Lines of Research

Aging

Within this line of research, the General Purpose raised is: 

  • Search for previous markers of frailty in the elderly.

The issue of loss of autonomy in the elderly, not only has a dramatic impact on the quality of life of the particular individual, but also affects the whole society, as much from the family point of view because of the workload that the family must confront to deal with the disabled person, and from a social point of view because of the overload of people in need of a residence.In the case that this person should be entered in one of them due to their incapacity, and finally from the economic point of view, because of the major impact that has this person because of the necessities owned by.From any point of view, it would be much more efficient to prevent the loss of autonomy. However, it is currently difficult to determine a priori which people may be more susceptible to a fragile situation in the near future compared to others. It is clear that situations such as the loss of a spouse, accidents and illnesses can accelerate the process that leads to a self-sufficient person to rely on others to carry out the most basic functions of everyday life. But currently, is unknown what are the main causes that make two people of the same age and similar clinical conditions differ significantly their functional capacity in a short space of time.

Based on this situation, the group members charge to carry out the studies of aging, we try to develop different types of projects, aimed all of them to search for potential markers of future fragility. At present, the ongoing projects are:

  • Sarcopenia and frailty. Studies by systemic and local level, is to detect those markers that vary in situations of sarcopenia to report on the ability or inability of recovery in rehabilitation before a hip fracture in the elderly.

  • The illness in aging. There are multiple pathological processes that may affect the population over 75 years with high incidence. Therefore, we conducted studies in elderly patients with the most common clinical conditions, trying to locate potential markers of fragility first, and then develop predictive indexes of these processes that allow us to define more clearly the molecular pattern of a person who it is at risk of fragility.

  • Oxidative stress in aging. While all studies suggest that oxidative stress contributes to the development of aging, there are clear disagreements about what is their contribution to it, so our work is to characterize oxidative stress of populations and cohorts with whom we work in each case. This study will allow us to discern the role that oxidative stress has on each particular case and probably in aging in general.

 

 

Autofagia y Muerte Celular Programada

La Autofagia es un mecanismo que la célula dispara, mediante el cual se forman vesículas autofágicas que van digiriendo partes de la célula, desde agregados proteicos hasta orgánulos dañados. Este proceso adquirió un papel fundamental en la investigación de los procesos de muerte celular hace una década ya que su disparo y características morfológicas hicieron que se catalogase como Muerte Celular Programada tipo II, ya que las células realmente entraban en procesos de autofagia generalizada en puntos cruciales del desarrollo o deterioro del individuo. En fechas posteriores se vio que los procesos definidos como autofágicos eran mucho más complejos. La célula dispara autofagia inicialmente como mecanismo de supervivencia, en un intento de luchar contra situaciones adversas de muy diversa índole, desde falta de nutrientes a exceso de radicales libres. Sin embargo, si a pesar de estos esfuerzos, la célula no consigue disminuir los marcadores adversos, la autofagia se continúa hasta provocar la muerte y desaparición de la célula sin inducir inflamación subsecuente y este es el proceso que realmente se define como Muerte Celular Programada tipo II.

El estrés oxidativo y los procesos autofágicos coexisten en diversas situaciones patológicas que varían desde procesos infecciosos hasta el envejecimiento pero actualmente aún no se ha podido discriminar si el disparo de estos procesos de supervivencia/muerte celular programada son una causa o una consecuencia del estrés oxidativo que aparece en dichas situaciones.

Por ello, nuestro grupo pretende caracterizar, los cambios que se producen debido a alteraciones del estrés oxidativo no sólo en los procesos de muerte celular programada (autofagia y apoptosis), sino también en la capacidad celular proteolítica en general y como estos pueden verse modificados ante alteraciones del estrés oxidativo imperante.

 

Tenderization and animal welfare

The aim of this research is the detail study of enzymatic, biochemical, molecular and cellular processes linked to the transformation of muscle into meat (tenderization). The principal purpose is the identification of biomarkers that can detect stress situations and predict the final quality of the meat to combine with sensory studies.

Studies to date, funded by INIA and National I+D Plan , have provided new information about the role of programmed cell death processes and biochemical changes (oxidative, proteolytic) occurring in meat during post-mortem maturation and its effects on product quality.

Furthermore proteomic techniques and autophagy studies are being applied in animals to identify stress markers pre or post slaughter in muscular tissue.

This research is divided in two priority areas of action:

  • Study of quality markers in beef native breeds in our region.
  • Study of oxidative stress effects during pork´s maturation.