bdotto82@gmail.com or gabriel.wallau@gmail.com.

Horizontal Transfer (HT) of genetic material between species is a common phenomenon among Bacteria and Archaea species and several databases are available for information retrieval and data mining. However, little attention has been given to this phenomenon among eukaryotic species mainly due to the lower proportion of these events. In the last years, a vertiginous amount of new HT events involving eukaryotic species was reported in the literature, highlighting the need of a common repository to keep the scientific community up to date and describe overall trends. Recently, we published the first HT database focused on HT of transposable elements among eukaryotes: the Horizontal Transposon Transfer DataBase: Database URL: (http://lpa.saogabriel.unipampa.edu.br: 8080/httdatabase/). Here, we present new features and updates of this unique database: (i) its expansion to include virus-host exchange of genetic material, which we called Horizontal Virus Transfer (HVT) and (ii) the availability of a web server for HT detection, where we implemented the online version of vertical and horizontal inheritance consistence analysis (VHICA), an R package developed for HT detection. These improvements will help researchers to navigate through known HVT cases, take data-informed decision and export figures based on keywords searches. Moreover, the availability of the VHICA as an online tool will make this software easily reachable even for researchers with no or little computation knowledge as well as foster our capability to detect new HT events in a wide variety of taxa. Database URL: http://lpa.saogabriel.unipampa.edu.br:8080/httdatabase/

Animal venoms have been widely recognized as a major source of biologically active molecules. Bothriurus bonariensis, popularly known as black scorpion, is the arthropod responsible for the highest number of accidents involving scorpion sting in Southern Brazil. Here we reported the first attempt to investigate the neurobiology of B. bonariensis venom (BBV) in the insect and mammalian nervous system. BBV (32 μg/g) induced a slow neuromuscular blockade in the in vivo cockroach nerve-muscle preparations (70 ± 4%, n = 6, p < 0.001), provoking repetitive twitches and significantly decreasing the frequency of spontaneous leg action potentials (SNCAPs) from 82 ± 3 min(-1) to 36 ± 1.3 min(-1) (n = 6, p < 0.05), without affecting the amplitude. When tested in primary cultures of rat hippocampal cells, BBV induced a massive increase of Ca(2+) influx (250 ± 1% peak increase, n = 3, p < 0.0001). The disturbance of calcium homeostasis induced by BBV on the mammalian central nervous system was not accompanied by cellular death and was prevented by the co-treatment of the hippocampal cells with tetrodotoxin, a selective sodium channel blocker. The results suggest that the biological activity of BBV is mostly related to a modulation of sodium channels function. Our biological activity survey suggests that BBV may have a promising insecticidal and therapeutic potential.

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The organelle genomes of the Antarctic alga Prasiola crispa (Lightfoot) Kützing have been sequenced. The plastid and mitochondrial genomes have a total length of 196,502 bp and 89,819 bp, respectively. These genomes have 19 putative photosynthesis-related genes and 17 oxidative metabolism-related genes, respectively.

Antarctica is one of the most difficult habitats for sustaining life on earth; organisms that live there have developed different strategies for survival. Among these organisms is the green alga Prasiola crispa, belonging to the class Trebouxiophyceae. The literature on P. crispa taxonomy is scarce, and many gaps in the evolutionary relationship with its closest relatives remain. The goal of this study was to analyze the evolutionary relationships between P. crispa and other green algae using plastid and mitochondrial genomes. In addition, we analyzed the synteny conservation of these genomes of P. crispa with those of closely related species. Based on the plastid genome, P. crispa grouped with Prasiolopsis sp. SAG 84.81, another Trebouxiophyceaen species from the Prasiola clade. Based on the mitochondrial genome analysis, P. crispa grouped with other Trebouxiophyceaen species but had a basal position. The structure of the P. crispa chloroplast genome had low synteny with Prasiolopsis sp. SAG 84.81, despite some conserved gene blocks. The same was observed in the mitochondrial genome compared with Coccomyxa subellipsoidea C-169. We were able to establish the phylogenetic position of P. crispa with other species of Trebouxiophyceae using its genomes. In addition, we described the plasticity of these genomes using a structural analysis. The plastid and mitochondrial genomes of P. crispa will be useful for further genetic studies, phylogenetic analysis and resource protection of P. crispa as well as for further phylogenetic analysis of Trebouxiophyceaen green algae.

Recently, patients with glycogen storage disease (GSD) have been described as having gut dysbiosis, lower fecal pH, and an imbalance in SCFAs due to an increase in acetate and propionate levels. Here, we report the fecal measurement of bacterial-related metabolites formic, acetic, lactic, propionic, and succinic acid, a key metabolite of both host and microbiota, on a previously described cohort of 24 patients (GSD Ia = 15, GSD Ib = 5, 1 GSD III = 1 and GSD IX = 3) and 16 healthy controls, with similar sex and age, using the high-performance liquid chromatography technique. The succinic acid levels were higher in the GSD patients than in the controls (patients = 38.02; controls = 27.53; p = 0.045), without differences between the groups for other metabolites. Fecal pH present inverse correlation with lactic acid (R = −0.54; p = 0.0085), while OTUs were inversely correlated with both lactic (R = −0.46; p = 0.026) and formic (R = −0.54; p = 0.026) acids. Using two distinct metrics of diversity, borderline significance was obtained for propionic acid, affecting the microbial structure on Euclidean basis in 8% (r2 = 0.081; p = 0.079), and for lactic acid, affecting 6% of microbial structure using Bray–Curtis distance (r2 = 0.065; p = 0.060). No correlation was found between SCFAs and total carbohydrate consumption among the participants or uncooked cornstarch consumption among the patients.

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