Biology subjects

Barcelo, C.

Publications and source records attributed to Barcelo, C..

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Integrating citizen science and field sampling into next-generation early warning systems for vector surveillance: Twenty years of municipal detections of Aedes invasive mos-quito species in Spain

The spread of invasive mosquitoes Aedes albopictus, Aedes aegypti and Aedes japonicus in Spain represents an increasing public health risk due to their capacity to transmit arboviruses such as dengue, Zika and chikungunya among others. Traditional field entomological surveillance remains essential for tracking their spread, but it faces limitations in terms of cost, scalability and labor intensity. Since 2014, the Mosquito Alert citizen science project has enabled public participation in the surveillance through the submission of geolocated images via a mobile app, which are identified using AI in combination to expert validation. While field surveillance provides high accuracy, citizen science offers low-cost, large-scale real-time data collection aligned to open data managment principles. It is particularly useful for detecting long-distance dispersal events and has contributed up to one-third of the municipal detections of invasive mosquito species since 2014. This study assesses the value of integrating both surveillance systems to capitalize on their complementary strengths while compensating weaknesses in the areas of taxonomic accuracy, scalability, spatial detection patterns, data curation and validation systems, geographic precision, interoperability and real-time output. We present the listing of municipal detections of these species from 2004 to 2024, integrating data from both sources. Spains integrated approach demonstrates a pioneering model for cost-effective, scalable vector surveillance tailored to the dynamics of invasive species and emerging epidemiological threats. Simple SummarySpain, with its diverse ecological and climatic landscapes, represents a key area for the introduction and establishment of invasive mosquito species, posing threats to public health due to their capacity to transmit human diseases. Field entomological surveillance conducted by experts remains the primary tool for tracking their spread, though it is limited by geographical scales and cost factors. Advances in smartphone technology allows citizen science strategies of data collection such as submitting mosquito photos via the Mosquito Alert app. This type of information is of a different nature from the field sampling and still needs expert interpretation, but offers significantly broader and faster geographical coverage. Two decades have passed since the first detection of the Asian tiger mosquito in Spain in 2004, and following the Mosquito Alert creation in 2014, citizen science has contributed with one-third of the discoveries of this species at the municipal level in Spain. We discuss integration of both approaches in order to harness their respective strengths while compensating their drawbacks, to develop faster and more powerful early warning surveillance systems, and also returning value to the society by empowering citizenship.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2023

Host factor PLAC8 is required for pancreas infection by SARS-CoV-2

BackgroundAlthough COVID-19 initially caused great concern about respiratory symptoms, mounting evidence shows that also the pancreas is productively infected by SARS-CoV-2. However, the severity of pancreatic SARS-CoV-2 infection and its pathophysiology are still under debate. Here we investigated the consequences of SARS-CoV-2 pancreatic infection and the role of the host factor Placenta-associated protein (PLAC8) MethodsWe analyzed plasma levels of pancreatic enzymes and inflammatory markers in a retrospective cohort study of 120 COVID-19 patients distributed in 3 severity-stratified groups. We studied the expression of SARS-CoV-2 and PLAC8 in the pancreas of deceased COVID-19 patients as well as in non-infected donors. We performed infection experiments in PLAC8 knock-out PDAC cell lines with full SARS-CoV-2 virus. ResultsWe found that analysis of circulating pancreatic enzymes aided the stratification of patients according to COVID-19 severity and predict outcomes. Interestingly, we found an association between PLAC8 expression and SARS-CoV-2 infection in postmortem analysis of COVID-19 patients. Using full SARS-CoV-2 infectious virus inoculum from Wuhan-1 and BA.1 strains, we demonstrated that PLAC8 is necessary for productive infection of PDAC cell lines. Finally, we observed an overlap between PLAC8 and SARS-CoV-2 immunoreactivities of the pancreas of deceased patients. ConclusionOur data indicate the human pancreas as a SARS-CoV-2 target with plausible signs of injury and demonstrate that the host factor PLAC8 is required for SARS-CoV-2 pancreatic infection, thus defining new target opportunities for COVID-19-associated pancreatic pathogenesis. Plain language summaryPrevious studies have shown that the pancreas is infected by SARS-CoV-2. However, none of these studies have described measurable pancreatic damage associated to COVID-19 severity and the pathogenesis of pancreatic SARS-CoV-2 infection remains largely unknown. Novel host factors have been proposed for SARS-CoV-2 infection of mainly the airway epithelium, none of them studied in the pancreas. Our study shows clinically relevant pancreatic damage associated with SARS-CoV-2 infiltration and assesses the predictive potential of circulating pancreatic enzymes to stratify patients according to COVID-19 severity and predict clinical outcomes in a cohort of 120 patients. Our data show that host factor Placenta-associated protein 8 (PLAC8) expression is linked to SARS-CoV-2 infection in postmortem analysis of COVID-19 patients and functionally demonstrated the full requirement of PLAC8 for SARS-CoV-2 pancreatic infection and viral replication. Our data confirm the human pancreas as a SARS-CoV-2 target with signs of injury unveiling the measurement of pancreatic enzymes for prognosis value and demonstrating that host factor PLAC8 is required for SARS-CoV-2 pancreatic infection defining new stratification and target opportunities for COVID-19-associated pancreatic pathogenesis.

