Assessment of Potential Effects of Common Fining Agents Used for White Wine Protein Stabilization

Technical BriefA variety of fining agents are commercially available to the wine industry, including proteins and inorganic ion exchangers. These fining agents are essentially used to control the levels of phenolics in wine, but they also have the potential to interact with other wine components, most often as a side effect. They are therefore expected to influence, at least in part, the potential for wine protein haze formation. Six common fining agents—casein, egg albumin, isinglass, chitosan, chitin, and polyvinylpolypyrrolidone (PVPP)—were analyzed to assess their effects on wine protein haze-forming potential and on the levels of proteins and phenolic compounds in a Muscat of Alexandria wine. Bentonite was selected as the positive control, whereas nonfined wine was used as the negative control. Differential results were detected among the selected fining agents when compared to the controls. Egg albumin and chitosan, although incapable of stabilizing the wine, originated a small but significant decrease in the protein haze formed, whereas chitosan and PVPP were second to bentonite in removing the most polyphenols from the wine. Thus, while chitosan fining removes a fraction of polyphenols from the wine and seems to induce a small decrease in its haze-forming potential, PVPP eliminates more polyphenols while leaving its haze-forming potential unaltered. The fining agents analyzed did not significantly affect wine protein content but did remove considerable levels of polyphenols and presented no apparent effect on protein stabilization of the fined wines. Results show that these fining agents do not contribute significantly to protein stabilization in white wines, confirming that bentonite was the most effective agent in wine protein stabilizationinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

MEDIATION OPPORTUNITIES IN CARTEL DAMAGES CLAIMS IN BRAZIL

The paper discusses the opportunities for the use of mediation in cartel damages claims in Brazil. For this, the paper discusses the growth of the private mediation market in Brazil as well as the art of choosing a consensual dispute resolution method and why mediation would be a suitable method in cartel damage cases. It than discusses cases in which cartel damages claims were filed in Brazil that could have benefited from mediation. Finally, it also discusses a global Dispute System Design case involving cartel damages claims (the Parker ITR case related to the marine hose cartel) and provides a forward looking view on private mediation in Brazil in cartel damages claims.Article信州大学経法論集 5(ブラジル・日本国際セミナー特集号) : 159-178(2019)departmental bulletin pape

Transcriptomic changes following the compatible interaction Vitis vinifera-Erysiphe necator. Paving the way towards an enantioselective role in plant defence modulation

The compatible interaction between Erysiphe necator and Vitis vinifera induces significant alterations in the host transcriptome, affecting essentially those genes involved in signalling and secondary metabolite biosynthetic pathways. The precise transcriptomic changes vary from the early events to later stages of infection. In the present work, suppressive subtraction hybridization (SSH) was used to identify several differentially expressed transcripts in symptomatic and asymptomatic leaves from powdery mildew infected grapevines following a long term interaction. The detected transcripts show little or no correlation with similar expression studies concerning the early stages of infection which suggests distinct host responses occur before and after the infection is established. The transcription level of thirteen genes was assessed through qRT-PCR using appropriately selected and validated normalization genes. With one exception, all these genes underwent moderate levels of differential transcription, with log2- fold change values ranging from 2.65 to 4.36. The exception, a dirigent-like (DIR) protein, was upregulated over 180 fold in symptomatic leaves, suggesting an important role for stereochemical selectivity in the compatible interaction E. necatoreV. vinifera. DIR copy number was determined in the genome of three grapevine cultivars exhibiting high (Carignan), moderate (Fernão Pires) and low (Touriga Nacional) sensitivity to E. necator. It was found to be a two-copy gene in all cultivars analyzed. Further analysis involving DIR metabolic neighbourhood transcripts was performed. The possible physiological significance of the detected DIR upregulation is discusse

Galhadores (Cecidomyiidae, Diptera) em Calophyllum brasiliense (Clusiaceae): descrições e biologia

