Publications by authors named "Leonel Lopez"

In Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh), exposure to volatile compounds (VCs) emitted by Penicillium aurantiogriseum promotes root hair (RH) proliferation and hyper-elongation through mechanisms involving ethylene, auxin, and photosynthesis signaling. In addition, this treatment enhances the levels of the small signaling peptide RAPID ALKALINIZATION FACTOR 22 (RALF22).

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Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are essential signaling molecules that enable cells to respond rapidly to a range of stimuli. The ability of plants to recognize various stressors, incorporate a variety of environmental inputs, and initiate stress-response networks depends on ROS. Plants develop resilience and defensive systems as a result of these processes.

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Root hairs have become an important model system for studying plant growth, and in particular how plants modulate their growth in response to cell-intrinsic and environmental stimuli. In this review, we discuss recent advances in our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the growth of Arabidopsis root hairs in the interface between responses to environmental cues (e.g.

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Eukaryotic cells' proliferation and growth are controlled by the target of rapamycin kinase (TOR). TOR usually activates in favorable energy and nutritional circumstances. This is challenged by recent research, suggesting that plant cells optimized for nutrient absorption in low nutritional conditions may activate the TOR pathway in a polarized manner.

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Plant genomes encode a unique group of papain-type Cysteine EndoPeptidases (CysEPs) containing a KDEL endoplasmic reticulum (ER) retention signal (KDEL-CysEPs or CEPs). CEPs process the cell-wall scaffolding EXTENSIN (EXT) proteins that regulate de novo cell-wall formation and cell expansion. Since CEPs cleave EXTs and EXT-related proteins, acting as cell-wall-weakening agents, they may play a role in cell elongation.

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Plants exposed to freezing and above-freezing low temperatures must employ a variety of strategies to minimize fitness loss. There is a considerable knowledge gap regarding how mild low temperatures (around 10 °C) affect plant growth and developmental processes, even though the majority of the molecular mechanisms that plants use to adapt to extremely low temperatures are well understood. Root hairs (RH) have become a useful model system for studying how plants regulate their growth in response to both cell-intrinsic cues and environmental inputs.

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Background: Balloon pulmonary angioplasty (BPA) is a therapeutic alternative for patients with inoperable chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH).

Aim: To report the initial experience with the "refined BPA technique" with the use of intravascular images.

Patients And Methods: Between June 2015 and June 2016 we selected fourteen patients with CTEPH who were considered candidates for BPA.

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Background: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rare and progressive disease. Long-term survival remains poor despite of advances in specific vasodilator therapy.

Aim: To describe the survival rate in a cohort of PAH patients in two referral centers in Chile.

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Public health experts from a county health department and a school of public health collaborated to establish a simple, functional surveillance system to monitor swine-origin influenza virus as it crossed from Mexico into a Texas border community during the 2009 pandemic. The draft national and state preparedness plans were found to be cumbersome at the local level, so a simple, more practical real-time surveillance and response system was developed, in part by modifying these documents, and immediately implemented. Daily data analyses, including geographical information system mapping of cases and reports of school and daycare absences, were used for outbreak management.

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In the spring of 2009, a novel strain of H1N1 swine-origin influenza A virus (S-OIV) emerged in Mexico and the United States, and soon after was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. This work examined the ability of real-time reports of influenza-like illness (ILI) symptoms and rapid influenza diagnostic tests (RIDTs) to approximate the spatiotemporal distribution of PCR-confirmed S-OIV cases for the purposes of focusing local intervention efforts. Cluster and age adjusted relative risk patterns of ILI, RIDT, and S-OIV were assessed at a fine spatial scale at different time and space extents within Cameron County, Texas on the US-Mexico border.

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