cell biology↗

bioRxiv2022

GDF15 and ACE2 stratify COVID19 patients according to severity while ACE2 mutations increase infection susceptibility.

Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) is a persistent global pandemic with a very heterogeneous disease presentation ranging from a mild disease to dismal prognosis. Early detection of sensitivity and severity of COVID-19 is essential for the development of new treatments. In the present study, we measured the levels of circulating growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF15) and angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) in plasma of severity-stratified COVID-19 patients and healthy control patients and characterized the in vitro effects and cohort frequency of ACE2 SNPs. Our results show that while circulating GDF15 and ACE2 stratify COVID-19 patients according to disease severity, ACE2 missense SNPs constitute a risk factor linked to infection susceptibility.

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2021

Preclinical characterization and target validation of the antimalarial pantothenamide MMV693183

Drug resistance and a dire lack of transmission-blocking antimalarials hamper malaria elimination. Here, we present the pantothenamide MMV693183 as a first-in-class acetyl-CoA synthetase (ACS) inhibitor to enter preclinical development. Our studies demonstrated attractive drug-like properties and in vivo efficacy in a humanized mouse model of Plasmodium falciparum infection. The compound showed exceptional in vitro activity against P. falciparum and P. vivax clinical isolates, and potently blocked P. falciparum transmission to Anopheles mosquitoes. Genetic and biochemical studies identified ACS as the target of the MMV693183-derived antimetabolite, CoA-MMV693183. MMV693183 was well adsorbed after oral administration in mice, rats and dogs. Pharmacokinetic - pharmacodynamic modelling predicted that a single 30 mg oral dose is sufficient to cure a malaria infection in humans. In conclusion, the ACS-targeting compound MMV693183 represents a promising addition to the portfolio of antimalarials in (pre)clinical development with a novel mode of action for the treatment of malaria and blocking transmission.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2018

Opening the Pandora Box: DNA-barcoding evidence limitations of morphology to identify Spanish mosquitoes

Cryptic speciation is frequent in the medically important mosquitoes. While most findings have been reported in tropical regions, it is an unexplored topic in countries where mosquito-borne diseases are not endemic, like Spain. The occurrence of recent outbreaks in Europe has increased the awareness on the native and invasive mosquito fauna present in the continent. Therefore, the central question of this study is whether the typological approach is sufficient to identify Spanish mosquitoes. To address this problem, we confronted the results of the morphological identification of 62 adult specimens collected from four different regions of Spain (La Rioja, Navarra, Castellon and the Island of Majorca) with the results obtained through DNA-barcoding. We conducted a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the COI gene region and compared this with the results of four species delimitation algorithms (ABGD initial partition, ABGD P=0.46%, bPTP and TCS). We report strong evidence for cryptic speciation in Anopheles algeriensis and Aedes vexans and reproductive isolation of the rock pool mosquito Aedes mariae. In addition, we report that the character present in the wings is not efficient to distinguish species Culiseta annulata from Culiseta subochrea, which distribution in the country may be different than previously described.

zoology↗