Enzyme-induced Formation of ß-Lactoglobulin Fibrils by AspN Endoproteinase

This paper describes a low temperature, enzymatic route to induce fibrillar structures in a protein solution. The route comprises two steps. First, ß-lactoglobulin was hydrolyzed into peptides at pH 8 and 37°C with the enzyme AspN endoproteinase, which resulted in the formation of random aggregates. After hydrolysis, the pH was lowered to 2. As a result, long fibrillar aggregates were formed which was observed using transmission electron microscopy and Thioflavin T fluorescence measurements

Verocytotoxine-producerende E.coli, risicofactoren en update Nederland

In dit rapport wordt een overzicht gepresenteerd betreffende het vóórkomen van VTEC in verschillende reservoirs, infectie incidentie, transmissieroutes, risicofactoren voor verspreiding door de voedselketen, diagnostiek, uitbraaktracering en (potentiële) interventiestrategieën. De focus is op de Nederlandse situatie en hoe die zich verhoudt met de Europese situati

A real time Named Entity Recognition system for Arabic text mining

Arabic is the most widely spoken language in the Arab World. Most people of the Islamic World understand the Classic Arabic language because it is the language of the Qur'an. Despite the fact that in the last decade the number of Arabic Internet users (Middle East and North and East of Africa) has increased considerably, systems to analyze Arabic digital resources automatically are not as easily available as they are for English. Therefore, in this work, an attempt is made to build a real time Named Entity Recognition system that can be used in web applications to detect the appearance of specific named entities and events in news written in Arabic. Arabic is a highly inflectional language, thus we will try to minimize the impact of Arabic affixes on the quality of the pattern recognition model applied to identify named entities. These patterns are built up by processing and integrating different gazetteers, from DBPedia (http://dbpedia.org/About, 2009) to GATE (A general architecture for text engineering, 2009) and ANERGazet (http://users.dsic.upv.es/grupos/nle/?file=kop4.php).This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Center for Industry Technological Development (CDTI, Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade), through the BUSCAMEDIA Project (CEN-20091026), and also by the Spanish research projects: MA2VICMR: Improving the access, analysis and visibility of the multilingual and multimedia information in web for the Region of Madrid (S2009/TIC-1542), and MULTIMEDICA: Multilingual Information Extraction in Health domain and application to scientific and informative documents (TIN2010-20644-C03-01). The authors would like also to thank the IPSC of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre for allowing us to include the EMM search engine in our system.Publicad

Media generations and their advertising attitudes and avoidance

This cross-national survey (N = 5784) examined generational differences in media use, advertising attitudes and avoidance for five media (websites, social media, mobile phones, television, newspapers) in six countries (Germany, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, France, and the Netherlands). The results showed that the net generation and the newspaper generation, but not the TV generation, were clearly distinct in the frequency of their media use in all six countries. For advertising attitudes, generational patterns were visible, however, neither for all media nor in all countries. When generational differences did occur, the net generation was on the positive end, whereas the newspaper generation was usually the most negative. For advertising avoidance, generational patterns were less present and consistent. The findings point out interesting directions for future research. Practical implications for advertisers and media planners are discussed

CMG2/ANTXR2 regulates extracellular collagen VI which accumulates in hyaline fibromatosis syndrome.

Loss-of-function mutations in capillary morphogenesis gene 2 (CMG2/ANTXR2), a transmembrane surface protein, cause hyaline fibromatosis syndrome (HFS), a severe genetic disorder that is characterized by large subcutaneous nodules, gingival hypertrophy and severe painful joint contracture. Here we show that CMG2 is an important regulator of collagen VI homoeostasis. CMG2 loss of function promotes accumulation of collagen VI in patients, leading in particular to nodule formation. Similarly, collagen VI accumulates massively in uteri of Antxr2 <sup>-/-</sup> mice, which do not display changes in collagen gene expression, and leads to progressive fibrosis and sterility. Crossing Antxr2 <sup>-/-</sup> with Col6a1 <sup>-/-</sup> mice leads to restoration of uterine structure and reversion of female infertility. We also demonstrate that CMG2 may act as a signalling receptor for collagen VI and mediates its intracellular degradation

