Incidence of aflatoxins, fumonisins, trichothecenes and ochratoxins in Nigerian foods and possible intervention strategies

Mycotoxins are toxic secondary metabolites produced by some species of fungi. Aflatoxins, fumonisins, trichothecenes and ochratoxins are the common mycotoxins in Nigeria. Aflatoxin is the most frequently reported in literatures, with trichothecenes being the least, they cause yield loss to farmers as well as constituting major health risk to humans. The occurrence of mycotoxins in food is a serious problem that Nigeria is facing presently, as it continues to pose threat to feed and food safety of animals and humans. There is the need to seek for approaches that would lead to reduction in their toxicity. The practice of good sanitary measures right from the farm to storage, creation of awareness campaign to indicate the toxic effects associated with mycotoxin poisonings in humans and livestock, and proper evaluation of food crops for its presence can go a long way in achieving the target reduction in incidence of mycotoxins in Nigeria

Grapevines escaping trunk diseases in New Zealand vineyards have a distinct microbiome structure

Grapevine trunk diseases (GTDs) are a substantial challenge to viticulture, especially with a lack of available control measures. The lack of approved fungicides necessitates the exploration of alternative controls. One promising approach is the investigation of disease escape plants, which remain healthy under high disease pressure, likely due to their microbiome function. This study explored the microbiome of grapevines with the disease escape phenotype. DNA metabarcoding of the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1) and 16S ribosomal RNA gene was applied to trunk tissues of GTD escape and adjacent diseased vines. Our findings showed that the GTD escape vines had a significantly different microbiome compared with diseased vines. The GTD escape vines consistently harbored a higher relative abundance of the bacterial taxa Pseudomonas and Hymenobacter. Among fungi, Aureobasidium and Rhodotorula were differentially associated with GTD escape vines, while the GTD pathogen, Eutypa, was associated with the diseased vines. This is the first report of the link between the GTD escape phenotype and the grapevine microbiome

African Journal of Pure and Applied Chemistry Ab-initio and DFT studies of the kinetics, mechanisms and thermodynamics of the gas-phase pyrolysis of ethyl bromide

The kinetics, mechanisms, thermodynamics and vibrational studies of the pyrolysis of ethyl bromide in the gas -phase at 623 K was studied using HF at 3-21G, 6-31G* and DFT with B3LYP/6 31G*, 6-311++G (2df, 2p) basis sets. The reaction proved to be a unimolecular reaction and followed a first order rate equatio

PM3 Semi Empirical Quantum Mechanical Calculations on a Novel Dichlorobis (N-{4-[(2-pyrimidinyl-kN-amino)sulfonyl}acetamide]copper(II), Containing a Metabolite N-acetylsulfadiazine

ABSTRACT A novel Dichlorobi

Theoretical Studies of the Effects of alpha -methylation and beta- methylation on the Gas - Phase Kinetics of Thermal Decomposition of Allyl formates

The gas phase pyrolytic reaction of allyl formate (I), its α-methylated compound (II) and β- methylated compound (III) were studied theoretically with semi-empirical PM3, hatree-fock HF/3-21G and density functional theory, DFT (B3LYP/6-31G*) methods. The decomposition of these compounds proceeds by a concerted [1, 5] hydrogen shift through a six-centered transition state (TS) geometry. The overall result of calculations shows that the reactivity of the thermal decomposition increases consequent to steric releasing effect in the transition state by the methyl group at the α-position, hence it is rate enhancing while reactivity decreases upon β-methylation, decreasing the rate of reaction. Also, it is found that rate enhancement due to C-O bond stretching in the formation of TS is more significant as a rate determinant than the acidic nature of the eliminated formyl hydrogen. Keywords: Kinetics, hydrogen shift, allyl formate, mechanism, α-,β-methylatio

Growth Performance, Blood Profile, and Carcass Characteristics of Weaned Pigs Fed Low Crude Protein Diets Supplemented with Lysine

Supplementing low crude protein (CP) diets for pigs with exogenous amino acid may help improve growth performance, minimize the environmental impact associated with nitrogen loss and improve the sustainability of pork production. A total number of thirty (30) Large white x Landrace weaned pigs between the age of 8-10 weeks and an average weight of 11.5 ± 0.39 kg were used to evaluate the effect of lysine supplementation of a low CP diet on growth performance, blood profile, and carcass characteristics of weaner piglets. Weaned pigs were acclimatized for seven days, randomly allotted to five (5) dietary treatments with six weaners per treatment and fed a weaner diet based on maize-soybean while wheat bran and dried cassava peel were added to balance the diet nutrients. The animals were allocated to either a control diet containing 22.6% CP or a diet with 2.5%, 5.0%, 7.5%, and 10% reduction in diet CP. Each animal consumed the respective diet for six weeks during which growth performance was monitored. Afterward, 5 mL of blood was sampled for analysis, and all the pigs were slaughtered for carcass analysis. Average daily gain, total weight gain, and average daily intake were not significantly different across the groups (p>0.05). While feed cost per kg was lower with the 7.5% and 10% diet CP reduction (p<0.05), feed cost per weight gain was not different across the animals. Most haematological and serum biochemical variables were not affected by CP reduction, while carcass weight was equally not affected by diet CP (p>0.05). However, the abdominal fat percentage of carcass reduced slightly with the reduced diet CP. Therefore, up to 10% reduction in diet CP from 22.6%, with 0.1% lysine supplementation, had no negative impact on growth without compromising the immunity indicators of weaned pigs. Furthermore, there was no negative consequence on carcass characteristics and the primal cuts

Synthesis and Characterization of Pyridino(1,4-Η-cyclohexa-1,3-diene)Derivatives of Iron Tricarbonyl Complexes

In this synthesis, we have been able to show that, the addition of x- substituted pyridines, (X = H, 2- Me, 3- Me 4- Me, 4-NH2 and 4-N(CH3)2 to the dienyl ring of the organometallic cation, [(Fe(CO)3 (1-5- η-2-Me0C3H6)]BF4 and [(Fe(CO)3(1-5-η-C6H7)]BF4 gives ionic substituted diene products, (X C5H4-C6H6Y (Fe(CO)3] BF4,Y=H or 2-MeO. The reaction takes place at ordinary room temperature. The resulting products were isolated and characterized