IN VITRO DIGESTIBILITY OF THE DROMEDARY WHEY PROTEINS: POTENTIAL USES IN INFANT MILK ALLERGIES

Objective: Dromedary milk has a good nutritive value and is free of b-lactoglobulin (b-Lg), which is considered one of the major antigens of cow's milk proteins responsible for the incidence of allergy in infancy. In this work, we try to assess the in vitro gastrointestinal digestion of dromedary's whey proteins.Methods: The dromedary and bovine whey proteins were subjected to two successive hydrolysis: pepsic followed by the mixture of trypsin/chymotrypsin. The kinetics of degradation was determined, then the degree of hydrolysis (DH) and the peptide chains length (PCL) was calculated. SDS-PAGE was carried out to evaluate the specific protein composition before and after degradation.Results: The determination of α-NH2 free functions and DH shows that the dromedary's whey proteins are more susceptible to pepsin digestion (***p<0.001, *p<0.05/ **p<0.01, *p<0.05), and combined trypsin/chymotrypsin digestion (***p<0.001, **p<0.01/ **p<0.01, **p<0.01) compared to bovine whey proteins digestibility. In the other hand, the PCL of the dromedary hydrolysates obtained are shorter than those of the bovine hydrolysates. The electrophoretic profile of native dromedary's whey proteins shows the absence of the b-Lg and the presence of specific proteins (CWBP: Camel Whey Basic Protein, PGRP: Peptidoglycan Recognition Protein and WAP: Whey Acidic Protein), Also, we observed in the electrophoretic gels that a new band was present and could correspond to new peptide generated after the peptic hydrolysis of dromedary's whey proteins.Conclusion: The gastrointestinal digestion of the two whey is important with higher DH of dromedary's whey proteins and PCL almost identical at the end of digestion.Â

Numerical study of an efficient light focusing nano-coupler based on C-shaped waveguides

International audienceWe present an FDTD simulation study of a new design of light focusing nano-coupler consisting of a tapered succession of C-shaped silver waveguides. Its operation is based on the use of the fundamental guided mode <span class="mathjax-tex"&gt<span class="MathJax_Preview" style=""&gt</span&gt<span class="MathJax" id="MathJax-Element-1-Frame" tabindex="0" style="position: relative;" data-mathml="<math xmlns=&quot;http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML&quot;&gt<mi&gtT</mi&gt<msub&gt<mi&gtE</mi&gt<mrow class=&quot;MJX-TeXAtom-ORD&quot;&gt<mn&gt10</mn&gt</mrow&gt</msub&gt</math&gt" role="presentation"&gt<nobr aria-hidden="true"&gt<span class="math" id="MathJax-Span-1" style="width: 2.455em; display: inline-block;"&gt<span style="display: inline-block; position: relative; width: 2.202em; height: 0px; font-size: 111%;"&gt<span style="position: absolute; clip: rect(1.422em, 1002.2em, 2.568em, -1000em); top: -2.252em; left: 0em;"&gt<span class="mrow" id="MathJax-Span-2"&gt<span class="mi" id="MathJax-Span-3" style="font-family: MathJax_Math; font-style: italic;"&gtT<span style="display: inline-block; overflow: hidden; height: 1px; width: 0.12em;"&gt</span&gt</span&gt<span class="msubsup" id="MathJax-Span-4"&gt<span style="display: inline-block; position: relative; width: 1.52em; height: 0px;"&gt<span style="position: absolute; clip: rect(3.174em, 1000.76em, 4.154em, -1000em); top: -4.004em; left: 0em;"&gt<span class="mi" id="MathJax-Span-5" style="font-family: MathJax_Math; font-style: italic;"&gtE<span style="display: inline-block; overflow: hidden; height: 1px; width: 0.026em;"&gt</span&gt</span&gt<span style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; height: 4.004em;"&gt</span&gt</span&gt<span style="position: absolute; top: -3.854em; left: 0.738em;"&gt<span class="texatom" id="MathJax-Span-6"&gt<span class="mrow" id="MathJax-Span-7"&gt<span class="mn" id="MathJax-Span-8" style="font-size: 70.7%; font-family: MathJax_Main;"&gt10</span&gt</span&gt</span&gt<span style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; height: 4.004em;"&gt</span&gt</span&gt</span&gt</span&gt</span&gt<span style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; height: 2.252em;"&gt</span&gt</span&gt</span&gt<span style="display: inline-block; overflow: hidden; vertical-align: -0.239em; border-left: 0px solid; width: 0px; height: 1.05em;"&gt</span&gt</span&gt</nobr&gt</span&gt</span&gt<span class="mathjax-tex"&gt</span&gt. Thanks to the optimization of the structural design parameters, we have demonstrated numerically that this compact coupler enables a sub-wavelength light focusing with a transmission coefficient of 65% and a coupling efficiency of 77% that have higher values than the optimized designs reported in the literature. We also show that our structure is an efficient functional coupler at multiple wavelengths when used in a periodic grating as well as an isolated device. This could pave the way for the development of a new generation of metamaterials for guidance and detection applications

Abstracts of 1st International Conference on Computational & Applied Physics

This book contains the abstracts of the papers presented at the International Conference on Computational &amp; Applied Physics (ICCAP’2021) Organized by the Surfaces, Interfaces and Thin Films Laboratory (LASICOM), Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University Saad Dahleb Blida 1, Algeria, held on 26–28 September 2021. The Conference had a variety of Plenary Lectures, Oral sessions, and E-Poster Presentations. Conference Title: 1st International Conference on Computational &amp; Applied PhysicsConference Acronym: ICCAP’2021Conference Date: 26–28 September 2021Conference Location: Online (Virtual Conference)Conference Organizer: Surfaces, Interfaces, and Thin Films Laboratory (LASICOM), Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University Saad Dahleb Blida 1, Algeria

Low incidence of SARS-CoV-2, risk factors of mortality and the course of illness in the French national cohort of dialysis patients

International audienceThe aim of this study was to estimate the incidence of COVID-19 disease in the French national population of dialysis patients, their course of illness and to identify the risk factors associated with mortality. Our study included all patients on dialysis recorded in the French REIN Registry in April 2020. Clinical characteristics at last follow-up and the evolution of COVID-19 illness severity over time were recorded for diagnosed cases (either suspicious clinical symptoms, characteristic signs on the chest scan or a positive reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) for SARS-CoV-2. A total of 1,621 infected patients were reported on the REIN registry from March 16th, 2020 to May 4th, 2020. Of these, 344 died. The prevalence of COVID-19 patients varied from less than 1% to 10% between regions. The probability of being a case was higher in males, patients with diabetes, those in need of assistance for transfer or treated at a self-care unit. Dialysis at home was associated with a lower probability of being infected as was being a smoker, a former smoker, having an active malignancy, or peripheral vascular disease. Mortality in diagnosed cases (21%) was associated with the same causes as in the general population. Higher age, hypoalbuminemia and the presence of an ischemic heart disease were statistically independently associated with a higher risk of death. Being treated at a selfcare unit was associated with a lower risk. Thus, our study showed a relatively low frequency of COVID-19 among dialysis patients contrary to what might have been assumed