Abstract Aerosols have implications to climate and biogeochemical cycles in the global oceans. At sites under indirect influence of dust emitted by the Patagonian semi-desert, a debate exists on the potential fertilization effects of iron enriched aerossol. Considering this subject we conducted measurements of aerosols optical properties using a Microtops II sun photometer to access aerosol size distributions and other intrinsic properties oversea from Atlantic Southern mid-latitudes to Antarctica. Oceanographic cruises were developed between December 2010 to April 2011 and October 2011 to April 2012, in the context of the Brazilian Antarctic Program, and between November 2011 to December 2011. This survey was taken as part of the Global Maritime Aerosol Network (MAN/NASA). Our data of AOD (500 nm) along the South American coast depicts a steady decrease southwards following the decreased latitudinal continental extent. However, the influence of the aerosols blown from Patagonia semi-desert region was clear from latitude 53⁰S to 64⁰S. The predominance of aerosol fine mode was observed in Central Atlantic and close to the Drake Passage. An unexpected aerosol coarse mode predominance was found close to the Antarctic Peninsula. We attribute that to a possible weathering of rock outcrops due to the strong westerly winds in that region. oceans semidesert, semidesert semi desert, desert aerossol midlatitudes mid latitudes Antarctica 201 2012 Program MAN/NASA. MANNASA MAN/NASA . MAN NASA (MAN/NASA) 500 (50 nm extent However S 64⁰S Passage Peninsula 20 (MAN/NASA 50 (5 2 5 (

Abstract Pathway activity assessment-based approaches are becoming highly influential in various fields of biology and medicine. However, these approaches mostly rely on analysis of mRNA expression, and total mRNA from a given locus is measured in the majority of cases. Notably, a significant portion of protein-coding genes produces more than one transcript. This biological fact is responsible for significant noise when changes in total mRNA transcription of a single gene are analyzed. The NFE2L2/AP-1 pathway is an attractive target for biomedical applications. To date, there is a lack of data regarding the agreement in expression of even classical target genes of this pathway. In the present paper we analyzed whether transcript variants of GPX2, NQO1 and SQSTM1 were characterized by individual features of expression when HeLa cells were exposed to pro-oxidative stimulation with hydrogen peroxide. We found that all the transcripts (10 in total) appeared to be significantly individually regulated under the conditions tested. We conclude that individual transcripts, rather than total mRNA, are best markers of pathway activation. We also discuss here some biological roles of individual transcript regulation.