Liver Transplantation Prevents Progressive Neurological Impairment in Argininemia

Argininemia is a rare hereditary disease due to a deficiency of hepatic arginase, which is the last enzyme of the urea cycle and hydrolyzes arginine to ornithine and urea. The onset of the disease is usually in childhood, and clinical manifestations include progressive spastic paraparesis and mental retardation. Liver involvement is less frequent and usually not as severe as observed in other UCDs. For this reason, and because usually there is a major neurological disease at diagnosis, patients with argininemia are rarely considered as candidates for OLT despite its capacity to replace the deficient enzyme by an active one. We report on long-term follow-up of two patients with argininemia. Patient 1 was diagnosed by the age of 20 months and despite appropriate conventional treatment progressed to spastic paraparesis with marked limp. OLT was performed at 10 years of age with normalization of plasmatic arginine levels and guanidino compounds. Ten years post-OLT, under free diet, there is no progression of neurological lesions. The second patient (previously reported by our group) was diagnosed at 2 months of age, during a neonatal cholestasis workup study. OLT was performed at the age of 7 years, due to liver cirrhosis with portal hypertension, in the absence of neurological lesions and an almost-normal brain MRI. After OLT, under free diet, there was normalization of plasmatic arginine levels and guanidino compounds. Twelve years post-OLT, she presents a normal neurological examination. We conclude that OLT prevents progressive neurological impairment in argininemia and should be considered when appropriate conventional treatment fails

Valorization of the tomato pomace to obtain lycopene, carbohydrates-rich fraction and oil by applying a hydrolytic enzyme-based approach

Tomato pomace (TP) was of interest as feedstock to extract the lycopene (lyc). This work aimed to design a process based on the use of enzymes to increase lyc extraction and at the same time to obtain additional products following a cascade approach. The pre-treatment with a mix of pectinase and cellulase doubled the lyc extraction recovery concerning the standard extraction. After the separation from the peel, the oil extract from the seeds was similar to edible oils but richer in bioactives. Indeed, the water solution (WP) in which the enzymes hydrolyzed the cell wall of the peel was significantly enriched on mono/oligosaccharides of industrial interest. The proposed approach gave more high value-added products and potential economic revenue from TP of the full scale tomato cannery industry of North Italy with respect to the current destination of the anaerobic digestion sector

The recovery from agro-industrial wastes provides different profiles of anti-inflammatory polyphenols for tailored applications

Food and agro-industrial processing produce a great amount of side-stream and waste materials that are excellent sources of functional bioactive molecules such as phenolic compounds that recover them can be beneficial not only for food sustainability but also to human for many industrial applications such as flavor compounds and therapeutic applications such as antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory. The treatments and extraction techniques have major effects on the recovery of bioactive compounds. Along with the conventional extraction methods, numerous innovative techniques have been evolved and have been optimized to facilitate bioactive extraction more efficiently and sustainably. In this work, we have summarized the state-of-the-art technological approaches concerning novel extraction methods applied for five most produced crops in Italy; Grape Pomace (GP), Tomato Pomace (TP), Olive Pomace (OP), Citrus Pomace (CP), and Spent Coffee Grounds (SCG), presenting the extraction yield and the main class of phenolic classes, with the focus on their biological activity as an anti-inflammatory in vitro and in vivo studies via describing their molecular mechanism of action

Analysis of triglyceride synthesis unveils a green algal soluble diacylglycerol acyltransferase and provides clues to potential enzymatic components of the chloroplast pathway

Background: Microalgal triglyceride (TAG) synthesis has attracted considerable attention. Particular emphasis has been put towards characterizing the algal homologs of the canonical rate-limiting enzymes, diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGAT) and phospholipid:diacylglycerol acyltransferase (PDAT). Less work has been done to analyze homologs from a phylogenetic perspective. In this work, we used HMMER iterative profiling and phylogenetic and functional analyses to determine the number and sequence characteristics of algal DGAT and PDAT, as well as related sequences that constitute their corresponding superfamilies. We included most algae with available genomes, as well as representative eukaryotic and prokaryotic species. Results: Amongst our main findings, we identified a novel clade of DGAT1-like proteins exclusive to red algae and glaucophyta and a previously uncharacterized subclade of DGAT2 proteins with an unusual number of transmembrane segments. Our analysis also revealed the existence of a novel DGAT exclusive to green algae with moderate similarity to plant soluble DGAT3. The DGAT3 clade shares a most recent ancestor with a group of uncharacterized proteins from cyanobacteria. Subcellular targeting prediction suggests that most green algal DGAT3 proteins are imported to the chloroplast, evidencing that the green algal chloroplast might have a soluble pathway for the de novo synthesis of TAGs. Heterologous expression of C. reinhardtii DGAT3 produces an increase in the accumulation of TAG, as evidenced by thin layer chromatography. Conclusions: Our analysis contributes to advance in the knowledge of complex superfamilies involved in lipid metabolism and provides clues to possible enzymatic players of chloroplast TAG synthesis.Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de La PlataFacultad de Ciencias Médica

Polyphenol bioactivity evolution during the spontaneous fermentation of vegetal by-products

Food industry by-products such as grape pomace (GP), tomato pomace (TP), and spent coffee grounds (SCG) are rich in polyphenols (PP) but are easily biodegradable. The aim of this study is to test Spontaneous Fermentation (SF) as treatment to modify PP profile and bioactivity. The results highlighted that the by-products’ organic matter and the microbial populations drove the SF evolution; heterolactic, alcoholic, and their mixtures were the predominant metabolisms of TP, GP, and SCG + GP co-fermentation. Increases in the extractable amounts and antiradical activity occurred for all the biomasses. Regarding the aglycate-PPs (APP), i.e. the most bioreactive PPs, significant changes occurred for TP and GP but did not influence the anti-inflammatory bioactivity. The co-fermentation increased significantly chlorogenic acid and consumed most of the APPs, acting as a purification system to obtain a highly concentrated APP fraction, so that the extract might be employed for a specific purpose

