Publications by authors named "Miguel Fuertes"

Introduction: Vaccination emerges as a promising cost-effective tool to reduce the impact and spread of animal tuberculosis, especially in regions where test-and-slaughter eradication strategy is socioeconomically unfeasible or unfruitful for different reasons, provided it is safe, efficacious and compatible with diagnosis.

Methods: In this study, we preliminarily evaluated the diagnostic interference (using guinea pigs) and the protective efficacy (using mice) of three heat-inactivated, three phage-inactivated and one live attenuated vaccine prototypes prepared from , and .

Results And Discussion: Phage-inactivation killed almost all (96.

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Background: Recent studies hint at mitochondrial genes influencing UC patient response to anti-TNF treatment. We evaluated this hypothesis by following a targeted strategy to identify gene expression that captures the relationship between mitochondrial dysregulation and response to treatment. Our objective was to initially examine this relationship in colon samples and subsequently assess whether the resulting signal persists in the bloodstream.

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subsp. (Map) is the etiological agent of paratuberculosis (PTB), a chronic intestinal inflammatory disease that causes high economical losses in dairy livestock worldwide. Due to the absence of widely available preventive or therapeutical treatments, new alternative therapies are needed.

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Background: The coronavirus disease has led to an exhaustive exploration of the SARS-CoV-2 genome. Despite the amount of information accumulated, the prediction of short RNA motifs encoding peptides mediating protein-protein or protein-drug interactions has received limited attention.

Objective: The study aims to predict short RNA motifs that are interspersed in the SARS-CoV-2 genome.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Research shows that the absence of a protein called MCJ in macrophages leads to changes in gut microbiota, which may be key to understanding why some patients are anti-TNF refractory.
  • * The study highlights the importance of macrophage mitochondrial function in the gut, suggesting that microbial changes can influence inflammation severity and treatment effectiveness.
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  • * Mice lacking the mitochondrial protein MCJ show increased sensitivity to colitis, but this study reveals that their altered gut microbiota can pass on this susceptibility to germ-free mice through fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT).
  • * The research identifies specific microbiota and immune responses, like increased IgA coating on bacteria in MCJ-deficient mice, which may contribute to the progression of IBD, highlighting the potential for microbial biomarkers in predicting ulcerative colitis patient outcomes.
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The hollow protein capsids from a number of different viruses are being considered for multiple biomedical or nanotechnological applications. In order to improve the applied potential of a given viral capsid as a nanocarrier or nanocontainer, specific conditions must be found for achieving its faithful and efficient assembly in vitro. The small size, adequate physical properties and specialized biological functions of the capsids of parvoviruses such as the minute virus of mice (MVM) make them excellent choices as nanocarriers and nanocontainers.

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The single and comparative intradermal tuberculin tests (SITT and CITT) are official in vivo tests for bovine tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis using bovine and avian purified protein derivatives (PPD-B and PPD-A). Infection with bacteria other than Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) can result in nonspecific reactions to these tests. We evaluated the performance of the skin test with PPDs and new defined antigens in the guinea pig model.

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Vaccination could be considered as an effective method for paratuberculosis control, although controversial, with a need for investigation in some aspects. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of vaccination, depending on the age of the animals, on their immune response, the reduction of paratuberculosis cases, mortality and culled animals in a commercial dairy herd. Goats from three different ages were immunized with the inactivated Gudair vaccine.

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Article Synopsis
  • Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a complex, long-lasting condition influenced by various factors, including genetics and immune responses.
  • MCJ, a protein related to mitochondria, seems to impact how macrophages respond to inflammation, and its deficiency is linked to increased TACE activity, which affects TNF balance in chronic inflammation.
  • In the absence of MCJ, chronic inflammation leads to increased microbial diversity and a drop in important inflammatory microbes, suggesting that mitochondrial function plays a key role in metabolic changes during chronic IBD.
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Protein-based nanostructured materials are being developed for many biomedical and nanotechnological applications. Despite their many desirable features, protein materials are highly susceptible to disruption by mechanical stress and fatigue. This study is aimed to increase fatigue resistance and enhance self-healing of a natural protein-based supramolecular nanomaterial through permanent genetic modification.

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Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (Map) causes paratuberculosis (PTB), a granulomatous enteritis in ruminants that exerts high economic impact on the dairy industry worldwide. Current vaccines have shown to be cost-effective against Map and in some cases confer beneficial non-specific effects against other pathogens suggesting the existence of trained immunity.

