First records of hydroid epibionts on the introduced macroalga in the Mexican Pacific.

Background: The red macroalga is an introduced species in the Mexican Pacific. To date, there are no published studies on its sessile epibionts, including the hydrozoans and bryozoans, which are the dominant epibionts on macrophytes and of significant biological and economic interest.

New Information: This study provides insight into the faunal diversity of hydroids growing on .

A survey of epibiont hydrozoans on .

The brown alga provides a natural substrate occupied by hydrozoans in shallow marine waters. A global count in 2007 listed 39 epibiotic species of Hydrozoa growing on , but more studies have been published since, therefore, an update is timely, particularly due to the increased abundance of in the Caribbean. This review, based on a recent literature survey and new records from Mexico, includes 133 publications of epibiotic hydrozoans on spanning 220 years, from 1802 to 2022.

Taxonomy and diversity of Hydrozoa (Cnidaria, Medusozoa) of La Paz Bay, Gulf of California.

The Mexican Pacific has been the focus of several research expeditions, with 90 species of hydromedusae and more than 200 species of hydroids recorded for the region. However, only a few of these reports include taxonomic descriptions, hindering inferences of the phylogenetic relationships, species boundaries, and diversity of Hydrozoa in Mexican waters. In this study, we present detailed and illustrated descriptions of new records of hydromedusae and hydroids for La Paz Bay, Gulf of California.

Epibiont hydroids on beachcast in the Mexican Caribbean.

Massive accumulations of pelagic species of have generated recent social, economic and ecological problems along Caribbean shores. In the Mexican Caribbean, these events have prompted the study of diverse biological and ecological aspects of these macroalgae. However, studies on their associated biota, including Hydrozoa, remain scarce.

Large-Scale Comparison of Toxin and Antitoxins in .

Toxin-antitoxin systems (TASs) are widely distributed in prokaryotes and encode pairs of genes involved in many bacterial biological processes and mechanisms, including pathogenesis. The TASs have not been extensively studied in (), a pathogenic bacterium of the Firmicutes phylum causing infections in animals and humans. Using our recently published TASmania database, we focused on the known and new putative TASs in 352 genomes and identified the putative core gene TASs (cgTASs) with the Pasteur BIGSdb-Lm database and, by complementarity, the putative accessory gene TAS (acTASs).

Comparison of Aerobic Scope for Metabolic Activity in Aquatic Ectotherms With Temperature Related Metabolic Stimulation: A Novel Approach for Aerobic Power Budget.

Considering that swim-flume or chasing methods fail in the estimation of maximum metabolic rate and in the estimation of Aerobic Scope (AS) of sedentary or sluggish aquatic ectotherms, we propose a novel conceptual approach in which high metabolic rates can be obtained through stimulation of organism metabolic activity using high and low non-lethal temperatures that induce high (HMR) and low metabolic rates (LMR), This method was defined as TIMR: Temperature Induced Metabolic Rate, designed to obtain an aerobic power budget based on temperature-induced metabolic scope which may mirror thermal metabolic scope (TMS = HMR-LMR). Prior to use, the researcher should know the critical thermal maximum (CT max) and minimum (CT min) of animals, and calculate temperature TIMR max (at temperatures -5-10% below CT max) and TIMR min (at temperatures +5-10% above CT min), or choose a high and low non-lethal temperature that provoke a higher and lower metabolic rate than observed in routine conditions. Two sets of experiments were carried out.

Chiral isotropic sponge phase of hexatic smectic layers of achiral molecules.

Smectic layers of tilted, bent-core liquid crystals have a tendency to exhibit spontaneous saddle-splay curvature, a mechanical response that relieves the internal strain of the layers. When this tendency is strong enough, the smectic layers form complex, equilibrium, non-planar structures such as the helical nanofilaments in the B4 phase and the disordered focal conics in the chiral dark conglomerate (DC) phase. The DC phase is usually observed on cooling directly from the isotropic phase, with the disordered focal conics analogous to the disordered sponge phase found in lyotropic systems.

Prevention of in vitro hepatic stellate cells activation by the adenosine derivative compound IFC305.

We have previously shown that adenosine and the aspartate salt of adenosine (IFC305) reverse pre-established CCl(4)-induced cirrhosis in rats. However, their molecular mechanism of action is not clearly understood. Hepatic stellate cells (HSC) play a pivotal role in liver fibrogenesis leading to cirrhosis, mainly through their activation, changing from a quiescent adipogenic state to a proliferative myofibrogenic condition.