Literature searches and reviews related to the prevalence of food allergy in Europe

In 2011, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) received a mandate from the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) to review the available scientific data on the prevalence of each food allergy in Europe, to derive threshold concentrations for each allergen in foods when possible, and to review the analytical methods available for the detection/quantification of food allergens. This report presents the findings of a series of systematic reviews of the literature related to these aims. Systematic searches of relevant bibliographic databases and the grey literature were conducted, studies were selected for inclusion according to pre-specified criteria, relevant data was extracted from all included studies, and the quality of included studies assessed. The first systematic review examined the literature on the prevalence of food allergy (IgE-mediated and non-IgE mediated) in different regions of the World and in individual European countries for different age groups in relation to each of the following food allergens: milk/dairy, eggs, cereals, peanuts, nuts, celery, crustaceans, fish, molluscs, soy, lupin, mustard and sesame. For each of these allergens changes in prevalence trends over time were also examined. Additionally, emerging food allergens in different European countries were identified. Of the 7333 articles identified by the searches, data from 92 studies was included, 52 of which reported on studies conducted within Europe. The second systematic review examined the effects of food processing on the allergenicity of foods in relation to each of the following food allergens: milk/dairy, eggs, cereals, peanuts, nuts, celery, crustaceans, fish, molluscs, soy, lupin, mustard and sesame. From 1040 articles identified by the searches, 25 studies were included in this review. The final systematic review examined the evidence regarding the new analytical methods available to analyse/detect the food allergens considered in the previous systematic reviews in processed foods. From 1475 articles identified by the searches, 84 studies were included

Oligodendroglia are particularly vulnerable to oxidative damage after neurotrauma in vivo

Loss of function following injury to the central nervous system is worsened by secondary degeneration of neurons and glia surrounding the injury and initiated by oxidative damage. However, it is not yet known which cellular populations and structures are most vulnerable to oxidative damage in vivo Using Nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry (NanoSIMS), oxidative damage was semi-quantified within cellular subpopulations and structures of optic nerve vulnerable to secondary degeneration, following a partial transection of the optic nerve in adult female PVG rats. Simultaneous assessment of cellular subpopulations and structures revealed oligodendroglia as the most vulnerable to DNA oxidation following injury. 5-ethynyl-2'-deoxyuridine (EdU) was used to label cells that proliferated in the first 3 days after injury. Injury led to increases in DNA, protein and lipid damage in OPCs and mature oligodendrocytes at 3 days, regardless of proliferative state, associated with a decline in the numbers of OPCs at 7 days. O4+ pre-oligodendrocytes also exhibited increased lipid peroxidation. Interestingly, EdU+ mature oligodendrocytes derived after injury demonstrated increased early susceptibility to DNA damage and lipid peroxidation. However, EdU- mature oligodendrocytes with high 8OHdG immunoreactivity were more likely to be caspase3+. By day 28, newly derived mature oligodendrocytes had significantly reduced MYRF mRNA indicating that the myelination potential of these cells may be reduced. The proportion of caspase3+ oligodendrocytes remained higher in EdU- cells. Innovative use of NanoSIMS together with traditional immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridisation have enabled the first demonstration of subpopulation specific oligodendroglial vulnerability to oxidative damage, due to secondary degeneration in vivo. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT. Injury to the central nervous system is characterised by oxidative damage in areas adjacent to the injury. However, the cellular subpopulations and structures most vulnerable to this damage remain to be elucidated. Here we use powerful NanoSIMS techniques to show increased oxidative damage in oligodendroglia and axons and to demonstrate that cells early in the oligodendroglial lineage are the most vulnerable to DNA oxidation. Further immunohistochemical and in situ hybridisation investigation reveals that mature oligodendrocytes derived after injury are more vulnerable to oxidative damage than their counterparts existing at the time of injury and have reduced MYRF mRNA, yet pre-existing oligodendrocytes are more likely to die

Supporting the Development of Procedures for Communications During Volcanic Emergencies: Lessons Learnt from the Canary Island (Spain) and Etna and Stromboli (Italy)