Five new species of gall makers (Cecidomyiidae, Diptera) associated with Calophyllum brasiliense (Clusiaceae) are described and illustrated from Carapebus, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil : Lopesia caulinaris, L.conspicua, L. elliptica, L. linearis and Contarinia gemmae. Some biological and ecological data are given.Cinco espécies novas galhadoras (Cecidomyiidae, Diptera) associadas com Calophyllum brasiliense (Clusiaceae) são descritas e ilustradas de Carapebus, Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil: Lopesia caulinaris, L. conspicua, L. elliptica, L. linearis and Contarinia gemmae. Algumas informações biológicas e ecológicas são fornecidas

Fusion proteins towards fungi and bacteria in plant protection

Research ArticleIn agriculture, although fungi are considered the foremost problem, infections by bacteria also cause significant economical losses. The presence of different diseases in crops often leads to a misuse of the proper therapeutic, or the combination of different diseases forces the use of more than one pesticide. This work concerns the development of a ‘super-Blad’: a chimeric protein consisting of Blad polypeptide, the active ingredient of a biological fungicide already on the market, and two selected peptides, SP10-5 and Sub5, proven to possess biological potential as antibacterial agents. The resulting chimeric protein obtained from the fusion of Blad with SP10-5 not only maintained strong antibacterial activity, especially against Xanthomonas spp. and Pseudomonas syringae, but was also able to retain the ability to inhibit the growth of both yeast and filamentous fungi. However, the antibacterial activity of Sub5 was considerably diminished when fused with Blad, which seems to indicate that not all fusion proteins behave equally. These newly designed drugs can be considered promising compounds for use in plant protection. A deeper and focused development of an appropriate formulation may result in a potent biopesticide that can replace, per se, two conventional chemistries with less impact on the environmentinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Blad-containing oligomer fungicidal activity on human pathogenic yeasts. From the outside to the inside of the target cell

Blad polypeptide comprises residues 109–281 of Lupinus albus b-conglutin precursor. It occurs naturally as a major subunit of an edible, 210 kDa oligomer which accumulates to high levels, exclusively in the cotyledons of Lupinus seedlings between the 4th and 14th day after the onset of germination. Blad-containing oligomer (BCO) exhibits a potent and broad spectrum fungicide activity toward plant pathogens and is now on sale in the US under the tradename FractureTM. In this work we demonstrate its antifungal activity toward human pathogens and provide some insights on its mode of action. BCO bioactivity was evaluated in eight yeast species and compared to that of amphotericin B (AMB). BCO behaved similarly to AMB in what concerns both cellular inhibition and cellular death. As a lectin, BCO binds strongly to chitin. In addition, BCO is known to possess ‘exochitinase’ and ‘endochitosanase’ activities. However, no clear disruption was visualized at the cell wall after exposure to a lethal BCO concentration, except in cell buds. Immunofluorescent and immunogold labeling clearly indicate that BCO enters the cell, and membrane destabilization was also demonstrated. The absence of haemolytic activity, its biological origin, and its extraordinary antifungal activity are the major outcomes of this work, and provide a solid background for a future application as a new antifungal therapeutic drug. Furthermore, its predictable multisite mode of action suggests a low risk of inducing resistance mechanisms, which are now a major problem with other currently available antifungal drugs.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Challenges and Opportunities of Optical Wireless Communication Technologies

In this chapter, we present various opportunities of using optical wireless communication (OWC) technologies in each sector of optical communication networks. Moreover, challenges of optical wireless network implementations are investigated. We characterized the optical wireless communication channel through the channel measurements and present different models for the OWC link performance evaluations. In addition, we present some technologies for the OWC performance enhancement in order to address the last-mile transmission bottleneck of the system efficiently. The technologies can be of great help in alleviating the stringent requirement by the cloud radio access network (C-RAN) backhaul/fronthaul as well as in the evolution toward an efficient backhaul/fronthaul for the 5G network. Furthermore, we present a proof-of-concept experiment in order to demonstrate and evaluate high capacity/flexible coherent PON and OWC links for different network configurations in the terrestrial links. To achieve this, we employ advanced modulation format and digital signal processing (DSP) techniques in the offline and real-time mode of the operation. The proposed configuration has the capability to support different applications, services, and multiple operators over a shared optical fiber infrastructure

