Does the food ingredient pectin provide a risk for patients allergic to non-specific lipid-transfer proteins?

Pectin, a dietary fiber, is a polysaccharide that is widely used in food industry as a gelling agent. In addition, prebiotic and beneficial immunomodulatory effects of pectin have been demonstrated, leading to increased importance as food supplement. However, as cases of anaphylactic reactions after consumption of pectin-supplemented foods have been reported, the present study aims to evaluate the allergy risk of pectin. This is of particular importance since most of the pectin used in the food industry is extracted from citrus or apple pomace. Both contain several allergens such as non-specific lipid transfer proteins (nsLTPs), known to induce severe allergic reactions, which could impair the use of pectins in nsLTP allergic patients. Therefore, the present study for the first time was performed to analyze residual nsLTP content in two commercial pectins using different detection methods. Results showed the analytical sensitivity was diminished by the pectin structure. Finally, spiking of pectin with allergenic peach nsLTP Pru p 3 led to the conclusion that the potential residual allergen content in both pectins is below the threshold to induce anaphylactic reactions in nsLTP-allergic patients. This data suggests that consumption of the investigated commercial pectin products provides no risk for inducing severe reactions in nsLTP-allergic patients

Frequency of rare mutations and common genetic variations in severe hypertriglyceridemia in the general population of Spain

Background: Hypertriglyceridemia (HTG) is a common complex metabolic trait that results of the accumulation of relatively common genetic variants in combination with other modifier genes and environmental factors resulting in increased plasma triglyceride (TG) levels. The majority of severe primary hypertriglyceridemias is diagnosed in adulthood and their molecular bases have not been fully defined yet. The prevalence of HTG is highly variable among populations, possibly caused by differences in environmental factors and genetic background. However, the prevalence of very high TG and the frequency of rare mutations causing HTG in a whole non-selected population have not been previously studied. Methods: The total of 23, 310 subjects over 18 years from a primary care-district in a middle-class area of Zaragoza (Spain) with TG >500 mg/dL were selected to establish HTG prevalence. Those affected of primary HTG were considered for further genetic analisys. The promoters, coding regions and exon-intron boundaries of LPL, LMF1, APOC2, APOA5, APOE and GPIHBP1 genes were sequenced. The frequency of rare variants identified was studied in 90 controls. Results: One hundred ninety-four subjects (1.04 %) had HTG and 90 subjects (46.4 %) met the inclusion criteria for primary HTG. In this subgroup, nine patients (12.3 %) were carriers of 7 rare variants in LPL, LMF1, APOA5, GPIHBP1 or APOE genes. Three of these mutations are described for the first time in this work. The presence of a rare pathogenic mutation did not confer a differential phenotype or a higher family history of HTG. Conclusion: The prevalence of rare mutations in candidate genes in subjects with primary HTG is low. The low frequency of rare mutations, the absence of a more severe phenotype or the dominant transmission of the HTG would not suggest the use of genetic analysis in the clinical practice in this population

Changes in metabolites in the brain of patients with fibromyalgia after treatment with an NMDA receptor antagonist

The aims of this work were to evaluate whether the treatment of patients with fibromyalgia with memantine is associated with significant changes in metabolite concentrations in the brain, and to explore any changes in clinical outcome measures. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy was performed of the right anterior and posterior insula, both hippocampi and the posterior cingulate cortex. Questionnaires on pain, anxiety, depression, global function, quality of life and cognitive impairment were used. Ten patients were studied at baseline and after three months of treatment with memantine. Significant increases were observed in the following areas: N-acetylaspartate (4.47 at baseline vs. 4.71 at three months, p¿=¿0.02) and N-acetylaspartate+N-acetylaspartate glutamate in the left hippocampus (5.89 vs. 5.98; p¿=¿0.007); N-acetylaspartate+N-acetylaspartate glutamate in the right hippocampus (5.31 vs 5.79; p¿=¿0.01) and the anterior insula (7.56 vs. 7.70; p¿=¿0.033); glutamate+glutamine/creatine ratio in the anterior insula (2.03 vs. 2.17; p¿=¿0.022) and the posterior insula (1.77 vs. 2.00; p¿=¿0.004); choline/creatine ratio in the posterior cingulate (0.18 vs. 0.19; p¿=¿0.023); and creatine in the right hippocampus (3.60 vs. 3.85; p¿=¿0.007). At the three-month follow-up, memantine improved cognitive function assessed by the Cognition Mini-Exam (31.50, SD¿=¿2.95 vs. 34.40, SD¿=¿0.6; p¿=¿0.005), depression measured by the Hamilton Depression Scale (7.70, SD¿=¿0.81 vs. 7.56, SD¿=¿0.68; p¿=¿0.042) and severity of illness measured by the Clinical Global Impression severity scale (5.79, SD¿=¿0.96 vs. 5.31, SD¿=¿1.12; p¿=¿0.007). Depression, clinical global impression and cognitive function showed improvement with memantine. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy could be useful in monitoring response to the pharmacological treatment of fibromyalgia

