Lopez Jimenez Jose Angel

University of Murcia | UM

Banana (Musa spp.) is essential for food security. For its clonality is highly susceptible to pests and diseases. The wilt fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense Tropical Race 4 (FocTR4) threatens banana production worldwide. We notice that chitosan protects banana from biotic stress. Chitosan, a plant defence elicitor with antimicrobial activity...

Photoautotrophs and macroinvertebrate trophic relations in Mediterranean streams, especially from semiarid areas, are still poorly known, as is the role of Cyanobacteria, which is the most frequently dominant photoautotroph. To investigate the role of Cyanobacteria as a food resource in these systems, the fatty acid composition of primary and secon...

Cyanobacterial lipids are considered the feedstock of future sustainable biodiesel production, and extremophiles are usually preferred for biotechnological purposes to ease the cultivation problems. However, thermal springs have been scarcely investigated from a biotechnological perspective. Three strains of Mastigocladus laminosus Cohn ex Kichner...

Screening microalgae from extreme environments, including hot springs, is an important research topic that has lately emerged. A thermophilic green alga was isolated from a north-eastern Algerian hot spring at a temperature of 63 °C, and its fatty acid (FA) profile was explored. The strain was cultivated in BBM medium at 35 °C in a 16:8 h light/dar...

The digestive system presents daily rhythms at both physiological and histological levels. Although cell morphology rhythms in mammals have been reported, they have scarcely been investigated in fish. The aim of the present research was to investigate the existence of daily rhythms in the morphology of cells in the liver and intestine of a teleost...

Wild fish belonging to four species belonging to different trophic groups were captured at three distances from fish farm facilities: long distance (>5 Km), medium distance (1.5 Km) and close to sea-cages. Flesh, brain, liver and gonads were sampled for fatty acid analysis. Fish aggregated near sea-cages showed accumulation of fatty acids of vegeta...

The infusion tea extracted from the leaves of the plant Camellia sinensis can be used in the prevention of cancer, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases and aging, while adriamycin (ADR) is an anticancer drug that increases oxidative stress in cells. The present study evaluated the protective effect of the long term consumption of white tea...

Under natural conditions, Chroothece richteriana synthesizes a fairly high proportion of fatty acids. However, nothing is known about how environmental changes affect their production, or about the production of protective compounds, when colonies develop under full sunshine with high levels of UV radiation. In this study wild colonies of C. richte...

We simulated in the laboratory the possible effects on fatty acids and immune status of wild fish arriving for the first time in the vicinity of a sea-cage fish farm, shifting their natural diet to commercial feed consumption, rich in fatty acids of vegetable origin. The flesh fatty acid profile of golden mullet specimens was altered after 2 weeks...

The aim of this study was to check the suitability of using fatty acids of vegetable origin as biomarkers of aquafeed consumption in fish that aggregate around off-shore fish farms, analysing their different accumulation patterns and their persistence in different tissues in juveniles of Liza aurata (Risso, A. 1810. Ichthyologie de Nice ou histoire...

Objectives: improvement of the nutritive quality and healthy properties of the meat pie of Murcia (MMP), maintaining its appreciated organoleptic quality and the design of a functional MMP through the addition of a natural ingredient rich in fructooligosaccharides. Methods: different formulations of the MMP (healthy MMP and functional MMP) have...

Background: White tea infusion (Camelia sinensis) has antioxidants properties. Contains polyphenols that has been proposed to induced ARE response via NRF2. Adriamycin (ADR) has antitumor properties and oxidative effects. Oxidative stress is related with a variety of kidney diseases. Prevention of the oxidative stress through long-term intake of w...

Introduction: the well known antioxidant properties of white tea include the prevention of cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and oxidative stress. Adriamycin can generate an amount of oxidative stress in vivo. Objective: evaluate long term intake of white tea on plasma antioxidant capacity and on the fatty acid profile of liver and heart micros...

Some artisan products with high fat content, particularly saturated fat, are perceived as unbalanced foods. The “Murcia's meat pie” (MMP) is a Spanish artisan product with ground beef as the main filling ingredient. The aim of this study was to improve the healthy properties of MMP maintaining its original organoleptic quality. Four MMP which were...

Coastal fisheries and sea cage aquaculture coexist along the coastal zone, and it has been suggested that wild fish feed on excess feed around farms. If this occurs, the condition of wild fish can increase and their lipid profile can become modified. However, the influence of fishfarming on coastal fisheries has not been described in detail. Four t...

The flavonoid content of tea (Camellia sinensis) has beneficial properties in the prevention of diseases. However, the mechanisms by which white tea can protect against oxidative stress remain unclear. To shed light on this issue, rats were given distilled water (controls), 0.15 mg/d (dose 1) or 0.45 mg/d (dose 2) of solid tea extract/kg body weigh...

During an ecological study of Chroothece (Rhodophyta) in a small river in a semi-arid region in south-east Spain it became clear that most cells have a high lipid content. As this suggested potential uses in biotechnology, this aspect was investigated further. The colonies, which occur in full sunlight, are typically orange-brown. Most, perhaps all...

The production of fish in coastal fish farms is carried out using artificial food which traditionally includes fish meal and oils. For different ecologic and economical reasons, part of these fish products has been replaced by terrestrial vegetable oils originating from corn or soya bean, among others. Modified fatty acid profiles have been widely...

The flavonoid content of tea (Camellia sinensis) has beneficial properties in the prevention of diseases. Mechanisms by which white tea can protect against oxidative stress remain unclear. Methods: To shed light on this issue, rats were given distilled water (controls), 0.15 mg/d (dose 1) or 0.45 mg/d (dose 2) of solid tea extract/kg body weight fo...

Introduction It is well known that fish farms act as FADs (Fish Aggregation Devices), where aggregated fish can benefit from the protection provided by the cages, and the availability of the remnants of food pellets (Dempster et al., 2002). To improve the sustainability of the aquafeeds, cultured fish are currently fed with diets containing high in...

Introduction Coastal fish farms act as good artificial reefs providing protection and high food availability (Sanchez-Jerez et al., 2011). Fish farms have been reported to show an environmental effect on the physicochemical properties of the water column and sediment, and also on macrofauna abundances (Dempster et al., 2002; Fernandez-Jover et al.,...

Objectives: The main aims of this study are to describe the characteristics of the meat pie, a typical product of the regional gastronomy of Murcia and to determine its nutritional and energy values, fatty acid profile and fat quality. Methods: There were studied 24 samples of Murcia's meat pie from the six best-selling retail establishments in...

Aquaculture of carnivorous fish species in sea-cages typically uses artificial feeds, with a proportion of these feeds lost to the surrounding environment. This lost resource may provide a trophic subsidy to wild fish in the vicinity of fish farms, yet the physiological consequences of the consumption of waste feed by wild fish remain unclear. In t...

Irregular sea urchins such as the spatangoid Spatangus purpureus are important bioturbators that contribute to natural biogenic disturbance and the functioning of biogeochemical cycles in soft sediments. In the coastal waters of the Balearic Islands S. purpureus occurs in soft red algal beds, and can reach high densities. The diet of S. purpureus i...

Coastal aquaculture installations concentrate large numbers of wild fish species of both ecological and economic importance, including schools of bogue, Boops boops (L.), in high abundance and biomass. The aggregated species consume large quantities of the easily available pellets lost from cages. As a consequence, the physical condition of farm-as...

The antifungal mode of action of chitosan has been studied for the last 30 years, but is still little understood. We have found that the plasma membrane forms a barrier to chitosan in chitosan-resistant but not chitosan-sensitive fungi. The plasma membranes of chitosan-sensitive fungi were shown to have more polyunsaturated fatty acids than chitosa...

Two south-west Mediterranean fish farms were monitored over a period of 22 months to test if sea-cage fish farms act as settlement habitats for juvenile fish. Twenty juvenile fish species were found to settle at farms throughout the year. Fish assemblage composition varied markedly over time and was dependent on the spawning period for each species...

A morphological and anatomical study of the root systems of the palm species Brahea armata S. Watson, Chamaerops humilis L., Phoenix canariensis Chabaud and Phoenix dactylifera L. has been carried out to determine possible mycorrhizal colonization sites. Furthermore, the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) anatomical types formed by the four palm species i...

Las Jornadas sobre la Adaptación al EEES en la Facultad de Biología forman parte de las actividades del Proyecto de Innovación Educativa de la Facultad de Biología "Iniciativas para la integración en el EEES", y pretenden difundir las experiencias desarrolladas en el marco de la Convergencia con el Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior a lo largo d...

Tea polyphenols, especially the catechins, are potent antimicrobial and antioxidant agents, with positive effects on human health. White tea is one of the less studied teas but the flavour is more accepted than that of green tea in Europe. The concentrations of various catechins in 13 different kinds of infusion were determined by capillary electro...