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Facial eczema (FE) is a secondary photosensitization disease of farm ruminants caused by the sporidesmin A, produced in the spores of the saprophytic fungus . This study communicates an outbreak of ovine FE in Asturias (Spain) and characterizes the serum biochemical pattern and the immune response that may contribute to liver damage, favoring cholestasis and the progression to fibrosis and cirrhosis. Animals showed clinical signs of photosensitivity, with decrease of daily weight gain and loss of wool and crusting for at least 6 months after the FE outbreak.

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The use of non-pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (Myocet ) in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) has been investigated in retrospective and single-arm prospective studies. This was a prospective phase 2 trial of DLBCL patients ≥60 years old with left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) ≥55% randomized to standard R-CHOP or investigational R-COMP (with Myocet instead of conventional doxorubicin). The primary end point was to evaluate the differences in subclinical cardiotoxicity, defined as decrease in LVEF to <55% at the end of treatment.

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  • This study investigates the immune response in sheep's placenta after infection with toxoplasmosis, focusing on early abortions.
  • It was found that parasitic activity in the placenta only appeared 4 weeks after the infection, with distinct immune cell changes observed at different stages of abortion.
  • The research suggests that the immune responses from both the maternal and fetal sides of the placenta play a role in the disease's development and vary between early and late abortion cases.
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Paratuberculosis (PTB) is an enteric granulomatous disease caused by subsp. (MAP) that mainly affects ruminants. Current vaccines have shown to be cost-effective control reagents, although they are restricted due to cross-interference with bovine tuberculosis (bTB).

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Picornaviridae family includes several viruses of great economic and medical importance. Among all members of the family we focused our attention on the human rhinovirus, the most important etiologic agent of the common cold and on the foot-and-mouth disease virus that cause of an economically important disease in cattle. Despite the low sequence similarity of the polyprotein coding open reading frames of these highly divergent picornaviruses, they have in common structural and functional similarities including a similar genomic organization, a capsid structure composed of 60 copies of four different proteins, or 3D-structures showing similar general topology, among others.

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Animal tuberculosis remains a great source of socioeconomic and health concern worldwide. Its main causative agents, Mycobacterium bovis and Mycobacterium caprae, have been isolated from many different domestic and wild animals. Naturally, occurring tuberculosis is extremely rare in rabbits, and implication of M.

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Although it is known that gestation could influence the clinical course of ovine toxoplasmosis, the precise effect of the term of gestation when sheep are infected are yet mostly unknown. The aim of this study was to evaluate the peripheral and placental immune responses developed in pregnant sheep after experimental infection with Toxoplasma gondii at different times of gestation. Thirty-six pregnant sheep were allocated in different groups, orally inoculated with sporulated oocysts of T.

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Unravelling gene structure requires the identification and understanding of the constraints that are often associated with the evolutionary history and functional domains of genes. We speculated in this manuscript with the possibility of the existence in orthologs of an emergent highly conserved gene structure that might explain their coordinated evolution during speciation events and their parental function. Here, we will address the following issues: (1) is there any conserved hypothetical structure along ortholog gene sequences? (2) If any, are such conserved structures maintained and conserved during speciation events? The data presented show evidences supporting this hypothesis.

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Animal tuberculosis (TB) remains a major problem in some countries despite the existence of control programmes focused mainly on cattle. In this species, aerogenous transmission is accepted as the most frequent infection route, affecting mainly the respiratory system. Under the hypothesis that the oral route could be playing a more relevant role in transmission, diagnosis and disease persistence than previously thought, this study was performed to assess the course of TB infection in cattle and its effects on diagnosis depending on the route of entry of Mycobacterium bovis.

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Deer species (family Cervidae) are often part of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex maintenance host community, and tuberculosis (TB) control in deer, including vaccination, is consequently an area of ongoing research. However, most research into deer vaccination against TB is focused on using the live bacillus Calmette Guerin (BCG). Oral inactivated vaccines represent an interesting alternative to either oral or parenteral BCG, since neither diagnostic cross-reactions nor vaccine strain survival are likely to occur.

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Animals infected with Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (Map) show a variety of lesions, from focal forms, seen in subclinical stages to diffuse lesions in clinical cases. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the local expression of IFN-γ by immunohistochemistry in relation with the type of lesion in naturally Map-infected cows.

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Icosahedral viral capsids are made of a large number of symmetrically organized protein subunits whose local movements can be essential for infection. In the capsid of the minute virus of mice, events required for infection that involve translocation of peptides through capsid pores are associated with a subtle conformational change. In vitro, this change can be reversibly induced by overcoming the energy barrier through mild heating of the capsid, but little is known about the capsid regions involved in the process.

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