Obtención de shortenings cero-trans con alta estabilidad termo-oxidativa por transesterificación enzimática

Novel zero-trans frying shortenings were formed by enzymatic transesterification by exploring a palm stearin and canola oil mixture and stearic acid as substrates. Both immobilized (Novozym 435, Lipase PS “Amano” IM) and non-immobilized (Lipomod TM 34P) enzymes were applied as biocatalysts. Palmitic acid, the fatty acid which defines the proper type of crystal formation, was present at the 15% level in the reaction mixtures. The novel structured lipids had comparable physical properties and offered similar frying performance to those of commercial shortening. Needle-shaped crystals were predominant both in the transesterification products and the commercial frying shortening. Furthermore, solid fat content profiles of the zero-trans structured lipids produced by Novozym 435 and Lipase PS “Amano” IM were close to those of the commercial shortening.Los innovadores shortenings cero-trans para frituras se obtenían por transesterificación enzimática utilizando como sustratos una mezcla de estearina de palma con aceite de cánola y ácido esteárico. Tanto las enzimas inmovilizadas (Novozym 435, Lipase PS “Amano” IM) como las no inmovilizadas (Lipomod TM 34P) fueron aplicadas como biocatalizadores. El contenido de ácido palmítico, el ácido graso que define el tipo adecuado de formación cristalina, fue del 15% en las mezclas de reacción. Los lípidos estructurados innovadores tenían propiedades físicas comparables a los shortenings comerciales y estabilidad de oxidación térmica similar en proceso de fritura. Los cristales en forma de aguja predominaban tanto en los productos de transesterificación como en los shortenings para frituras disponible en el mercado. Además, los perfiles de contenido de grasa sólida de los lípidos estructurados cero trans producidos por Novozym 435 y Lipase PS “Amano” IM eran similares a los perfiles de los shortenings comerciales

Decade of progress in motor functional neurological disorder: continuing the momentum.

Functional neurological disorder (FND) is a prevalent, disabling and costly condition at the neurology-psychiatry intersection. After being marginalised in the late 20th century, there has been renewed interest in this field. In this article, we review advances that have occurred over the past decade (2011-2020) across diagnosis, mechanisms, aetiologies, treatments and stigma in patients with motor FND (mFND, that is, functional movement disorder and functional limb weakness). In each content area, we also discuss the implications of recent advances and suggest future directions that will help continue the momentum of the past decade. In diagnosis, a major advance has been the emphasis on rule-in physical signs that are specific for hyperkinetic and hypokinetic functional motor symptoms. Mechanistically, greater importance has been given to determining 'how' functional neurological symptoms develop, highlighting roles for misdirected attention, expectation and self-agency, as well as abnormal influences of emotion/threat processing brain areas on motor control circuits. Aetiologically, while roles for adverse life experiences remain of interest in mFND, there is recognition of other aetiologic contributors, and efforts are needed to investigate links between aetiological factors and mechanisms. This decade has seen the first randomised controlled trials for physiotherapy, multidisciplinary rehabilitation and psychotherapy performed in the field, with consensus recommendations for physiotherapy, occupational therapy and outcome measures also published. Across patients, clinicians, healthcare systems and society, stigma remains a major concern. While challenges persist, a patient-centred integrated clinical neuroscience approach is primed to carry forward the momentum of the past decade into the future

Multidimensional cut-off technique, odd-dimensional Epstein zeta functions and Casimir energy of massless scalar fields

Quantum fluctuations of massless scalar fields represented by quantum fluctuations of the quasiparticle vacuum in a zero-temperature dilute Bose-Einstein condensate may well provide the first experimental arena for measuring the Casimir force of a field other than the electromagnetic field. This would constitute a real Casimir force measurement - due to quantum fluctuations - in contrast to thermal fluctuation effects. We develop a multidimensional cut-off technique for calculating the Casimir energy of massless scalar fields in $d$-dimensional rectangular spaces with $q$ large dimensions and $d-q$ dimensions of length $L$ and generalize the technique to arbitrary lengths. We explicitly evaluate the multidimensional remainder and express it in a form that converges exponentially fast. Together with the compact analytical formulas we derive, the numerical results are exact and easy to obtain. Most importantly, we show that the division between analytical and remainder is not arbitrary but has a natural physical interpretation. The analytical part can be viewed as the sum of individual parallel plate energies and the remainder as an interaction energy. In a separate procedure, via results from number theory, we express some odd-dimensional homogeneous Epstein zeta functions as products of one-dimensional sums plus a tiny remainder and calculate from them the Casimir energy via zeta function regularization.Comment: 42 pages, 3 figures. v.2: typos corrected to match published versio

Determination of Sinapic Acid Derivatives in Canola Extracts Using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

A high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method with diode array detection (DAD) was used to determine the total phenolics, including sinapic acid derivatives in canola. Ten Western Canadian canola seeds, six other commodity canola seeds, their corresponding press cakes and meals were analyzed. Seeds of European 00 rapeseed and Brassica Juncea (Indian mustard) were included for comparison. Phenolic compounds were separated using a gradient elution system of water–methanol-ο-phosphoric acid solution with a flow rate of 0.8 ml/min. In addition to sinapine (SP) and sinapic acid (SA), sinapoyl glucose (SG) is reported in the methanolic extracts. The detection and quantification limits of these compounds were 0.20–0.40 and 0.50–0.80 μg/ml, respectively with recovery values over 98.0%. The content of total phenolics, SP, SA and SG in canola extracts ranged from 9.16 to 16.13, 6.39 to 12.28, 0.11 to 0.59 and 1.36 to 7.50 mg/g, respectively with significant differences among varieties

Driving a motor vehicle and psychogenic nonepileptic seizures: ILAE Report by the Task Force on Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizures

Objectives This International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) Report: (a) summarizes the literature about “driving and psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES)”; (b) presents the views of international experts; and (c) proposes an approach to assessing the ability of persons with PNES (PwPNES) to drive. Methods Phase 1: Systematic literature review. Phase 2: Collection of international expert opinion using SurveyMonkey®. Experts included the members of the ILAE PNES Task Force and individuals with relevant publications since 2000. Phase 3: Joint analysis of the findings and refinement of conclusions by all participants using email. As an ILAE Report, the resulting text was reviewed by the Psychiatry Commission, the ILAE Task Force on Driving Guidelines, and Executive Committee. Results Eight studies identified by the systematic review process failed to provide a firm evidence base for PNES‐related driving regulations, but suggest that most health professionals think restrictions are appropriate. Twenty‐six experts responded to the survey. Most held the view that decisions about driving privileges should consider individual patient and PNES characteristics and take account of whether permits are sought for private or commercial driving. Most felt that those with active PNES should not be allowed to drive unless certain criteria were met and that PNES should be thought of as “active” if the last psychogenic seizure had occurred within 6 months. Significance Recommendations on whether PwPNES can drive should be made at the individual patient level. Until future research has determined the risk of accidents in PwPNES a proposed algorithm may guide decisions about driving advice

Pseudo-single crystal electrochemistry on polycrystalline electrodes : visualizing activity at grains and grain boundaries on platinum for the Fe2+/Fe3+ redox reaction

The influence of electrode surface structure on electrochemical reaction rates and mechanisms is a major theme in electrochemical research, especially as electrodes with inherent structural heterogeneities are used ubiquitously. Yet, probing local electrochemistry and surface structure at complex surfaces is challenging. In this paper, high spatial resolution scanning electrochemical cell microscopy (SECCM) complemented with electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) is demonstrated as a means of performing ‘pseudo-single-crystal’ electrochemical measurements at individual grains of a polycrystalline platinum electrode, while also allowing grain boundaries to be probed. Using the Fe2+/3+ couple as an illustrative case, a strong correlation is found between local surface structure and electrochemical activity. Variations in electrochemical activity for individual high index grains, visualized in a weakly adsorbing perchlorate medium, show that there is higher activity on grains with a significant (101) orientation contribution, compared to those with (001) and (111) contribution, consistent with findings on single-crystal electrodes. Interestingly, for Fe2+ oxidation in a sulfate medium a different pattern of activity emerges. Here, SECCM reveals only minor variations in activity between individual grains, again consistent with single-crystal studies, with a greatly enhanced activity at grain boundaries. This suggests that these sites may contribute significantly to the overall electrochemical behavior measured on the macroscale

4-1BBL-containing leukemic extracellular vesicles promote immunosuppressive effector regulatory T cells

Chronic and acute myeloid leukemia evade immune system surveillance and induce immunosuppression by expanding proleukemic Foxp31 regulatory T cells (Tregs). High levels of immunosuppressive Tregs predict inferior response to chemotherapy, leukemia relapse, and shorter survival. However, mechanisms that promote Tregs in myeloid leukemias remain largely unexplored. Here, we identify leukemic extracellular vesicles (EVs) as drivers of effector proleukemic Tregs. Using mouse model of leukemia-like disease, we found that Rab27adependent secretion of leukemic EVs promoted leukemia engraftment, which was associated with higher abundance of activated, immunosuppressive Tregs. Leukemic EVs attenuated mTOR-S6 and activated STAT5 signaling, as well as evoked significant transcriptomic changes in Tregs. We further identified specific effector signature of Tregs promoted by leukemic EVs. Leukemic EVs-driven Tregs were characterized by elevated expression of effector/tumor Treg markers CD39, CCR8, CD30, TNFR2, CCR4, TIGIT, and IL21R and included 2 distinct effector Treg (eTreg) subsets: CD301CCR8hiTNFR2hi eTreg1 and CD391TIGIThi eTreg2. Finally, we showed that costimulatory ligand 4-1BBL/CD137L, shuttled by leukemic EVs, promoted suppressive activity and effector phenotype of Tregs by regulating expression of receptors such as CD30 and TNFR2. Collectively, our work highlights the role of leukemic extracellular vesicles in stimulation of immunosuppressive Tregs and leukemia growth. We postulate that targeting of Rab27a-dependent secretion of leukemic EVs may be a viable therapeutic approach in myeloid neoplasms

A designer hyper interleukin 11 (H11) is a biologically active cytokine

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Interleukin 11 (IL-11) is a pleiotropic cytokine with anti-apoptotic, anti-inflammatory and hematopoietic potential. The IL-11 activity is determined by the expression of the IL-11R receptor alpha (IL-11Rα) and the signal transducing subunit β (gp130) on the cell membrane. A recombinant soluble form of the IL-11Rα (sIL-11Rα) in combination with IL-11 acts as an agonist on cells expressing the gp130 molecule. We constructed a designer cytokine Hyper IL-11 (H11), which is exclusively composed of naturally existing components. It contains the full length sIL-11Rα connected with the mature IL-11 protein using their natural sequences only. Such a construct has two major advantages: (i) its components are as close as possible to the natural forms of both proteins and (ii) it lacks an artificial linker what should avoid induction of antibody production.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The H11 construct was generated, the protein was produced in a baculovirus expression system and was then purified by using ion exchange chromatography. The H11 protein displayed activity in three independent bioassays, (i) it induced acute phase proteins production in HepG2 cells expressing IL-11, IL-11Rα and gp130, (ii) it stimulated the proliferation of B9 cells (cells expressing IL-11Rα and gp130) and (iii) proliferation of Baf/3-gp130 cells (cells not expressing IL-11 and IL-11Rα but gp130). Moreover, the preliminary data indicated that H11 was functionally distinct from Hyper-IL-6, a molecule which utilizes the same homodimer of signal transducing receptor (gp130).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The biologically active H11 may be potentially useful for treatment of thrombocytopenia, infertility, multiple sclerosis, cardiovascular diseases or inflammatory disorders.</p

QTL for phytosterol and sinapate ester content in Brassica napus L. collocate with the two erucic acid genes

Improving oil and protein quality for food and feed purposes is an important goal in rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) breeding programs. Rapeseed contains phytosterols, used to enrich food products, and sinapate esters, which are limiting the utilization of rapeseed proteins in the feed industry. Increasing the phytosterol content of oil and lowering sinapate ester content of meal could increase the value of the oilseed rape crop. The objective of the present study was to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) for phytosterol and sinapate ester content in a winter rapeseed population of 148 doubled haploid lines, previously found to have a large variation for these two traits. This population also segregated for the two erucic acid genes. A close negative correlation was found between erucic acid and phytosterol content (Spearman’s rank correlation, rs = −0.80**). For total phytosterol content, three QTL were detected, explaining 60% of the genetic variance. The two QTL with the strongest additive effects were mapped on linkage groups N8 and N13 within the confidence intervals of the two erucic acid genes. For sinapate ester content four QTL were detected, explaining 53% of the genetic variance. Again, a close negative correlation was found between erucic acid and sinapate ester content (rs = −0.66**) and the QTL with the strongest additive effects mapped on linkage groups N8 and N13 within the confidence intervals of the two erucic acid genes. The results suggests, that there is a pleiotropic effect of the two erucic acid genes on phytosterol and sinapate ester content; the effect of the alleles for low erucic acid content is to increase phytosterol and sinapate ester content. Possible reasons for this are discussed based on known biosynthetic pathways