Guidelines for farmers, transporters and official veterinarians to assess the fitness for transport and slaughter of slaughter pigs

Legislative provisions related to animal transport and ante-mortem meat inspection of farm animals exist both at national and at European level. The Regulation (EC) No. 1/2005 characterizes the transport criteria that are to be met with regard to the animals’ health and welfare

Development of an Internet-based Data Network for the Control of Salmonella in the pork production chain

To promote food safety and to increase sales of pig meat, a salmonella control program was initiated in Lower Saxony. Farm specific data on salmonella prevalence in finishing pigs are collected at the slaughterhouse. The collection of a representative sample size for each farm on a yearly basis has to be organized and the prevalence of salmonella in each finishing herd has to be calculated. The aim is to control the delivery of pigs to the slaughterhouse depending on the salmonella status of the finishing herds. Pigs originating from herds with a low salmonella prevalence will be slaughtered prior to pigs with a higher or unknown prevalence

TBK1 mutation spectrum in an extended European patient cohort with frontotemporal dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

We investigated the mutation spectrum of the TANK-Binding Kinase 1 (TBK1) gene and its associated phenotypic spectrum by exonic resequencing of TBK1 in a cohort of 2,538 patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or FTD plus ALS, ascertained within the European Early-Onset Dementia Consortium. We assessed pathogenicity of predicted protein-truncating mutations by measuring loss of RNA expression. Functional effect of in-frame amino acid deletions and missense mutations was further explored in vivo on protein level and in vitro by an NFκB-induced luciferase reporter assay and measuring phosphorylated TBK1. The protein-truncating mutations led to the loss of transcript through nonsense-mediated mRNA decay. For the in-frame amino acid deletions, we demonstrated loss of TBK1 or phosphorylated TBK1 protein. An important fraction of the missense mutations compromised NFκB activation indicating that at least some functions of TBK1 are lost. Although missense mutations were also present in controls, over three times more mutations affecting TBK1 functioning were found in the mutation fraction observed in patients only, suggesting high-risk alleles (P = 0.03). Total mutation frequency for confirmed TBK1 LoF mutations in the European cohort was 0.7%, with frequencies in the clinical subgroups of 0.4% in FTD, 1.3% in ALS, and 3.6% in FTD-ALS

Development of an Internet-based Data Network for the Control of Salmonella in the pork production chain

To promote food safety and to increase sales of pig meat, a salmonella control program was initiated in Lower Saxony. Farm specific data on salmonella prevalence in finishing pigs are collected at the slaughterhouse. The collection of a representative sample size for each farm on a yearly basis has to be organized and the prevalence of salmonella in each finishing herd has to be calculated. The aim is to control the delivery of pigs to the slaughterhouse depending on the salmonella status of the finishing herds. Pigs originating from herds with a low salmonella prevalence will be slaughtered prior to pigs with a higher or unknown prevalence.</p

Guidelines for farmers, transporters and official veterinarians to assess the "fitness for transport and slaughter" of slaughter pigs

Legislative provisions related to animal transport and ante-mortem meat inspection of farm animals exist both at national and at European level. The Regulation (EC) No. 1/2005 characterizes the transport criteria that are to be met with regard to the animals’ health and welfare.</p