Year-Round Forage Systems for Beef Cows and Calves

Beef cow systems in the USA are based on forages with little or no concentrates fed. Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb. L.) is one of the important pasture forages in the lower Northeast and upper South (Allen et al., 2001). Limited research has been conducted on year-round all forage systems based on cool season forages. Stockpiling tall fescue in late summer-early fall provides good quality forage that is usually grazed rather than harvested. Forage systems including tall fescue and clover (Trifolium repens L.) produced excellent performance in beef cows and calves, with minimum inputs (Allen et al., 2001). The present experiment is a component of a larger initiative, Pasture-based Forage Systems for Appalachia. The specific objective of this experiment is to evaluate different forage systems for beef cows and calves

Development of a tomato pomace biorefinery based on a CO2-supercritical extraction process for the production of a high value lycopene product, bioenergy and digestate

Tomato peels and seeds (TP) are the most abundant canning industry waste actually used to produce biogas. TP is rich in lycopene (lyc) and represent a more sustainable feedstock than tomato fruits actually employed. It was therefore chosen as feedstock together with supercritical CO2 extraction (SFE-CO2) technology to develop a TP-SFE-CO2 biorefinery, topic scarcely investigated. Two TP were tested and although TP-SFE-CO2 parameters were the same, lyc recoveries depended by peel structure changes occurred during pre -SFE-CO2 drying step. Higher moisture (102.7 g kg-1 wet weight) permitted 97 % lyc recovery and gave a water-in-oil emulsion as extract. Mass balance confirmed that lyc isomerisation did not cause lyc losses. After a significant oil extraction, exhaust TP showed a biodegradability 64% higher than the raw one, attributable to fibre structure disruption. The biorefinery proposed (SFE_CO2+anaerobic digestion) determined positive economic revenue (+787.9 \u20ac t-1 TP) on the contrary of the actual TP management

Una calle nunca es una calle: el mundo de los frigoríficos

Repensando nuestra práctica docente, desde lo trabajado en el transcurso de la Especial Preparación correspondiente al área de Ciencias Sociales y en el Seminario: Patrimonio y Educación Preuniversitaria, es que nos propusimos la incorporación al Proyecto de Ciencias Sociales, como estudio de caso: los frigoríficos Swift y Armour. Se trata de un sitio histórico, una de las nominaciones a la lista patrimonial existente a nivel nacional, a escala de la microrregión del Gran La Plata; la calle Nueva York de Berisso. Corresponde al tipo Patrimonio Urbano Arquitectónico, como manifestación cultural tangible. En el proyecto institucional de la Escuela Graduada “J. V. González” se acordó trabajar el área de Ciencias Sociales, desde un eje estructurante “Organización política, económica y social de la Argentina y sus impactos territoriales a través del tiempo”, a partir del cual se desprenderían sub-ejes con contenidos propios para cada uno de los distintos grados que componen el ciclo.Trabajo perteneciente al Proyecto "Patrimonio y Educación" de la Prosecretaría de Asuntos AcadémicosPaper belonging to Project "Heritage and Education" of the Undersecretary for Academic AffairsTrabalho pertencente ao Projeto "Patrimônio e Educação"da Subsecretária da Assuntos AcadêmicosProsecretaría de Asuntos Académico

Effect of seasonality and pretreatment of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste for black soldier fly larvae production

This study investigated the potential of using the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) as a rearing substrate for black soldier fly larvae (BSF). Samples of OFSMW were collected in Italy in four different seasons of the year and fed untreated or pulped to the larvae. The larvae successfully grew on OFMSW with minimal impact from either season or pretreatment (pulped vs untreated). Notably, all treatments achieved high larval survival rates (above 89.2%) and a development time within 11 days. Season and pretreatment influenced the chemical composition of the OFMSW (e.g. higher carbohydrates and organic matter in untreated samples). Compared to BSF grown on pulped samples, larvae grown on untreated samples had higher lipid (34.4 vs 28.5% DM), organic matter (90.7 vs 83.6% DM) and apparent metabolizable energy (22.0 vs 15.3 MJ/kg DM) contents. In vitro protein digestibility (%) varied by season, reaching the highest values in autumn (78.6%); moreover, the crude protein digestibily of BSF reared on untreated samples was lower than that on pulped samples (68.8 vs 73.3%). The chitin content was not affected by pretreatment or season (on average 5.45% on DM). Overall, the study demonstrates the feasibility of the use of OFMSW for BSF larvae production. Nevertheless, observed variability in larval nutrient composition highlights the need for process optimization to ensure consistent larval characteristics

WHAT IS THE DIGESTATE?

As anaerobic digestion (AD) is quickly being harnessed in Italy and in other European countries, there is a need for a more in-depth description of the main by-product of the process, the digestate. Little information on digestate characteristics and composition is available and unclear legislation causes problems in biogas plant management. In this work, the organic matter (OM) of this matrix was described through chemical, biological, spectroscopic, and statistical approaches. It was shown that AD results in a strong reduction of the easily degradable fraction of the OM and an accumulation of recalcitrant molecules (possible humus precursors). This contributes to a relatively high biological stability of the residual OM content in the digestate and may lead to good amendment properties. Besides, the observed relative accumulation and the high mineralisation of nitrogen and phosphorus may point to the digestate as a readily available liquid fertiliser for agronomic use. Moreover, xenobiotics and pathogens respected limits for both biosolids and compost in Italian and European legislation