Preliminary automated determination of edibility of alternative foods: Non-targeted screening for toxins in red maple leaf concentrate

Alternative food supplies could maintain humanity despite sun-blocking global catastrophic risks (GCRs) that eliminate conventional agriculture. A promising alternative food is making leaf concentrate. However, the edibility of tree leaves is largely uncertain. To overcome this challenge, this study provides the methods for obtaining rapid toxics screening of common leaf concentrates. The investigation begins with a non-targeted approach using an ultra-high-resolution hybrid ion trap orbitrap mass spectrometer with electrospray ionization (ESI) coupled to an ultra-high pressure two-dimensional liquid chromatograph system on the most common North American leaf: the red maple. Identified chemicals from this non-targeted approach are then cross-referenced with the OpenFoodTox database to identify toxic chemicals. Identified toxins are then screened for formula validation and evaluated for risk as a food. The results after screening show that red maple leaf concentrate contains at least eight toxic chemicals, which upon analysis do not present substantial risks unless consumed in abundance. This indicates that red maple leaf is still a potential alternative food. The results are discussed in the context of expanding the analysis with open science and using leaf extract from other plants that are not traditionally used as foods to offset current global hunger challenges, and move to a more sustainable food system while also preparing for GCRs

Data representing two separate LC-MS methods for detection and quantification of water-soluble and fat-soluble vitamins in tears and blood serum

Tears serve as a viable diagnostic fluid with advantages including less invasive sample to collect and less complex to prepare for analysis. Several water-soluble and fat-soluble vitamins were detected and quantified in human tears and compared with blood serum levels. Samples from 15 family pairs, each pair consisting of a four-month-old infant and one parent were analyzed; vitamin concentrations were compared between tears and blood serum for individual subjects, between infants and parents, and against self-reported dietary intakes. Water-soluble vitamins B1, B2, B3 (nicotinamide), B5, B9 and fat-soluble vitamin E (α-tocopherol) were routinely detected in tears and blood serum while fat-soluble vitamin A (retinol) was detected only in blood serum. Water-soluble vitamin concentrations measured in tears and blood serum of single subjects were comparable, while higher concentrations were measured in infants compared to their parents. Fat-soluble vitamin E concentrations were lower in tears than blood serum with no significant difference between infants and parents. Serum vitamin A concentrations were higher in parents than infants. Population trends were compiled and quantified using a cross correlation factor. Strong positive correlations were found between tear and blood serum concentrations of vitamin E from infants and parents and vitamin B3 concentrations from parents, while slight positive correlations were detected for infants B3 and parents B1 and B2 concentrations. Correlations between infants and parents were found for the concentrations of B1, B2, B3, and E in tears, and the concentrations of B2, A, and E in blood serum. Stronger vitamin concentration correlations were found between infants and parents for the breast-fed infants, while no significant difference was observed between breast-fed and bottle-fed infants. This work is the first to demonstrate simultaneous vitamin A, B, and E detection and to quantify correlations between vitamin concentrations in tears and blood serum. Our results suggest that tears are a viable biofluid to monitor nutritional health because they sufficiently mirror blood serum data and may enhance the speed of deficiency diagnoses

Is genistein neuroprotective in traumatic brain injury?

The concerns about negative consequences of estrogen therapy have led to introduce other strategies to obtain estrogen's benefits in the brain. The present study tests the hypothesis that a major isoflavone of soy; genistein with estrogen-like activity can be neuroprotective in traumatic brain injury (TBI). The maleWistar ratswere randomly divided to four groups: sham, TBI, vehicle and genistein. The TBI was induced byMarmarou method. The brain edema and the disruption of blood–brain-barrier (BBB)were evaluated 48 h post-TBI.Genistein (15mg/kg) or dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)was injected i.p., twice after TBI. The intracranial pressure (ICP), the motor performance, and the beam-walk task (WB) were determined before trauma, on trauma day (D0), and first (D1) and second (D2) days post-TBI. Genistein inhibited a development of brain edema and a BBB permeability in TBI animals. An increase of ICP and a defect in motor and WB performance were showed following TBI, in all times evaluated. An increase of ICP induced by TBI was suppressed by genistein on D1 and D2 times. Genistein improved a motor disorder induced by TBI, on D1 and D2 times. Also an increase of traversal time in WB task was suppressed by genistein in TBI animals, on D1 and D2 times. The results of this study demonstrated that genistein can be neuroprotective in TBI. Genistein inhibited the disruption of BBB, the brain edema and the increase of ICP, and the disturbance of neurobehavioral performance in TBI

Effect of chondroitinase ABC on inflammatory and oxidative response following spinal cord injury

Objective(s): Chondroitinase ABC (cABC) treatment improves functional recovery following spinal cord injury (SCI) through degrading inhibitory molecules to axon growth. However, cABC involvement in other pathological processes contributing to SCI remains to be investigated. Here, we studied the effect of cABC I on oxidative stress and inflammation developed in a rat model of SCI.Materials and Methods: Male rats (220–250 g) were divided into three groups (n=28) including rats that underwent SCI (SCI group), rats subjected to SCI and received an intrathecal injection of phosphate buffer saline (SCI+PBS group), and rats that underwent SCI and received cABC intrathecally (SCI+E group). Then, the level of TNF-α, Il-1β, malondialdehyde, nitric oxide, and myeloperoxidase in injured tissues, as well as hindlimb motor function, were measured at 4 hr, 1, 3 and 7 days post-SCI.Results: Our data showed that cABC treatment reduced the development of inflammation and oxidative stress associated with SCI at all-time points. In addition, functional recovery was improved in rats that received cABC at 7 days post-SCI.Conclusion: The present findings indicate that cABC treatment can exert its neuroprotective effect through modulation of post-traumatic inflammatory and oxidative response

An international laboratory comparison of dissolved organic matter composition by high resolution mass spectrometry: Are we getting the same answer?

