Candida tropicalis biofilm formation and expression levels of the CTRG ALS-like genes in sessile cells

Candida tropicalis is an emergent pathogen with a high rate of mortality associated with it; however, less is known about its pathogenic capacity. Biofilm formation (BF) has important clinical repercussions, and it begins with adherence to a substrate. The adherence capacity depends principally on the cell surface hydrophobicity (CSH) and, at a later stage, on specific adherence due to adhesins. The ALS family in C. tropicalis, implicated in adhesion and BF, is represented in several CTRG genes. In this study, we determined the biofilm-forming ability, the primary adherence, and the CSH of C. tropicalis, including six isolates from blood and seven from urine cultures. We also compared the expression of four CTRG ALS-like genes (CTRG_01028, CTRG_02293, CTRG_03786, and CTRG_03797) in sessile versus planktonic cells, selected for their possible contribution to BF. All the C. tropicalis strains were biofilm producers, related to its filamentation capacity; all the strains displayed a high adherence ability correlated to the CSH, and all the strains expressed the CTRG genes in both types of growth. Urine isolates present, although not significantly, higher CSH, adherence, and biofilm formation than blood isolates. This study reveals that three CTRG ALS-like genes—except CTRG_03797—were more upregulated in biofilm cells, although with a considerable variation in expression across the strains studied and between the CTRG genes. C. tropicalis present a high biofilm capacity, and the overexpression of several CTRG ALS-like genes in the sessile cells suggests a role by the course of the biofilm formation.     

Effect of Wind and Slope When Scaling the Forest Fires Rate of Spread of Laboratory Experiments

This paper uses the scaling laws obtained from a Froude Modeling perspective to analyze the variations experienced in the rate of spread of wind-aided and up-slope laboratory fires when changing the size of a scale model. The results have shown that the rate of spread scaling law is no longer verified when working at laboratory scale in steep slopes and high wind speed conditions. The paper also provides a framework for scaling and scale issues in forest fire research.     

Perfluorinated compounds in food: a global perspective

Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) are resistant to breakdown and are turning up in unexpected places around the world, becoming emerging food contaminants. Although these chemicals have been used in countless products since the 1950s, they have been subject to little control until now. There is still an insufficient knowledge of their sources, occurrence, and hazards for food safety decision making. This article provides a comprehensive review of the food contamination levels and dietary intake risks posed by PFCs, as well as the specific methods developed for their determination. It is based on the evaluation of the published literature between 2004 and the beginning of 2010, with special emphasis on those reports of the last two years and in the examination of the growing body of studies on the exposure assessment and food occurrence of PFCs. The current state-of-the art and future perspectives in extraction, clean-up, detection, identification, confirmation, and quantification highlighting the advantages and limitations of each technique have been summarized. How much is known about the sources and pathways of food web and human exposure, which is needed to control and manage the release of these emerging toxic contaminants, has also been explained.     

Olive oil and the haemostatic system

Interest in the Mediterranean diet (MD) has grown worldwide due to its link with greater longevity and lower cardiovascular disease rate, cancer and age cognitive decline. Despite the high complexity of its nutrients composition, olive oil emerges as its principal food, since it provides the higher percent of energy and a lot of bioactive compounds. In this review we will discuss the benefits of diets enriched in virgin olive oil, whose effects are probably due not only to its oleic acid content but also to its other potentially health-promoting components. Traditionally, the benefits of MD were linked to its effect on lipoprotein metabolism but today we realise that there exists a whole sheaf of other benefits, including the components of haemostasis: platelet function, thrombogenesis and fibrinolysis. A diet enriched in virgin olive oil can reduce the sensitivity of platelets to aggregation, decreasing von Willebrand and tromboxane B2 plasma levels. Moreover a particular interest has arisen about its capacity to decrease fasting Factor VII plasma levels and to avoid or modulate its postprandial activation. Also Tissue Factor expression in mononuclear cells could be reduced with the chronic intake of virgin olive oil and finally, studies performed in different experimental situation have shown that it could also increase fibrinolytic activity, reducing plasma concentration of Plasma Activator Inhibitor type-1.     

