Publications by authors named "Gabriela Guevara"

Importance: Infant growth predicts long-term obesity and cardiovascular disease. Previous interventions designed to prevent obesity in the first 2 years of life have been largely unsuccessful. Obesity prevalence is high among traditional racial and ethnic minority groups.

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Community engagement in research improves uptake of health interventions and health outcomes among marginalized populations. Researchers from school-based health centers serving marginalized communities in Miami, Florida fostered community engagement in COVID-19 research and health education through collaboration with school staff and student "champions" from June 2021 to June 2023. Evaluations completed by champions assessed acceptability, feasibility, and recommendations for improvements.

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Drought is an environmental stress that severely affects plant growth and crop production. Different studies have focused on drought responses but the molecular bases that regulate these mechanisms are still unclear. We report the participation of Aspartic Protease (APA1) in drought tolerance.

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This report describes the purification of an aspartic protease (salpichroin) from ripe fruits of Salpichroa origanifolia (Solanaceae) starting with precipitation using organic solvents and anionexchange chromatography with 32.1% recovery and 13.4-fold purification.

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AP3 is a plant aspartic protease with cytotoxic activity toward a broad spectrum of pathogens, including potato and human pathogen microorganisms, and cancer cells, but not against human T cells, human red blood cells or plant cells. For this reason, AP3 could be a promising and potential drug candidate for future therapies. In this work, the improvement of the performance of AP3 was achieved by means of a modification with PEG.

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In the present work we have analyzed the effect of StAsp-PSI (plant-specific insert of potato aspartic protease) on the structural and thermotropic properties of the major phospholipid types of bacterial and animal cells. Results obtained suggest that StAsp-PSI induces a destabilization of the membrane bilayers, depending on the time of interaction between the protein and the bilayers, rather than on its concentration. This temporal delay would be consistent with a lateral diffusion of StAsp-PSI monomers to assemble into aggregates to form pores.

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Potato aspartic proteases (StAPs) and their swaposin domain (StAsp-PSI) are proteins with cytotoxic activity which involves plasma membrane destabilization. The ability of these proteins to produce cell death varies with the cellular type. Therefore, StAPs and StAsp-PSI selective cytotoxicity could be attributed to the different membrane lipid compositions of target cells.

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