Maximizing Blad-containing oligomerfungicidal activity in sweet cultivars of Lupinus albus seeds

During seed germination and plantlet growth, an important aspect of Lupinus β-conglutin proteolysis is the accumulation of blad in the cotyledons. Blad, a 20.4 kDa, 173 residue polypeptide which inhibits fungal growth, is the main subunit of BCO (Blad-containing oligomer), a Lupinus bioactive polypeptide oligomer, which underwent a successful translational research during the last thirty years. The development of this recent broad-spectrum biological fungicide for plant disease control made evident the advantage of being non-toxic to the environment, plants, humans and other animals, an interesting characteristic given the increasing consumer’s concern about food safety. The industrial-scale production of the edible fungicide BCO for agricultural purposes involves germinating and growing for ca. 8 days massive amounts of Lupinus plantlets. Therefore, it becomes economically relevant to maximize/increment the amount of extractable BCO. Although BCO represents an alternative pathway for lupin production in Europe, there is no previous evidence on lupin cultivars concerning BCO activity or its cotyledonary concentration, and therefore on the most promising cultivars for BCO extraction 16 and fungicide production. In this work, the amount of BCO and its level of fungicide activity was evaluated in seven sweet cultivars of L. albus (cvs. Amiga, Energy, Estoril, Ludic, Misak, Multitalia and Rumbo), along 20 days after the onset of germination. In addition, four distinct lots of cv. Energy and six lots of cv Misak, with different harvest years (1997, 2010, 2013 and 2014) and/or different sites of production in Portugal (Alto Alentejo, Baixo Alentejo and Beira Litoral) were also analysed. Quantitative assays demonstrated maximal accumulation of BCO in the cotyledons of 4-days-old L. albus plantlets, apart from significant differences between seeds’ harvest year or production site. The assays also showed that cv. Energy had significant higher accumulation of BCO (31.67 μg mg-1 wet weight) than Rumbo (25.67 μg mg-1) and Misak (22.12 μg mg-1), respectively second and third cultivars with highest accumulation of the oligomer. Additionally, very significant differences were also observed among seeds’ harvest year or production site. These observations reduced dramatically the original purpose of this work on the study of BCO variations at the level of sweet L. albus cultivars, since the ‘noise’ detected in BCO levels caused by the year and location of their production was far greater than its variation among cultivars. The observation that storing for several years the seeds at -20ºC did not seem to decrease BCO activity and suggests that the variation in cotyledonary BCO accumulation is essentially controlled by the prevailing edaphoclimatic conditions during seed formation. Furthermore, the activity tests exhibited significant antifungal activity between 3 and 5 days-old plantlets, with absence of antifungal activity on 8 days-old plantlets or older. Overall this study is of considerable importance to maximize BCO extraction from the cotyledons of sweet L. albus cultivarsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Characterization of Stormwater Runoff Based on Microbial Source Tracking Methods

Rainfall and associated urban runoff have been linked to an increased deterioration of environmental waters, carrying several pollutants including pathogenic microorganisms. Such happens because fecal matter is washed into storm drainage pipes that are afterward released into environmental waters. Stormwater has not been extensively characterized as it is, because most studies are performed either on drainage pipes that are often impacted by sewage leakage or directly in environmental waters following a rain event. In this study, stormwater collected directly from the streets, was monitored for the presence of fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) and three potential important sources of fecal contamination in urban environments (human, cats, and dogs) in three distinct basins in Lisbon, Portugal. Stormwater was collected in sterilized plastic boxes inserted in the storm drains, therefore collecting only runoff. High concentration of fecal contamination was detected with a high percentage of the samples displayed at least one source of contamination. A strong relationship was found between the number of detected sources and the precipitation levels. Although no statistical correlation was found between the locations and the presence of FIB or source markers, the results show a trend in geographical information on the type of urban use in each basin. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study analyzing the runoff collected directly from the streets. This study suggests that, in urban areas, stormwater runoff is highly impacted by fecal matter, not only from domestic animals but also from human origin, before any cross-contamination in the drainage system and may, by itself, pose a high risk to human health and the environment, particularly if water reuse of this water without further disinfection treatment is the final goal