Caracterización de partículas coloidales en el agua del suelo mediante detección sintonizable de pulsos resistivos

Extracellular Vesicles
/References

Vázquez Juiz, María Laura. "Caracterización de partículas coloidales en el agua del suelo mediante detección sintonizable de pulsos resistivos." PhD diss., Bioloxía vexetal e ciencias do solo, 2021.

The transport of colloids in soil determines the fate of pollutants, nutrients and microorganisms in the environment and the contamination of groundwater. Colloidal retention mechanisms in soils depend on complex interactions between the soil pore walls and colloids. The hypothesis of this thesis is that the interaction of the particulate colloidal pollutants with the colloids present in the soil pore water has a dramatic influence on the transport of pollutants. This is due to the fact that the filtration of colloids in the porous medium depends on the size, shape and charge of the coatings and colloidal aggregates formed between the polluting particles and the suspended soil colloids. Improving the characterization of colloidal particulate pollutants in soil water can help to explain more precisely the role of soil as a filter for pollutants. Emerging technologies in particle characterization can represent an important advance in this characterization. Specifically, the tunable resistive pulse sensing (TRPS) detection technology allows the real (non-hydrodynamic) size of individual particles to be determined with high precision in a polydisperse suspension between 40 nm and 3 micrometers, in addition to determining, also individually, their surface electrical potential. The new knowledge that this technique can provide could lead to a better understanding of the transport of particulate pollutants in the soil, which could improve the diagnosis of potential vulnerability of subsurface waters against pathogenic organisms, engineered nanoparticles and metals bound to colloids, as well as optimize the design of micro and nanopesticide formulations.

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Cigarette smoke (CS) represents one of the most relevant environmental risk factors for several chronic pathologies. Tissue damage caused by CS exposure is mediated, at least in part, by oxidative stress induced by its toxic and pro-oxidant components. Evidence demonstrates that extracellular vesicles (EVs) released by various cell types exposed to CS extract (CSE) are characterized by altered biochemical cargo and gained pathological properties. In the present study, we evaluated the content of oxidized proteins and phospholipid fatty acid profiles of EVs released by human bronchial epithelial BEAS-2B cells treated with CSE. This specific molecular characterization has hitherto not been performed. After confirmation that CSE reduces viability of BEAS-2B cells and elevates intracellular ROS levels, in a dose-dependent manner, we demonstrated that 24 h exposure at 1% CSE, a concentration that only slight modifies cell viability but increases ROS levels, was able to increase carbonylated protein levels in cells and released EVs. The release of oxidatively modified proteins via EVs might represent a mechanism used by cells to remove toxic proteins in order to avoid their intracellular overloading. Moreover, 1% CSE induced only few changes in the fatty acid asset in BEAS-2B cell membrane phospholipids, whereas several rearrangements were observed in EVs released by CSE-treated cells. The impact of changes in acyl chain composition of CSE-EVs accounted for the increased saturation levels of phospholipids, a membrane parameter that might influence EV stability, uptake and, at least in part, EV-mediated biological effects. The present in vitro study adds new information concerning the biochemical composition of CSE-related EVs, useful to predict their biological effects on target cells. Furthermore, the information regarding the presence of oxidized proteins and the specific membrane features of CSE-related EVs can be useful to define the utilization of circulating EVs as marker for diagnosing of CS-induced lung damage and/or CS-related diseases.

2023
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