Biology subjects

Santos, T.

Publications and source records attributed to Santos, T..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Aberrant Pain Phenotypes Emerge Following Prenatal Hypoxic-Ischemic Injury in a Rabbit Model of Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral Palsy (CP) is the most common motor disability in childhood, and the most frequent comorbidity is pain. Rabbit kits subjected to prenatal hypoxia-ischemia (HI) exhibit allodynia and an expansion of nociceptive afferents in the lumbar spinal cord at postnatal day (P5). In this study, we examined how HI alters the development of multiple sensory modalities and its effect on psychosocial measures and C-fiber distribution in the spinal cord. To do this, we performed an HI surgery to occlude blood flow to fetal New Zealand White rabbits for 40 minutes, or a sham surgery. We performed von Frey, Hargreaves, and a cold allodynia test at P1, P5, P11, and P18. Additionally, we performed open field, a two-texture preference test, and immunofluorescence assays at P18. HI kits exhibit altered development and allodynia in von Frey and Hargreaves and decreased sensitivity to cold. HI kits spend less time on the aversive side of the two-texture preference apparatus and more time in the center of an open field but a higher ratio of that time immobile. This is accompanied by changes in the distribution of C-fibers in the dorsal horn of the cervical and lumbar spinal cord. A principal components analysis revealed prenatal HI produces coordinated alterations across sensory and behavioral domains and multivariate phenotyping captures the overall HI phenotype more comprehensively than any single measure. Overall, HI rabbits kits exhibit altered sensory development, allodynia, anxiety-like behavior, and changes to the distribution of nociceptive afferents in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Characterization and Phylogenetic Insights into the First Viral Major Vault Proteins (MVPs), Identified in Bacteriophages from the Human Gut.

The Major Vault Protein (MVP) is the principal component of the enigmatic vault complex, dome-shaped cytoplasmic ribonucleoproteins found in eukaryotes. Although vaults have been associated with several minor functions, including amino acid storage and cargo transport, their overall function remains to be fully understood. While MVPs are widely distributed among most higher eukaryotes and have homologs in prokaryotes, no similar protein have been reported in viral species until now. In this study, we explored the NCBI viral protein database for MVP homologs and identified two putative MVPs from distinct tailed bacteriophage isolates from the Class Caudoviricetes, ctOa11 and ctRi15, of human gut metagenomic samples. Further in silico analysis were conducted to describe and characterize these unprecedent phage proteins. Phylogenetic topologies indicate that viral MVPs are closely related to bacterial MVP homologs. Tridimensional protein models of viral MVPs were generated to perform protein structure comparisons with eukaryotic and prokaryotic MVPs, indicating a significant similarity to bacterial proteins. For the functional significance of MVPs in phage infectivity, we suggest that they may have an unknown metabolic role enhancing phage fitness. While this work provides new insights into the genetic phage diversity and phylogenetic distribution of MVPs, complementary functional studies are necessary to fully elucidate their function in viral and bacterial species.

genomics↗