High-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) has become a vital tool for dissolved organic matter (DOM) characterization. The upward trend in HRMS analysis of DOM presents challenges in data comparison and interpretation among laboratories operating instruments with differing performance and user operating conditions. It is therefore essential that the community establishes metric ranges and compositional trends for data comparison with reference samples so that data can be robustly compared among research groups. To this end, four identically prepared DOM samples were each measured by 16 laboratories, using 17 commercially purchased instruments, using positive-ion and negative-ion mode electrospray ionization (ESI) HRMS analyses. The instruments identified ~1000 common ions in both negative- and positive-ion modes over a wide range of m/z values and chemical space, as determined by van Krevelen diagrams. Calculated metrics of abundance-weighted average indices (H/C, O/C, aromaticity, and m/z) of the commonly detected ions showed that hydrogen saturation and aromaticity were consistent for each reference sample across the instruments, while average mass and oxygenation were more affected by differences in instrument type and settings. In this paper we present 32 metric values for future benchmarking. The metric values were obtained for the four different parameters from four samples in two ionization modes and can be used in future work to evaluate the performance of HRMS instruments

RAPID NUTRITIONAL ANALYSIS FROM INFANT TEARS

Nutritional deficiencies in children are currently clinically diagnosed based on recognition of symptoms [7] followed by confirmatory blood tests that take days to complete [8]. The weakness of this approach is that symptom-presentation substantially lags the deficiency, since damage has already occurred. It would be more powerful to ascertain deficiencies well in advance of overt symptoms (i.e. tissue/organ damage). Blood serum levels or urinalysis require milliliters of primary sample and are typically determined by laboratory methods only to verify a diagnosis [8]. This approach is a result of logistical limitations to conventional assays, requiring access to equipment, sample preparation and analysis time. A transformative solution would be a rapid, microliter-volume, diagnostic “lab-on-a-chip” device utilizing tears to assess infant vitamin levels as a near real-time indicator of nutritional health. Lab-on-a-chip (LOC) refers to small (“postage stamp” scale) devices that interrogate drop-sized samples with miniaturized laboratory functions on a single chip. Vitamins are convenient indicators of nutritional health because they are not manufactured by the body and, consequently, reflect the available food sources. The present dissertation discusses the fundamental research behind successfully detecting and identifying vitamins from tears as part of a larger effort to engineer a portable LOC device relying on a minimally invasive biological sample to assess nutrition in infants. The goals of this dissertation are four-fold: a) develop detection protocols compatible with tear samples to quantify infant vitamin levels, b) use these optimized protocols to monitor the vitamin composition of a population of healthy infants, c) study the dependency of infant\u27s nutritional health relative to their parents, and d) adapt this knowledge to conceptually designing a portable LOC device

Gender Differences and Writing Performance: A Brief Review

In view of the fact that learner-centered instruction is the standpoint in education in new trends, teachers must be aware of students’ characteristics in order to tailor their teaching to needs of learners. One of the areas which is closely related to characteristics and performance of language learners is the role of gender on language learning in general and writing performance in particular. Although various studies have been conducted to examine gender difference regarding different aspects of language learning, the results reveal inconsistencies. This paper attempts to consider the gender differences in writing performance and has some implications for policy makers who are to develop a curriculum compatible with the needs of language learners

Preliminary Automated Determination of Edibility of Alternative Foods

Alternative food supplies could maintain humanity despite sun-blocking global catastrophic risks (GCRs) that eliminate conventional agriculture. A promising alternative food is making leaf concentrate. However, the edibility of tree leaves is largely uncertain. To overcome this challenge, this study provides the methods for obtaining rapid toxics screening of common leaf concentrates. The investigation begins with a non-targeted approach using an ultra-high-resolution hybrid ion trap orbitrap mass spectrometer with electrospray ionization (ESI) coupled to an ultra-high pressure two-dimensional liquid chromatograph system on the most common North American leaf: the red maple. Identified chemicals from this non-targeted approach are then cross-referenced with the OpenFoodTox database to identify toxic chemicals. Identified toxins are then screened for formula validation and evaluated for risk as a food. The results after screening show that red maple leaf concentrate contains at least eight toxic chemicals, which upon analysis do not present substantial risks unless consumed in abundance. This indicates that red maple leaf is still a potential alternative food. The results are discussed in the context of expanding the analysis with open science and using leaf extract from other plants that are not traditionally used as foods to offset current global hunger challenges, and move to a more sustainable food system while also preparing for GCRs.Peer reviewe

Gender Differences and Writing Performance: A Brief Review

In view of the fact that learner-centered instruction is the standpoint in education in new trends, teachers must be aware of students’ characteristics in order to tailor their teaching to needs of learners. One of the areas which is closely related to characteristics and performance of language learners is the role of gender on language learning in general and writing performance in particular. Although various studies have been conducted to examine gender difference regarding different aspects of language learning, the results reveal inconsistencies. This paper attempts to consider the gender differences in writing performance and has some implications for policy makers who are to develop a curriculum compatible with the needs of language learners