Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales

Although gastrulation is a conserved morphogenetic process in animals, the cellular mechanisms underlying it are highly variable. This raises important questions regarding the extent to which conserved or divergent gene regulatory programs (GRNs) control gastrulation in phylogenetically distant taxa. We compared gene expression profiles during gastrulation of Acropora digitifera and Acropora tenuis, species that diverged ∼50 million years ago. Despite the morphological similarity, each species uses divergent GRNs, supporting the concept of developmental system drift. Consistently, orthologous genes showed significant temporal and modular expression divergence, indicating GRN diversification rather than conservation. Yet, we identified a subset of 370 differentially expressed genes that were up-regulated at the gastrula stage in both species, with roles in axis specification, endoderm formation, and neurogenesis, suggesting a conserved regulatory "kernel" for the process. We also identified species-specific differences in paralog usage and alternative splicing patterns that indicate independent peripheral rewiring of this conserved module. Interestingly, although A. digitifera exhibits greater paralog divergence, consistent with neofunctionalization, A. tenuis shows more redundant expression, suggesting the regulatory robustness of developmental programs in this species.

Major depressive (MDD) and borderline personality disorders (BPD) are highly prevalent and frequently comorbid psychiatric conditions, both characterized by emotion dysregulation yet likely arising from distinct etiologies. Nonetheless, the specific features of autonomic central-peripheral relationships in these disorders remain poorly understood. We investigated the association between brain structure and vagal activity, and explored the resting-state functional connectivity of brain regions found to be associated with vagal tone, in 19 MDD, 18 BPD and 20 healthy controls (HC). We found that the cortical thinning in the right lateral occipital region was associated with increased parasympathetic tone in BPD, a relationship not observed in MDD. Moreover, in BPD, this region was functionally connected to the anterior insula and prefrontal areas, linked to the central autonomic system and emotion regulation processes. Accordingly, this region was also linked to emotion dysregulation in BPD. Our findings highlight distinct central-peripheral autonomic integration in these disorders and emphasize the occipital region's structural and functional involvement in emotional and autonomic regulation in BPD. Further research is needed to clarify how occipital structure and function, well as vagal activity, may contribute as potential biomarkers for BPD.

The growing global demand for food requires optimizing agricultural practices and more rational use of natural resources without expanding cropping areas. Precision agriculture (PA) tools are essential for accurately applying fertilizers and herbicides, reducing costs, and avoiding environmental impacts. Standard macronutrient mapping methods are costly and time-consuming, limiting denser sampling collection in the field. Consequently, devices employing new materials with specific properties matching sensitivity to agricultural nutrients, robustness to face intensive climatic variations, and economical manufacturing viability are mandatory. In this sense, microfluidic impedimetric e-tongues have emerged as practical tools in PA due to their high sensitivity, adaptability, affordability, and ease of use. These sensors provide rapid qualitative and quantitative results in liquid media, with applications extending to food analysis, environmental monitoring, and biosensing. Here, metallic nitride thin films (CrN, BN, and TiN) deposited via physical vapor deposition (PVD) using the glancing angle deposition (GLAD) technique are applied as sensing units presenting high sensitivity, controlled micro- and nanostructures, durability, reproducibility, and mechanical robustness, essential characteristics for future on-site soil analyses. The GLAD technique allows precise control over the micro- and nanostructures deposited on gold interdigitated electrodes to create molecular sieves for a possible capture of target species (e.g., K⁺, Na⁺, Mg²⁺, Ca²⁺, PO₄^3-) from soil samples. We demonstrate the feasibility of using distinct nitrides as sensing units in a microfluidic e-tongue tested with soil samples with distinct compositions diluted in water without pretreatments. The sensor successfully differentiated all samples tested, showing higher K and Mg macronutrient resolution. These findings demonstrate the high potential to detect minute changes (<1 mmol·L^-1) in soil fertilization, with results compared by four prediction models, paving the way for future in situ analyses envisaging a controlled delivery of macronutrients during fertilization.