Relevance of microbial finished product testing in food safety management

Management of microbiological food safety is largely based on good design of processes, products and procedures. Finished product testing may be considered as a control measure at the end of the production process. However, testing gives only very limited information on the safety status of a food. If a hazardous organism is found it means something, but absence in a limited number of samples is no guarantee of safety of a whole production batch. Finished product testing is often too little and too late. Therefore most attention should be focussed on management and control of the hazards in a more pro-active way by implementing an effective food safety management system. For verification activities in a food safety management system, finished product testing may however be useful. For three cases studies; canned food, chocolate and cooked ham, the relevance of testing both of finished products and the production environment is discussed. Since the level of control of different processes can be largely different it is beneficial if the frequency of sampling of finished products and production environments would be related to the associated human health risk, which can be assessed on the basis of risk assessment and epidemiological data. Keywords: Sampling; Verification; Microbiological food safet

Risk-Benefit Assessment of Cereal-Based Foods Consumed by Portuguese Children Aged 6 to 36 Months-A Case Study under the RiskBenefit4EU Project

This article belongs to the Section Pediatric Nutrition.Cereal-based foods, including breakfast (BC) and infant cereals (IC), are among the first solid foods introduced to infants. BC and IC are sources of macro and micronutrients that have bene ficial effects on health, but can also be sources of harmful chemical and microbiological contaminants and nutrients that may lead to adverse health effects at high consumption levels. This study was performed under the RiskBenefit4EU project with the aim of assessing the health impact associated with consumption of BC and IC by Portuguese children under 35 months. Adverse effects associated with the presence of aflatoxins, Bacillus cereus, sodium and free sugars were assessed against the benefits of fiber intake. We applied a risk–benefit assessment approach, and quantified the health impact of changes in consumption of BC and IC from current to various alternative consumption scenarios. Health impact was assessed in terms of disability-adjusted life years. Results showed that moving from the current consumption scenario to considered alternative scenarios results in a gain of healthy life years. Portuguese children can benefit from exchanging intake of IC to BC, if the BC consumed has an adequate nutritional profile in terms of fiber, sodium and free sugars, with levels of aflatoxins reduced as much as possible.This research was funded by European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) (Grant Agreement Number–GA/EFSA/AFSCO/2017/01–GA02) (The authors declare that this manuscript reflects only the authors’ view and EFSA is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.). R.A., P.A. and C.M. also thanks FCT/MCTES for the financial support to CESAM (UIDP/50017/2020 + UIDB/50017/2020), through national funds. R.A. was supported by FCT Individual CEEC 2018 Assistant Researcher Grant CEECIND/01570/2018.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Tyrosine-610 in the receptor kinase BAK1 does not play a major role in brassinosteroid signaling or innate immunity

The plasma membrane-localized BRI1-ASSOCIATED KINASE1 (BAK1) functions as a co-receptor with several receptor kinases including the brassinosteroid (BR) receptor BRASSINOSTEROID-INSENSITIVE 1 (BRI1), which is involved in growth, and the receptors for bacterial flagellin and EF-Tu, FLAGELLIN-SENSING 2 (FLS2) and EF-TU RECEPTOR (EFR), respectively, which are involved in immunity. BAK1 is a dual specific protein kinase that can autophosphorylate on serine, threonine and tyrosine residues. It was previously reported that phosphorylation of Tyr-610 in the carboxy-terminal domain of BAK1 is required for its function in BR signaling and immunity. However, the functional role of Tyr-610 in vivo has recently come under scrutiny. Therefore, we have generated new BAK1(Y610F) transgenic plants for functional studies. We first produced transgenic Arabidopsis expressing BAK1 (Y610F)-Flag in the homozygous bak1-4 bkk1-1 double null background. In a complementary approach, we expressed untagged BAK1 and BAK1(Y610F) in the bak1-4 null mutant. Both BAK1(Y610F) transgenic lines had no obvious growth phenotype compared to wild-type BAK1 expressed in the same background. In addition, the BAK1(Y610F)-Flag plants responded similarly to plants expressing BAK1-Flag in terms of brassinolide (BL) inhibition of root elongation, and there were only minor changes in gene expression between the two transgenic lines as monitored by microarray analysis and real-time PCR. In terms of plant immunity, there were no significant differences between plants expressing BAK1(Y610F)-Flag and BAK1-Flag in the growth of the non-pathogenic hrpA mutant of Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000. Furthermore, untagged BAK1(Y610F) transgenic plants were as responsive as plants expressing BAK1 (in the bak1-4 background) and wild-type Col-0 plants towards treatment with the EF-Tu- and flagellin-derived peptide epitopes elf18- and flg22, respectively, as measured by reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) activation, and seedling growth inhibition. Together, these new results demonstrate that Tyr-610 does not play a role in either BR or immune signaling

Avaliação de risco-benefício associado à alimentação: um instrumento para uma melhor política alimentar e de saúde na Europa

O RiskBenefit4EU (GP/EFSA/AFSCO/2017/01 - GA02) é um projeto europeu, financiado pela EFSA, que visa fortalecer a capacidade de avaliação de risco-benefício associado à alimentação na União Europeia (UE), aplicando uma abordagem holística. Este projeto resulta de uma parceria entre instituições de investigação & desenvolvimento e académicas, das áreas da saúde, alimentação e nutrição, e autoridades nacionais de segurança alimentar, de Portugal (país coordenador), Dinamarca e França.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Regulation of two germin-like protein genes during plum fruit development

Germin-like proteins (GLPs) have several proposed roles in plant development and defence. Two novel genes (Ps-GLP1 and 2) encoding germin-like protein were isolated from plum (Prunus salicina). Their regulation was studied throughout fruit development and during ripening of early and late cultivars. These two genes exhibited similar expression patterns throughout the various stages of fruit development excluding two important stages, pit hardening (S2) and fruit ripening (S4). During fruit development until the ripening phase, the accumulation of both Ps-GLPs is related to the evolution of auxin. However, during the S2 stage only Ps-GLP1 is induced and this could putatively be in a H2O2-dependent manner. On the other hand, the diversity in the Ps-GLPs accumulation profile during the ripening process seems to be putatively due to the variability of endogenous auxin levels among the two plum cultivars, which consequently change the levels of autocatalytic ethylene available for the fruit to co-ordinate ripening. The effect of auxin on stimulating ethylene production and in regulating Ps-GLPs transcripts was also investigated. These data, supported by their localization in the extracellular matrix, suggest that auxin is somehow involved in the regulation of both transcripts throughout fruit development and ripening

Cell wall proteins: a new insight through proteomics

Cell wall proteins are essential constituents of plant cell walls; they are involved in modifications of cell wall components, wall structure, signaling and interactions with plasma membrane proteins at the cell surface. The application of proteomic approaches to the cell wall compartment raises important questions: are there technical problems specific to cell wall proteomics? What kinds of proteins can be found in Arabidopsis walls? Are some of them unexpected? What sort of post-translational modifications have been characterized in cell wall proteins to date? The purpose of this review is to discuss the experimental results obtained to date using proteomics, as well as some of the new questions challenging future research