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En el marc del projecte «PhasAGE: Excellence Hub on Phase Transitions in Aging and Age-Related Disorders», el Grup de Plegament de Proteïnes i Malalties Conformacionals de l’Institut de Biotecnologia i de Biomedicina (IBB) celebra del 12 al 16 de setembre la primera edició de la «Barcelona Protein Aggregation Training School». La trobada permetrà a una trentena de joves investigadors aprofundir en el coneixement sobre el procés d’agregació de proteïnes, implicat en moltes malalties relacionades amb l’envelliment. La «Barcelona Protein Aggregation Training School» forma part del projecte «PhasAGE: Excellence Hub on Phase Transitions in Aging and Age-Related Disorders», una xarxa internacional sobre biologia molecular i malalties relacionades amb l'edat creada per augmentar

Briefings in Bioinformatics, Volume 23, Issue 5, September 2022, bbac343, https://doi.org/10.1093/bib/bbac343 Download Abstract Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a heterogeneous group of short polypeptides that target not only microorganisms but also viruses and cancer cells. Due to their lower selection for resistance compared with traditional antibiotics, AMPs have been attracting the ever-growing attention from researchers, including bioinformaticians. Machine learning represents the most cost-effective method for novel AMP discovery and consequently many computational tools for AMP prediction have been recently developed. In this article, we investigate the impact of negative data sampling on model performance and benchmarking. We generated 660 predictive models u

Scientific Reports volume 12, Article number: 14162 (2022) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-18422-2 Abstract Júlia Castro-Arnau,François Chauvigné,Jessica Gómez-Garrido,Anna Esteve-Codina,Marc Dabad,Tyler Alioto,Roderick Nigel Finn &Joan Cerdà  In non-mammalian vertebrates, the molecular mechanisms involved in the transformation of haploid germ cells (HGCs) into spermatozoa (spermiogenesis) are largely unknown. Here, we investigated this process in the marine teleost gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) through the examination of the changes in the transcriptome between cell-sorted HGCs and ejaculated sperm (SPZEJ). Samples were collected under strict quality controls employing immunofluorescence microscopy as well as by determining the sperm motion kinemat

Un estudi internacional amb participació del IBB-UAB ha identificat com s'activen les 20 formes diferents de la proteïna p53 exclusives dels elefants per augmentar la sensibilitat i la resposta contra les condicions carcinògenes. El treball suposa un avenç en la comprensió de com p53 contribueix a prevenir el desenvolupament del càncer. Publicat a Molecular Biology and Evolution, aporta una nova perspectiva per a l'estudi de l'activació d'aquesta proteïna en humans, en qui només es dona en una forma, i la recerca de teràpies farmacològiques dirigides. Científics de set institucions de recerca han utilitzat una modelització bioinformàtica pionera per investigar les interaccions moleculars de la proteïna p53, coneguda pel fet de protegir contra el càncer. El treball ha estat coordina

El Govern va aprovar el passat 5 de juliol la concessió de la Medalla Narcís Monturiol al mèrit científic i tecnològic a deu investigadors del sistema català de coneixement (cinc homes i cinc dones) i la Placa Narcís Monturiol, que reconeix la tasca de la Fundació Vall d’Hebron Institut de Recerca (VHIR).  Aquests guardons, instituïts per la Generalitat l’any 1982, distingeixen les persones i entitats per la seva contribució destacada al desenvolupament de la ciència i la tecnologia a Catalunya, i honoren al popular inventor i polític català del segle XIX, Narcís Monturiol Estarriol (1819-1885).  El nostre company Salvador Ventura ha estat un dels investigadors distingits amb la Medalla Narcís Monturiol d’enguany. El Salvador Ventura és doctor en Biologia i catedràtic

Lucía Álvarez-González and Gala Pujol Infantes are two young scientists currently developing their PhD thesis under the supervision of Aurora Ruiz-Herrera from the Genome Integrity and Instability Research group, at IBB. Lucía Álvarez-González, who is studying the 3D chromatin structure in mammalian cells won the XIV Antoni Prevosti prize that is given to the best oral communication by a young investigator in the XXI Jornades de Biologia Evolutiva. This meeting was held on the 29th of June at the Institut d'Estudis Catalans and it is organised by SCB every summer since 2001. One month later, on the July 22th, Gala won the prize to the best oral communication in the Jornades de Aqüicultura also organised by the SCB, that took place last week at the Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Biomolecules2022, 12(6), 784; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom12060784 Abstract Cancer is one of the main causes of death worldwide. To date, and despite the advances in conventional treatment options, therapy in cancer is still far from optimal due to the non-specific systemic biodistribution of antitumor agents. The inadequate drug concentrations at the tumor site led to an increased incidence of multiple drug resistance and the appearance of many severe undesirable side effects. Nanotechnology, through the development of nanoscale-based pharmaceuticals, has emerged to provide new and innovative drugs to overcome these limitations. In this review, we provide an overview of the approved nanomedicine for cancer treatment and the rationale behind their designs and applications. We al...

Environmental Research: Available online 14 May 2022, 113433 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2022.113433 Abstract The extent of the widespread, planetary contamination by plastic waste is difficult to fully capture. Nanoplastics (NPs) are currently in the center of research concerning plastic litter, both for the analytical challenges they pose and for their potential to provoke hazardous effects in organisms. However, there are still many unanswered questions in this multidisciplinary field, with a crucial missing piece being the quantification of NPs in fish tissues after in vivo exposures. Another relevant question that is still greatly unexplored is how a chronic exposure to NPs will affect fish health. This study aims to provide answers to both of these relevant knowled...

Un estudi liderat per la UAB i la Universitat de Kent mostra com l'estructura tridimensional del genoma de les cèl·lules germinals masculines està implicada en l'evolució dels genomes de les espècies. Publicat a Nature Communications i realitzat en espècies de rosegadors, mostra que els esdeveniments cromosòmics que ocorren durant la formació d'òvuls i espermatozoides tenen un impacte diferent en l'evolució del genoma i obre noves vies de recerca sobre l'origen genètic de l'estructura del genoma en tots els organismes. Tradicionalment, l'estudi de genomes de diferents espècies de mamífers ha mostrat que, tot i que totes les espècies tenen un catàleg molt similar de gens, aquests poden estar ordenats de manera diferent per a cada espècie, i poden activar-se i desactivar-se de divers

Ruiz-Herrera, A., Waters, P.D. Fragile, unfaithful and persistent Ys—on how meiosis can shape sex chromosome evolution. Heredity (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41437-022-00532-2 Abstract Sex-linked inheritance is a stark exception to Mendel’s Laws of Heredity. Here we discuss how the evolution of heteromorphic sex chromosomes (mainly the Y) has been shaped by the intricacies of the meiotic programme. We propose that persistence of Y chromosomes in distantly related mammalian phylogroups can be explained in the context of pseudoautosomal region (PAR) size, meiotic pairing strategies, and the presence of Y-borne executioner genes that regulate meiotic sex chromosome inactivation. We hypothesise that variation in PAR size can be an important driver for the evolution of recombi