Volcanic crises are complex and especially challenging to manage. Volcanic unrest is characterised by uncertainty about: whether an eruption will or will not take place; and its possible location, size and evolution. In addition, the hazards presented by an eruption and the variety of disciplines involved in forecasting and responding to volcanic emergencies, makes planning extremely complicated. On frequently active volcanoes crises often run smoothly because of the experience gained through the continual ‘testing’ of systems of communication. Even when plans have not been officially put in place, all the groups involved have an understanding of their roles and responsibilities and those of other parties. On dormant volcanoes where several generations have not experienced eruptions, there is added uncertainty, not only about the volcanic system per se, but also about the lack of experience of scientists, crisis directors, managers and the public. In such situations communication may be characterised by tensions and misunderstandings, and these have the potential to both affect decision making and delay vital operations. In this paper we present different experiences on communicating information during past volcanic crises on volcanoes that are continuosly active (Etna and Stromboli volcanoes in Sicily) and on a dormant volcano (the El Hierro eruption in the Canary Islands), allowing strategies to improve communications during volcanic emergencies to be proposed. Based on the El Hierro experience, we highlight key aspects that a protocol for communications should consider

Investigations of three, four, and five-particle exit channels of levels in light nuclei created using a 9C beam

The interactions of a E/A=70-MeV 9C beam with a Be target was used to populate levels in Be, B, and C isotopes which undergo decay into many-particle exit channels. The decay products were detected in the HiRA array and the level energies were identified from their invariant mass. Correlations between the decay products were examined to deduce the nature of the decays, specifically to what extent all the fragments were created in one prompt step or whether the disintegration proceeded in a sequential fashion through long-lived intermediate states. In the latter case, information on the spin of the level was also obtained. Of particular interest is the 5-body decay of the 8C ground state which was found to disintegrate in two steps of two-proton decay passing through the 6Beg.s. intermediate state. The isobaric analog of 8Cg.s. in 8B was also found to undergo two-proton decay to the isobaric analog of 6Beg.s. in 6Li. A 9.69-MeV state in 10C was found to undergo prompt 4-body decay to the 2p+2alpha exit channel. The two protons were found to have a strong enhancementin the diproton region and the relative energies of all four p-alpha pairs were consistent with the 5Lig.s. resonance

Crowding Promotes the Switch from Hairpin to Pseudoknot Conformation in Human Telomerase RNA

Formation of a pseudoknot in the conserved RNA core domain in the ribonucleoprotein human telomerase is required for function. In vitro experiments show that the pseudoknot (PK) is in equilibrium with an extended hairpin (HP) structure. We use molecular simulations of a coarse-grained model, which reproduces most of the salient features of the experimental melting profiles of PK and HP, to show that crowding enhances the stability of PK relative to HP in the wild type and in a mutant associated with dyskeratosis congenita. In monodisperse suspensions, small crowding particles increase the stability of compact structures to a greater extent than larger crowders. If the sizes of crowders in a binary mixture are smaller than the unfolded RNA, the increase in melting temperature due to the two components is additive. In a ternary mixture of crowders that are larger than the unfolded RNA, which mimics the composition of ribosome, large enzyme complexes and proteins in E. coli, the marginal increase in stability is entirely determined by the smallest component. We predict that crowding can restore partially telomerase activity in mutants, which dramatically decrease the PK stability.Comment: File "JACS_MAIN_archive_PDF_from_DOC.pdf" (PDF created from DOC) contains the main text of the paper File JACS_SI_archive.tex + 7 figures are the supplementary inf

Influences of Excluded Volume of Molecules on Signaling Processes on Biomembrane

We investigate the influences of the excluded volume of molecules on biochemical reaction processes on 2-dimensional surfaces using a model of signal transduction processes on biomembranes. We perform simulations of the 2-dimensional cell-based model, which describes the reactions and diffusion of the receptors, signaling proteins, target proteins, and crowders on the cell membrane. The signaling proteins are activated by receptors, and these activated signaling proteins activate target proteins that bind autonomously from the cytoplasm to the membrane, and unbind from the membrane if activated. If the target proteins bind frequently, the volume fraction of molecules on the membrane becomes so large that the excluded volume of the molecules for the reaction and diffusion dynamics cannot be negligible. We find that such excluded volume effects of the molecules induce non-trivial variations of the signal flow, defined as the activation frequency of target proteins, as follows. With an increase in the binding rate of target proteins, the signal flow varies by i) monotonically increasing; ii) increasing then decreasing in a bell-shaped curve; or iii) increasing, decreasing, then increasing in an S-shaped curve. We further demonstrate that the excluded volume of molecules influences the hierarchical molecular distributions throughout the reaction processes. In particular, when the system exhibits a large signal flow, the signaling proteins tend to surround the receptors to form receptor-signaling protein clusters, and the target proteins tend to become distributed around such clusters. To explain these phenomena, we analyze the stochastic model of the local motions of molecules around the receptor.Comment: 31 pages, 10 figure