Morphological characteristics of "Monterufoli horse"

Monterufoli horse is a local endangered breed of the Tuscany and derives from the omonym area in province of Pisa. This horse derives from local wild and extinct equines and has Maremmano, Tolfetano and Oriental ancestors. The mean and the standard deviation of biometric characters, and the absolut and percentage frequency of morphological characteristics were calculated. The measures of the adult females were estimated by ANOVA considering three different class of age. The average sizes were: height at withers of 135.4±6.3 and 129.2±5.9, thorax circumference of 166.4±8.3 and 163.4±8.9, frontshank circumference of 17.7±1.5 and 17.5±0.9, for males and females, respectively. All the observed horses presented dark coat. Monterufoli horses showed the physical characteristics of local extinct ancestors (Selvena pony), but also the characteristics of other breeds that contributed to improve the local population. This horse, which was once used in agriculture and for light draught, is now involved for saddle use

A novel bacteriocin produced by Lactobacillus plantarum LpU4 as a valuable candidate for biopreservation in artisanal raw milk cheese

Indigenous lactic acid bacteria-producing bacteriocins could enhance the microbiological safety of traditional cheeses. This study aimed to detect bacteriocinogenic strains among 35 Lactobacillus plantarum isolated from artisanal, raw sheep-milk cheeses. The isolates were identified by API 50 CHL and species-specific PCR. As displayed by agar well-diffusion assay, the cell-free supernatant of L. plantarum LpU4 showed the highest antimicrobial activity against Enterococcus faecalis JH2-2. The activity was not detected after treatment with proteinase K, pepsine and pronase. An active peptide band was shown by tricine–sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and subsequent bioassay. MALDI-TOF analysis revealed a protein of 4,866.7 Da, having no homology with other known bacteriocins. The novel bacteriocin (named plantaricin LpU4) was heat stable (121 °C for 15 min), unaffected by chemicals as Tween 20, SDS, Triton ×100, EDTA, NaCl and exposure to a wide range of pH. The synthetic machinery encoding for the plantaricin was plasmid-located, as deduced by plasmids curing. Activity spectrum included several lactic acid bacteria and Staphylococcus aureus strains having antibiotic resistance phenotype. Plantaricin LpU4 showed a bacteriostatic mode of action and an enhanced activity at acidic pHs. Maximal production (3,200 AU.mL−1) was reached during the late exponential phase of growth of L. plantarum LpU4. Relatively low temperature (15–25 °C) and initial pH between 5.5 and 6.2 increased the production. Since L. plantarum LpU4 produced the bacteriocin under experimental conditions mimicking the cheese environment, it could be considered a promising candidate for use as biopreservative in traditional cheese. © 2015, INRA and Springer-Verlag France.Milioni carried out her research work as PhD student on “Produzioni animali, Sanità e Igiene degli Alimenti nei Paesi a Clima Mediterraneo”- Pisa University. Work at IPLA-CSIC was supported by Grant BIO-2010-17414 (MINECO; Spain) to B. Martínez. Work at Istituto Zooprofilattico was funded by Ricerca Corrente LT 10/11 (Ministero della Salute, Italy) to R. Fischetti.Peer Reviewe

Research data supporting "Efficient coupling of double-metal terahertz quantum cascade lasers to flexible dielectric-lined hollow metallic waveguides"

Supporting data for paper "Efficient coupling of double-metal terahertz quantum cascade lasers to flexible dielectric-lined hollow metallic waveguides", available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OE.23.026276. Data were taken between May 2014 and June 2015.This work was supported by the EPSRC [EP/J017671/1]

Carotid plaque detection improves the predictve value of CHA2DS2-VASc score in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrilation: The ARAPACIS Study

Background and aims: Vascular disease (VD), as assessed by history of myocardial infarction or peripheral artery disease or aortic plaque, increases stroke risk in atrial fibrillation (AF), and is a component of risk assessment using the CHA(2)DS(2)-VASc score. We investigated if systemic atherosclerosis as detected by ultrasound carotid plaque (CP) could improve the predictive value of the CHA(2)DS(2)-VASc score.Methods: We analysed data from the ARAPACIS study, an observational study including 2027 Italian patients with non-valvular AF, in whom CP was detected using Doppler Ultrasonography.Results: VD was reported in 351 (17.3%) patients while CP was detected in 16.6% patients. Adding CP to the VD definition leaded to higher VD prevalence (30.9%). During a median [IQR] follow-up time of 36 months, 56 (2.8%) stroke/TIA eventswere recorded. Survival analysis showed that conventional VD alone did not increase the risk of stroke (Log-Rank: 0.009, p = 0.924), while addition of CP to conventional VD was significantly associated to an increased risk of stroke (LR: 5.730, p = 0.017). Cox regression analysis showed that VD + CP was independently associated with stroke (HR: 1.78, 95% CI: 1.05-3.01, p = 0.0318). Reclassification analysis showed that VD + CP allowed a significant risk reclassification when compared to VD alone in predicting stroke at 36 months (NRI: 0.192, 95% CI: 0.028-0.323, p = 0.032).Conclusions: In non-valvular AF patients the addition of ultrasound detection of carotid plaque to conventional VD significantly increases the predictive value of CHA(2)DS(2)-VASc score for stroke. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd