JSPS-10 The Effect of Consumption of Raw Chicken Meat on Humoral Immunity against Campylobacter jejuni in veterinarians and workers in a chicken processing plant

Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli are the leading cause of enteric infections in Japan and many other developed countries, and the public health burden of campylobacteriosis is increasing [1]. Although the epidemiological data in Japan is based on passive surveillance, approximately 2,000 to 3,000 cases per each year have been reported as a foodborne infection since 1982. Many risk factors for Campylobacter transmission have been identified. Handling and consumption of poultry meat are often causing of infection [2, 3]. Since Japanese have a food habitant to eat fresh raw "free-range" chicken meat and liver, the risk for infection with campylobacters may be high [4]. However, little is known about the relationship between consumption of raw chicken meat and humoral immunity against C. jejuni in humans. When people had been exposed to campylobacters contaminated in water or foods, it has been reported that their antibodies were rising [5]. This study was conducted by analyzing the antibody level against C. jejuni with questionnaires from 74 veterinarians who worked as a meat inspector and 181 workers from a chicken processing plant

Isotope production in proton-, deuteron-, and carbon-induced reactions on Nb 93 at 113 MeV/nucleon

Isotope-production cross sections for p-, d-, and C-induced spallation reactions on Nb93 at 113 MeV/nucleon were measured using the inverse-kinematics method employing secondary targets of CH2, CD2, and C. The measured cross sections for Mo90, Nb90, Y86,88 produced by p-induced reactions were found to be consistent with those measured by the conventional activation method. We performed benchmark tests of the reaction models INCL-4.6, JQMD, and JQMD-2.0 implemented in the Particle and Heavy Ion Transport code System (PHITS) and of the nuclear data libraries JENDL-4.0/HE, TENDL-2017, and ENDF/B-VIII.0. The model calculations also showed generally good agreement with the measured isotope-production cross sections for p-, d-, and C-induced reactions. It also turns out that, among the three nuclear data libraries, JENDL-4.0/HE provides the best agreement with the measured data for the p-induced reactions. We compared the present Nb93 data with the Zr93 data, that were measured previously by the same inverse kinematics method (Kawase et al., Prog. Theor. Exp. Phys. 2017, 093D03 (2017)2050-391110.1093/ptep/ptx110), with particular attention to the effect of neutron-shell closure on isotope production in p- and d-induced spallation reactions. The isotopic distributions of the measured production cross sections in the Zr93 data showed noticeable jumps at neutron number N=50 in the isotopic chains of ΔZ=0 and -1, whereas no such jump appeared in isotopic chain of ΔZ=0 in the Nb93 data. From INCL-4.6 + GEM calculations, we found that the jump formed in the evaporation process is smeared out by the intranuclear cascade component in Nb91 produced by the Nb93(p,p2n) and (d,d2n) reactions on Nb93. Moreover, for Nb93, the distribution of the element-production cross sections as a function of the change in proton number ΔZ is shifted to smaller ΔZ than for Zr93, because the excited Nb prefragments generated by the cascade process are more likely to emit protons than the excited Zr prefragments, due to the smaller proton-separation energies of the Nb isotopes

Cross sections for nuclide production in proton- and deuteron-induced reactions on 93

Isotopic production cross sections were measured for proton- and deuteron-induced reactions on 93Nb by means of the inverse kinematics method at RIKEN Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory. The measured production cross sections of residual nuclei in the reaction 93Nb + p at 113 MeV/u were compared with previous data measured by the conventional activation method in the proton energy range between 46 and 249 MeV. The present inverse kinematics data of four reaction products (90Mo, 90Nb, 88Y, and 86Y) were in good agreement with the data of activation measurement. Also, the model calculations with PHITS describing the intra-nuclear cascade and evaporation processes generally well reproduced the measured isotopic production cross sections

Spallation reaction study for fission products in nuclear waste: Cross section measurements for 137

Spallation reactions for the long-lived fission products 137Cs, 90Sr and 107Pd have been studied for the purpose of nuclear waste transmutation. The cross sections on the proton- and deuteron-induced spallation were obtained in inverse kinematics at the RIKEN Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory. Both the target and energy dependences of cross sections have been investigated systematically. and the cross-section differences between the proton and deuteron are found to be larger for lighter fragments. The experimental data are compared with the SPACS semi-empirical parameterization and the PHITS calculations including both the intra-nuclear cascade and evaporation processes

Evaluating swine disease occurrence on farms using the state-space model based on meat inspection data: a time-series analysis

Abstract Background Data on abnormal health conditions in animals obtained from slaughter inspection are important for identifying problems in fattening management. However, methods to objectively evaluate diseases on farms using inspection data has not yet been well established. It is important to assess fattening management on farms using data obtained from slaughter inspection. In this study, we developed the state-space model to evaluate swine morbidity using slaughter inspection data. Results The most appropriate model for each disease was constructed using the state-space model. Data on 11 diseases in slaughterhouses over the past 4 years were used to build the model. The model was validated using data from 14 farms. The local-level model (the simplest model) was the best model for all diseases. We found that the analysis of slaughter data using the state-space model could construct a model with greater accuracy and flexibility than the ARIMA model. In this study, no seasonality or trend model was selected for any disease. It is thought that models with seasonality were not selected because diseases in swine shipped to slaughterhouses were the result of illness at some point during the 6-month fattening period between birth and shipment. Conclusion Evaluation of previous diseases helps with the objective understanding of problems in fattening management. We believe that clarifying how farms manage fattening of their pigs will lead to improved farm profits. In that respect, it is important to use slaughterhouse data for fattening evaluation, and it is extremely useful to use mathematical models for slaughterhouse data. However, in this research, the model was constructed on the assumption of normality and linearity. In the future, we believe that we can build a more accurate model by considering models that assume non-normality and non-linearity

Loss of Function of the Candidate Tumor Suppressor prox1 by RNA Mutation in Human Cancer Cells

The importance of genetic mutations in carcinogenesis has been recognized, and it has been proposed that aberrant mutation of mRNA may represent a novel oncogenic principle. Here we report that the mRNA of a homeobox gene prox1, a candidate tumor suppressor, suffers adenosine-to-inosine nucleotide conversion and loses tumor-suppressive functions in a subset of human cancers. Expression of Prox1 was reduced in pancreatic cancers, and the extent of reduction correlated with progression of tumor differentiation. A-to-G base change was found in prox1 cDNA taken from human cancer cells, but not in corresponding genomic DNA. We mapped four common mutation sites in prox1 gene, and the same four sites were mutated in human clinical samples from several cancers. Tetracycline-induced wild-type (wt) Prox1 in tumor cells inhibited transforming activity and cellular proliferation. However, mutant Prox1 with the four common sites altered from A to G lost these inhibitory functions. In mice, xenografts of tumor cells with tetracycline-induced wt-Prox1 formed tumor masses significantly more slowly than control tumors, whereas mutated Prox1 had no effect. These findings may point to a pivotal role of the RNA mutation of prox1 gene in the pathogenesis of human cancer progression