Publications by authors named "Nelson Rivera-Franco"

Article Synopsis
  • - Major instances of Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) were noted during the Zika virus outbreaks from 2014 to 2016, raising questions about why some individuals become more susceptible to GBS following Zika infection.
  • - The study focused on analyzing Zika virus (ZIKV) genotypes from urine samples of GBS patients and controls during the 2016 outbreak in Colombia, using advanced genome sequencing techniques.
  • - Results showed no significant genetic differences between ZIKV strains in GBS cases and those without neurological issues, indicating that GBS may be linked more to patient-specific factors rather than specific ZIKV mutations.
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Using fecal microbial community profiles through sequencing approaches helps to unravel the intimate interplay between health, wellness, and diet in wild animals with their environment. Ensuring the proper preservation of fecal samples before processing is crucial to ensure reliable results. In this study, we evaluated the efficiency of two different preservation methods, considering the following criteria: DNA yield, quality and integrity, and microbial community structure based on Oxford Nanopore amplicon sequencing of the V3-V4 region of bacterial 16S rRNA and protozoa 18S rRNA genes.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Advances in chemotherapy for cervical cancer often harm patients' quality of life, creating a need for safer, natural therapy alternatives.
  • - A phospholipase A type-Asp49 from snake venom shows selective toxicity against cervical cancer cell lines (HeLa and Ca Ski) without damaging their membranes.
  • - The study concludes that this compound disrupts cell adhesion and affects survival pathways, positioning it as a promising candidate for developing effective cervical cancer treatments.
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In evolutionary studies of human populations based on the Y chromosome, the majority of Native Americans belong to the QM3 lineage. Therefore, to study the history of groups inhabiting northern South America, it is necessary to have a higher resolution of the tree. The objective of this work was to identify new SNPs of the QM3 lineage that would allow the evaluation of the phylogenetic relationships between Andean and Amazonian populations of Colombia.

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The optimization of resources for research in developing countries forces us to consider strategies in the wet lab that allow the reuse of molecular biology reagents to reduce costs. In this study, we used linear regression as a method for predictive modeling of coverage depth given the number of MinION reads sequenced to define the optimum number of reads necessary to obtain >200X coverage depth with a good lineage-clade assignment of SARS-CoV-2 genomes. The research aimed to create and implement a model based on machine learning algorithms to predict different variables (, coverage depth) given the number of MinION reads produced by Nanopore sequencing to maximize the yield of high-quality SARS-CoV-2 genomes, determine the best sequencing runtime, and to be able to reuse the flow cell with the remaining nanopores available for sequencing in a new run.

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Objective: To identify pathogenic variants in an Afro-Colombian family with risk factors for glaucoma.

Methods: In the present study, whole exome sequencing was performed on seven members of a Raizal family from the archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina, in the Caribbean region of Colombia. Four of them had been diagnosed with glaucoma.

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Due to the lack of chemotherapeutic drugs that selectively affect cervical cancer cells, natural sources such as snake venom are currently being investigated for molecules with antitumor potential. , a phospholipase A type-Asp49 from snake venom, induced cell death in a cervical cancer cell line-Ca Ski-related to dysfunction in the ability to resolve endoplasmic reticulum stress, evidenced by sub-expression of genes such as PERK, ERO1 PDIs, HSP70, and CHOP. Western blot analysis validated the last two genes' sub-expression at the protein level.

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Breast cancer is the leading cause of death by cancer among women in less developed regions. In Colombia, few published studies have applied next-generation sequencing technologies to evaluate the genetic factors related to breast cancer. This study characterized the exome of three patients with breast cancer from southwestern Colombia to identify likely pathogenic or disease-related DNA sequence variants in tumor cells.

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Objectives: The Y chromosome has highly informative markers, such as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), that are useful for making historical inferences about the settlement of the Americas. However, the scarcity of these markers has limited their use. This study aims to identify new SNPs and increase the phylogenetic resolution of haplogroup Q for the Americas, mainly focusing on the lineages of the Amazon region.

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