Biology subjects

Rios, S.

Publications and source records attributed to Rios, S..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Sex-dependent neural plasticity in response to damage

Plasticity of intact adult neural tissue in the vicinity of neural damage serves to restore functionality of circuits. Much remains to be learned about the mechanisms regulating this process and the reported sex differences in recovery outcomes. Here, we present the fly gut and its innervation as a simplified model to address these questions. We show that gut damage caused by ingestion of toxic agents resulted in plasticity of the adult enteric neuronal network, manifested as a Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS)-dependent increase in neural tissue, which was reversible after a recovery period. Interestingly, males did not display neural plasticity, and masculinization of neurons in females suppressed the damage-dependent neural growth. Together, these findings position the fly gut as a system to investigate the cellular, molecular, and sex-specific underpinnings of neural plasticity, with implications for therapeutic advancements in neural circuit recovery. SUMMARY STATEMENTThis study establishes the fly gut as a simple system to explore how adult neural tissues differ between sexes in their capacity for plasticity.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Are indigenous territories and community-managed areas effective natural climate solutions? A neotropical analysis using matching methods and geographic discontinuity designs.

Indigenous Territories (ITs) with less centralized forest governance than Protected Areas (PAs) may represent cost-effective natural climate solutions to meet the Paris agreement. However, the literature has been limited to examining the effect of ITs on deforestation, despite the influence of anthropogenic degradation. Thus, little is known about the temporal and spatial effect of allocating ITs on carbon stocks dynamics that account for losses from deforestation and degradation. Using Amazon Basin countries and Panama, this study aims to estimate the temporal and spatial effects of ITs and PAs on carbon stocks. To estimate the temporal effects, we use annual carbon density maps, matching analysis, and linear mixed models. Furthermore, we explore the spatial heterogeneity of these estimates through geographic discontinuity designs, allowing us to assess the spatial effect of ITs and PAs boundaries on carbon stocks. The temporal effects highlight that allocating ITs preserves carbon stocks and buffer losses as PAs in Panama and Amazon Basin countries. The geographic discontinuity designs reveal that ITs boundaries secure more extensive carbon stocks than their surroundings, and this difference tends to increase towards the least accessible areas, suggesting that indigenous land use in neotropical forests may have a temporarily and spatially stable impact on carbon stocks. Our findings imply that ITs in neotropical forests support Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. Thus, Indigenous peoples must become recipients of countries results-based payments.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2019

GPCRmd uncovers the dynamics of the 3D-GPCRome

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are involved in numerous physiological processes and are the most frequent targets of approved drugs. The explosion in the number of new 3D molecular structures of GPCRs (3D-GPCRome) during the last decade has greatly advanced the mechanistic understanding and drug design opportunities for this protein family. While experimentally-resolved structures undoubtedly provide valuable snapshots of specific GPCR conformational states, they give only limited information on their flexibility and dynamics associated with function. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have become a widely established technique to explore the conformational landscape of proteins at an atomic level. However, the analysis and visualization of MD simulations requires efficient storage resources and specialized software, hence limiting the dissemination of these data to specialists in the field. Here we present the GPCRmd (http://gpcrmd.org/), an online platform that incorporates web-based visualization capabilities as well as a comprehensive and user-friendly analysis toolbox that allows scientists from different disciplines to visualize, analyse and share GPCR MD data. GPCRmd originates from a community-driven effort to create the first open, interactive, and standardized database of GPCR MD simulations. We demonstrate the power of this resource by performing comparative analyses of multiple GPCR simulations on two mechanisms critical to receptor function: internal water networks and sodium ion interaction.

biophysics↗