A Powerful Analytical Strategy Based on QuEChERS-Dispersive Solid-Phase Extraction Combined with Ultrahigh Pressure Liquid Chromatography for Evaluating the Effect of Elicitors on Biosynthesis of <Emphasis Type="Italic">trans</Emphasis>-Resveratrol in Grapes

A powerful methodological approach based on modified quick, easy, cheap effective, rugged, and safe (QuEChERS) extraction technique, followed by cleanup dispersive solid-phase extraction (dSPE) and combined with ultrahigh pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC), is presented in this paper, for the rapid determination of the health-promoting phytoalexin, trans-resveratrol, in grapes. This is the first time, to our knowledge, that the combination QuEChERS-dSPE/UHPLC-PDA has been used for trans-resveratrol quantification in grapes. The method has been validated according to European Union Decision 2002/657/EC, in terms of selectivity, linearity, sensitivity, instrument LOD and method LOQ, accuracy, precision, extraction efficiency, and interference assessment. Validation experiments revealed sufficient linearity (R ²?=?0.9931) within the established concentration range confirmed by Mandel’s fitting test. The sensitivity was good with method detection limit (LOD) of 0.003 μg/mL and quantification limit (LOQ) of 0.010 μg/mL. Optimum QuEChERS-dSPE/UHPLC-PDA conditions led to recoveries of the target analyte in grape samples ranging between 75.1 and 99.7 % and precisions in the 0.9–4 % range (RSD, n?=?18). The method also afforded satisfactory results in terms of extraction efficiency and interference assessment and provides a valuable and promising tool for determination of trans-resveratrol in grapes with a high resolution within 8 min and a total analysis time of 11 min. The validated methodology was applied to evaluate the effect of the use of elicitors, namely benzothiadiazole and methyl jasmonate, in trans-resveratrol biosynthesis on Vitis vinifera Monastrell grapes. The results obtained revealed an increase of trans-resveratrol level of 2-fold for grapes treated with benzothiadiazole and 3.5-fold for grapes treated with methyl jasmonate.     

Capillary electrophoresis method for the characterization and separation of CdSe quantum dots

This paper presents a simple and rapid methodology to separate and characterize free CdSe quantum dots (QDs) in aqueous medium by capillary electrophoresis (CE). First, we describe a controlled derivatization procedure to obtain water-soluble QDs through noncovalent interactions. This derivatization methodology was based on the formation of a complex between the QDs and several types of surfactants to enhance the hydrophilicity and stability of the CdSe QDs. The surfactants used to achieve the surface functionalization were trioctylphosphine oxide/trioctylphosphine (TOPO/TOP) and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). Different CdSe QDs core sizes were synthesized as function of the nanocrystals growing time and then subjected to controlled coating. These free QDs were separated by capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) based on the differences in the charge-to-mass ratio of the QDs-TOPO/TOP-SDS complexes, and the detection was carried out with UV-vis and laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) techniques obtaining detection limits 5 times lower with CE-LIF. Under the optimal working conditions, four different-sized QDs were successfully separated whose average sizes were 3.1, 3.6, 4.3, and 4.9 nm, and the size distribution was less than 7% for all of them [calculated from the full width at half-maximum (fwhm) of the fluorescence spectra and confirmed by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HTEM)]. Therefore, we were able to separate QDs that differ in only 0.5 nm in diameter and 19 nm in fluorescence emission maximum. This corresponds to the better resolution achieved in the analysis of these kinds of nanoparticles. Finally, a correlation between the migration times plus or minus peak width and the core sizes plus or minus size distribution was established.     

"High in omega-3 fatty acids" bologna-type sausages stabilized with an aqueous-ethanol extract of Melissa officinalis

A new formulation of bologna-type sausage enriched in ω-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) (8.75% linseed oil) was developed, using a lyophilized aqueous-ethanolic extract of Melissa officinalis. A comparison with the effectiveness of butylhydroxy anisole (BHA) synthetic antioxidant to decrease the oxidation of PUFAs was performed.