients.