Recyclable mono materials for packaging of fresh chicken fillets: New design for recycling in circular economy

The focus on sustainability and circular economy is leading to a need for development of new food packaging concepts, including recyclable materials that ideally consist of a single material in a monolayer system. This research was focused on the possibility of replacing complex multilayered material [amorphous polyethylene terephthalate/polyethylene (APET/PE)] with simple recyclable mono material [high-density polyethylene (HDPE)] for packaging of chicken fillets in modified atmosphere packaging (CO₂/N₂: 60%/40%). Bacterial growth measured as total viable count (TVC), lactic acid bacteria and Enterobacteriaceae, Brochothrix thermosphacta and Escherichia coli for chicken fillets packed in HDPE mono materials was compared with chicken fillets packed in APET/PE. TVC increased during the storage period (24 days) with high level of TVC count (7 log₁₀ CFU/g) recorded at Days 19–20 of storage in both HDPE and APET/PE material. No significant differences were recorded in off-odour between chicken stored in APET/PE compared with HDPE in CO₂/N₂ atmosphere during the storage period (samples were regarded as acceptable on the 24th day of storage). The drip loss increased in all samples during storage, and no significant differences between samples stored in different materials were recorded. Significant differences in bacterial growth were recorded between samples with different gas volume to product volume (G/P) ratio (Day 17), implying that higher G/P ratio is resulting in lower TVC count. The lowest G/P ratio caused the highest drip loss, whereas addition of CO₂ emitter reduced the drip loss to some extent. This research is very encouraging as it provides new insight into the use of monolayer materials as well as the importance of design for recycling in circular economy.     

The Antibiotic Doxycycline Impairs Cardiac Mitochondrial and Contractile Function

Tetracycline antibiotics act by inhibiting bacterial protein translation. Given the bacterial ancestry of mitochondria, we tested the hypothesis that doxycycline—which belongs to the tetracycline class—reduces mitochondrial function, and results in cardiac contractile dysfunction in cultured H9C2 cardiomyoblasts, adult rat cardiomyocytes, in Drosophila and in mice. Ampicillin and carbenicillin were used as control antibiotics since these do not interfere with mitochondrial translation. In line with its specific inhibitory effect on mitochondrial translation, doxycycline caused a mitonuclear protein imbalance in doxycycline-treated H9C2 cells, reduced maximal mitochondrial respiration, particularly with complex I substrates, and mitochondria appeared fragmented. Flux measurements using stable isotope tracers showed a shift away from OXPHOS towards glycolysis after doxycycline exposure. Cardiac contractility measurements in adult cardiomyocytes and Drosophila melanogaster hearts showed an increased diastolic calcium concentration, and a higher arrhythmicity index. Systolic and diastolic dysfunction were observed after exposure to doxycycline. Mice treated with doxycycline showed mitochondrial complex I dysfunction, reduced OXPHOS capacity and impaired diastolic function. Doxycycline exacerbated diastolic dysfunction and reduced ejection fraction in a diabetes mouse model vulnerable for metabolic derangements. We therefore conclude that doxycycline impairs mitochondrial function and causes cardiac dysfunction.     

X-Ray Repair Cross Complementing Protein 1 in Base Excision Repair

X-ray Repair Cross Complementing protein 1 (XRCC1) acts as a scaffolding protein in the converging base excision repair (BER) and single strand break repair (SSBR) pathways. XRCC1 also interacts with itself and rapidly accumulates at sites of DNA damage. XRCC1 can thus mediate the assembly of large multiprotein DNA repair complexes as well as facilitate the recruitment of DNA repair proteins to sites of DNA damage. Moreover, XRCC1 is present in constitutive DNA repair complexes, some of which associate with the replication machinery. Because of the critical role of XRCC1 in DNA repair, its common variants Arg194Trp, Arg280His and Arg399Gln have been extensively studied. However, the prevalence of these variants varies strongly in different populations, and their functional influence on DNA repair and disease remains elusive. Here we present the current knowledge about the role of XRCC1 and its variants in BER and human disease/cancer.     

Design schemes for the X̄ control chart

This paper studies several issues regarding the design of the X? control chart under normality. Different estimators of the standard deviation are considered and the effect of the estimator on the performance of the control chart is investigated. Furthermore, the choice of the factor used to get accurate control limits for moderate sample sizes is addressed. The paper gives an overview on the performance of the charts by studying different characteristics of the run length distribution, both in the in‐control and in the out‐of‐control situation. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Autografting in chronic myeloid leukemia: an overview

Autografting could become a promising treatment for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) who cannot undergo allogeneic bone marrow transplantation or failed to respond to recombinant alpha-interferon (IFN). In this review, we analyze the results which have been published for patients transplanted in chronic phase and which suggest that autografting could prolong survival, at least in some patients. We also discuss the different methods of purging whose clinical efficacy remains to be assessed.     

Does the Influence of Reading Purpose on Reports of Strategic Text Processing Depend on Students' Topic Knowledge?

The authors examined whether the influence of reading purpose on reported use of text-processing strategies was moderated by students' prior knowledge about the topic of the text. Using multiple regression analyses with interaction terms, they found that the effect of reading purpose on reported use of memorization and elaboration strategies depended on students' level of topic knowledge. For participants who read for the purpose of discussing text content, reported use of memorization and elaboration was positively related to topic knowledge, whereas no relation between reported use of such strategies and topic knowledge was found for participants who read for the purposes of test taking or summary writing. This suggests that students' flexible use of text-processing strategies may depend on their topic knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Protein transport across the small intestine in food allergy

In view of the imminent deficiency of protein sources for human consumption in the near future, new protein sources need to be identified. However, safety issues such as the risk of allergenicity are often a bottleneck, due to the absence of predictive, validated and accepted methods for risk assessment. The current strategy to assess the allergenic potential of proteins focuses mainly on homology, stability and cross‐reactivity, although other factors such as intestinal transport might be of added value too. In this review, we present an overview of the knowledge of protein transport across the intestinal wall and the methods currently being used to measure this. A literature study reveals that protein transport in sensitised persons occurs para‐cellularly with the involvement of mast cells, and trans‐cellularly via enterocytes, while in non‐sensitised persons micro‐fold cells and enterocytes are considered most important. However, there is a lack of comparable systematic studies on transport of allergenic proteins. Knowledge of the multiple protein transport pathways and which model system can be useful to study these processes may be of added value in the risk assessment of food allergenicity.