Correlations of blood and brain biochemistry in phenylketonuria: results from the Pah-enu2 PKU mouse

Background: In phenylketonuria (PKU), treatment monitoring is based on frequent blood phenylalanine (Phe) measurements, as this is the predictor of neurocognitive and behavioural outcome by reflecting brain Phe con-centrations and brain biochemical changes. Despite clinical studies describing the relevance of blood Phe to out-come in PKU patients, blood Phe does not explain the variance in neurocognitive and behavioural outcome completely. Methods: In a PKU mouse model we investigated 1) the relationship between plasma Phe and brain biochemistry (Brain Phe and monoaminergic neurotransmitter concentrations), and 2) whether blood non-Phe Large Neutral Amino Acids (LNAA) would be of additional value to blood Phe concentrations to explain brain biochemistry. To this purpose, we assessed blood amino acid concentrations and brain Phe as well as monoaminergic neuro -transmitter levels in in 114 Pah-Enu2 mice on both B6 and BTBR backgrounds using (multiple) linear regression analyses. Results: Plasma Phe concentrations were strongly correlated to brain Phe concentrations, significantly negatively correlated to brain serotonin and norepinephrine concentrations and only weakly correlated to brain dopamine concentrations. From all blood markers, Phe showed the strongest correlation to brain biochemistry in PKU mice. Including non-Phe LNAA concentrations to the multiple regression model, in addition to plasma Phe, did not help explain brain biochemistry. Conclusion: This study showed that blood Phe is still the best amino acid predictor of brain biochemistry in PKU. Nevertheless, neurocognitive and behavioural outcome cannot fully be explained by blood or brain Phe concen-trations, necessitating a search for other additional parameters. Take-home message: Blood Phe is still the best amino acid predictor of brain biochemistry in PKU. Nevertheless, neurocognitive and behavioural outcome cannot fully be explained by blood or brain Phe concentrations, neces-sitating a search for other additional parameters. (c) 2021 Published by Elsevier Inc.Education and Child Studie

Evaluating Surveillance Strategies for the Early Detection of Low Pathogenicity Avian Influenza Infections

In recent years, the early detection of low pathogenicity avian influenza (LPAI) viruses in poultry has become increasingly important, given their potential to mutate into highly pathogenic viruses. However, evaluations of LPAI surveillance have mainly focused on prevalence and not on the ability to act as an early warning system. We used a simulation model based on data from Italian LPAI epidemics in turkeys to evaluate different surveillance strategies in terms of their performance as early warning systems. The strategies differed in terms of sample size, sampling frequency, diagnostic tests, and whether or not active surveillance (i.e., routine laboratory testing of farms) was performed, and were also tested under different epidemiological scenarios. We compared surveillance strategies by simulating within-farm outbreaks. The output measures were the proportion of infected farms that are detected and the farm reproduction number (Rh). The first one provides an indication of the sensitivity of the surveillance system to detect within-farm infections, whereas Rh reflects the effectiveness of outbreak detection (i.e., if detection occurs soon enough to bring an epidemic under control). Increasing the sampling frequency was the most effective means of improving the timeliness of detection (i.e., it occurs earlier), whereas increasing the sample size increased the likelihood of detection. Surveillance was only effective in preventing an epidemic if actions were taken within two days of sampling. The strategies were not affected by the quality of the diagnostic test, although performing both serological and virological assays increased the sensitivity of active surveillance. Early detection of LPAI outbreaks in turkeys can be achieved by increasing the sampling frequency for active surveillance, though very frequent sampling may not be sustainable in the long term. We suggest that, when no LPAI virus is circulating yet and there is a low risk of virus introduction, a less frequent sampling approach might be admitted, provided that the surveillance is intensified as soon as the first outbreak is detected