Applications of Direct Injection Soft Chemical Ionisation-Mass Spectrometry for the Detection of Pre-blast Smokeless Powder Organic Additives

Analysis of smokeless powders is of interest from forensics and security perspectives. This article reports the detection of smokeless powder organic additives (in their pre-detonation condition), namely the stabiliser diphenylamine and its derivatives 2-nitrodiphenylamine and 4-nitrodiphenylamine, and the additives (used both as stabilisers and plasticisers) methyl centralite and ethyl centralite, by means of swab sampling followed by thermal desorption and direct injection soft chemical ionisation-mass spectrometry. Investigations on the product ions resulting from the reactions of the reagent ions H3O+ and O2+ with additives as a function of reduced electric field are reported. The method was comprehensively evaluated in terms of linearity, sensitivity and precision. For H3O+, the limits of detection (LoD) are in the range of 41-88 pg of additive, for which the accuracy varied between 1.5 and 3.2%, precision varied between 3.7 and 7.3% and linearity showed R20.9991. For O2+, LoD are in the range of 72 to 1.4 ng, with an accuracy of between 2.8 and 4.9% and a precision between 4.5 and 8.6% and R20.9914. The validated methodology was applied to the analysis of commercial pre-blast gun powders from different manufacturers.(VLID)4826148Accepted versio

Collaborative Robotic Assistant Platform for Endonasal Surgery: Preliminary In-Vitro Trials

Endonasal surgery is a minimally invasive approach for the removal of pituitary tumors (sarcomas). In this type of procedure, the surgeon has to complete the surgical maneuvers for sarcoma resection with extreme precision, as there are many vital structures in this area. Therefore, the use of robots for this type of intervention could increase the success of the intervention by providing accurate movements. Research has focused on the development of teleoperated robots to handle a surgical instrument, including the use of virtual fixtures to delimit the working area. This paper aims to go a step further with a platform that includes a teleoperated robot and an autonomous robot dedicated to secondary tasks. In this way, the aim is to reduce the surgeon’s workload so that he can concentrate on his main task. Thus, the article focuses on the description and implementation of a navigator that coordinates both robots via a force/position control. Finally, both the navigation and control scheme were validated by in-vitro tests.DPI2016-80391-

Evolution of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 over seven months: experience of the Nationwide Seroprevalence ENE-COVID Study in Spain [preprint]

Objectives To analyse temporal trends in SARS-CoV-2 anti-nucleocapsid IgG throughout the four rounds of the nationwide seroepidemiologic study ENE-COVID (April-November 2020), and to compare the fourth-round results of two immunoassays detecting antibodies against nucleocapsid and to S protein receptor-binding domain (RBD). Methods A chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay (CMIA) was offered to all participants in the first three rounds (Abbott; anti-nucleocapsid IgG). In the fourth round we offered this test and a chemiluminescence immunoassay (CLIA) (Beckman; anti-RBD IgG) to i) a randomly selected sub-cohort, ii) participants who were IgG-positive in any of the three first rounds; and iii) participants who were IgG-positive in the fourth round by point-of-care immunochromatography. Results Immunoassays involving 10,153 participants (82.2% of people invited to donate samples) were performed in the fourth round. A total of 2595 participants (35.1% of participants with immunoassay results in the four rounds) were positive for anti-nucleocapsid IgG in at least one round. Anti-nucleocapsid IgG became undetectable in 43.3% of participants with positive first-round results. Pneumonia was more frequent in participants with anti-nucleocapsid IgG in all four rounds (11.2%) than those in which IgG became undetectable (2.4%). In fourth round, anti-nucleocapsid and anti-RBD IgG were detected in 5.5% and 5.4% participants of the randomly selected sub-cohort, and in 26.6% and 25.9% participants with at least one previous positive result, respectively. Agreement between techniques was 90.3% (kappa: 0.72). Conclusions The response of IgG to SARS-CoV-2 is heterogeneous and conditioned by infection severity. A substantial proportion of the SARS-CoV-2 infected population may have negative serologic results in the post-infection months.N