Publications

The effects of four fungicides commonly used for the control of fungal diseases in vines and grapes in the course of winemaking were tested. The concentration of fungicide residues was monitored throughout the process to establish their kinetics of dissipation. In all cases the percentages of dissipation were >68%, which shows the detoxificant effect of the winemaking process. On the other hand, the effect of the fungicide residues on the aroma composition of Tempranillo red wines was tested. To evaluate possible modifications on the aroma profile of wines, seven odorant series (ripe fruits, fresh fruits, lactic, floral, spicy, vinous, and herbaceous) were built from the odor activity values (OAVs) obtained for each volatile compound. Ripe fruits and fresh fruits were the major aromatic attributes in all Tempranillo red wines. These two odorant series registered the highest variations in their total OAVs with respect to the control wine, especially with the application of boscalid + kresoxim-methyl into vines, leading to a decrease in the ripe fruit and fresh fruit nuances of the resulting wines. Moreover, when the effect of these fungicides on the aroma of Tempranillo red wines was compared throughout two years (2012 and 2013), wines elaborated from grapes treated in the field with boscalid + kresoxim-methyl in 2013 displayed the highest variation in aroma profile with respect to control wine.

Chrysin, a flavone nutraceutical, possesses several beneficial pharmacological properties, which has gained much emphasis in recent years. The biological effects of chrysin are exerted due to impeding or activating multifarious cellular and molecular pathways. Our findings indicated that chrysin inhibited tumor progression in various cancer cell lines by repressing the formation of a sphere and upregulated protein expression of Src homology region 2 domain-containing phosphatase-1 (SHP-1), alleviating phosphorylated-signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (p-STAT3) and transaction workflow innovation standards team1 (Twist1), sustaining phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) and endorsing mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase1 (MEK1) overexpression, increasing the cytochrome c release, mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation, matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) collapse, and caspase-3 activity, modulating p53/ B-cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2)/caspase-9 cascade, cyclooxygenase- 2 (COX-2), nuclear factor kappa B proposition 65 (NF-kB p65) expression and also decreasing the expression of nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2). Chrysin prevented cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, cisplatin, methotrexate, paracetamol, alcohol, carbon tetrachloride, tert-butyl hydroperoxide (tBHP) and thioacetamide. Chrysin has protective properties against oxidative stress, inflammation, hepatotoxicity, liver fibrosis, steatosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Chrysin's most common hepatoprotective biochemical and molecular mechanisms involve the ability to control enzyme synthesis, scavenge free radicals, boost the antioxidant response, induce apoptosis, and modify the synthesis of proinflammatory and profibrotic cytokines.Chrysin is a valuable nutraceutical with broad therapeutic feasibility, but to confirm its representative hepatoprotective potential, clinical studies are advised. It would also be interesting to use cutting-edge drug delivery techniques or include bio-enhancers.

When used to fine wines, bentonite acquires a protein load that makes it a potentially useful fertilizer. Other properties of bentonite are also potentially useful for soil amendment. In the work described in this paper, waste bentonite from a winery was applied to an acid soil, and its effects on soil properties and on the growth of Lolium multiflorum were evaluated. Soil N, K, and P contents all increased, as did pH and cation exchange capacity. Biomass production increased as the dose of bentonite increased up to 5 g kg(-1), decreasing at larger doses (possibly as a result of falling potassium/magnesium ratio and increasing electrical conductivity). Environmental drawbacks of waste bentonite include its high soluble copper content, although its conversion in the soil to less soluble forms reduces its potential phytotoxicity. The copper, manganese, and zinc contents of the ryegrass crop were low.

ALTER is an open web-based tool to transform between different multiple sequence alignment formats. The originality of ALTER lies in the fact that it focuses on the specifications of mainstream alignment and analysis programs rather than on the conversion among more or less specific formats. In addition, ALTER is capable of identify and remove identical sequences during the transformation process. Besides its user-friendly environment, ALTER allows access to its functionalities in a programmatic way through a Representational State Transfer web service. ALTER's front-end and its API are freely available at http://sing.ei.uvigo.es/ALTER/ and http://sing.ei.uvigo.es/ALTER/api/, respectively.

Abstract Carbon dots (CDs) are a recently discovered class of fluorescent nanomaterials with great potential to be applied in the analytical field. CDs have demonstrated to be a promising alternative to conventional organic fluorophores or quantum dots as optical nanoprobes for sensing different chemical species. In this overview, we review the progress in the design of novel nanoprobes based on fluorescent CDs for inorganic trace analysis. Representative examples of CD-based assays are described and the different sensing strategies are discussed.

Abstract Chiral transition metal oxide nanoparticles (CTMOs) are attracting a lot of attention due to their fascinating properties. Nevertheless, elucidating the chirality induction mechanism often remains a major challenge. Herein, the synthesis of chiral cobalt oxide nanoparticles mediated by histidine (Co 3 O 4 @L‐His and Co 3 O 4 @D‐His for nanoparticles synthesized in the presence of L‐ and D‐histidine, respectively) is investigated. Interestingly, these CTMOs exhibit remarkable and tunable chiroptical properties. Their analysis by x‐ray photoelectron, Fourier transform infrared, and ultraviolet‐visible absorption spectroscopy indicates that the ratio of Co 2+ /Co 3+ and their interactions with the imidazole groups of histidine are behind their chiral properties. In addition, the use of chiral Co 3 O 4 nanoparticles for the development of sensitive, rapid, and enantioselective circular dichroism‐based sensors is demonstrated, allowing direct molecular detection and discrimination between cysteine or penicillamine enantiomers. The circular dichroism response of the chiral Co 3 O 4 exhibits a limit of detection and discrimination of cysteine and penicillamine enantiomers as low as 10 µ m . Theoretical calculations suggest that the ligand exchange and the coexistence of both species adsorbed on the oxide surface are responsible for the enantiomeric discrimination. This research will enrich the synthetic approaches to obtain CTMOs and enable the extension of the applications and the discovery of new chiroptical properties.