We have analysed the mycobiota of date palm (Phoenix dactylifera, L.) leaves using several techniques. Profusely sporulating fungi (Penicillium spp. and Cladosporium spp.) developed when plating leaf fragments and leaf washings. Fusarium oxysporum, was particularly abundant in leaves infested with the red scale insect Phoenicococcus marlatti Cocker...

We have analysed the mycobiota of date palm (Phoenix dactylifera, L.) leaves using several techniques. Profusely sporulating fungi (Penicillium spp. and Cladosporium spp.) developed when plating leaf fragments and leaf washings. Fusarium oxysporum, was particularly abundant in leaves infested with the red scale insect Phoenicococcus marlatti Cocker...

Net-cage fish farms attract a great number of wild fishes, altering their behaviour and possibly their physiology. Wild Mediterranean horse mackerel (Trachurus mediterraneus), sampled from populations aggregated around two Mediterranean fish farms and from two natural control populations, were analyzed for differences in body condition, stomach con...

We have evaluated the parasitism of the red scale insect of the date palm (Phoenicococcus marlatti) by entomopathogenic fungi, using light microscopy (LM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and low temperature scanning electron microscopy (LTSEM). Beauveria bassiana, Lecanicillium dimorphum and Lecanicillium cf. psalliotae, were inoculated directl...

We have used Galleria mellonella (Linnaeus, 1758) larvae as a bait for detecting insect pathogens in soils from Alicante(SE Spain). Soil from 61 sites was collected including agricultural fields, forests and a mediterranean shrub(Nerium oleander L.) growing under natural or garden environments. The most frequently insect pathogens found werefungi (...

Viscosity and Yield Value of Casson are two chocolate properties. They are very important in the technological processes and they affect to the final product acepptation. In this study viscosity, yield value and fatty acid composition were determined of chocolates elaborated with different fat sources. A correlation study was made between these thr...

The fatty acids and cholesterol contents of ten fresh protein foods were determined, 6 meats (pork, rabbit, lamb, turkey, chicken and beef) and 4 fishes (tuna, sea bream, hake and sardine); the fat quality by different chemical index of the foods (saturated fat/polyunsaturated fat ratio, index of atherogenicity and index of thrombogenicity) and the...

The quality of three vegetable fats (cocoa butter and two commercial fats) and three roasted nut oils (almond, hazelnut and peanut) used as raw material in the chocolate products manufacturing was studied. The hydroperoxide content, oxidative stability and fatty acid composition were determined and its health repercussion by atherogenicity and thro...

Many of the changes that occur in the rat cardiac muscle with advancing age are related to modifications in membrane fatty acid composition, polyunsaturated fatty acids decreasing and saturated increasing as the animal develops. In the present study, using cultured adult cardiomyocytes isolated from the hearts of rats of a broad (1-24 months) age r...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the daily intake of vitamins in a group of adults of the University of Murcia. A sample of 116 individuals (69 men and 47 women) aged 25 to 45 was used. Data were derived from 7-day dietary records done by the individuals, and the intakes of vitamins were compared with the Spanish Recommended Dietary Allowances...

Plant resistance to chilling injury depends on the maintenance of membrane functions. An increase in the degree of unsaturation of membrane fatty acids can help maintain membrane function at low temperatures by reducing the temperature at which deleterious membrane phase-transitions occur. The fatty acid composition of membranes of the chlorophycea...

The metabolites of linoleic (LA) and alpha-linolenic (ALA) acids are involved in coronary heart disease. Both n-6 and n-3 essential fatty acids (EFAs) are likely to be important in prevention of atherosclerosis since the common risk factors are associated with their reduced 6-desaturation. We previously demonstrated the ability of heart tissue to d...

In this study we demonstrate that cultured rat cardiomyocytes possess the capacity to desaturate/elongate essential fatty acids (EFAs). Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) conversion to higher metabolites was greater than linoleic acid (LA) conversion, according to the higher affinity of the delta-6-desaturase enzyme for the n-3 than for the n-6 EFAs. Gamma...

This study represents the first report indicating that rat heart microsomes contain a measurable delta-6-desaturase activity. The aging process affects delta-6-desaturase activity in the heart to a lesser extent than in the liver, supporting the hypothesis that the regulation of the individual desaturase enzymes may differ in these two tissues. Alt...