Literature search – Exploring in silico protein toxicity prediction methods to support the food and feed risk assessment

This report is the outcome of an EFSA procurement (NP/EFSA/GMO/2018/01) reviewing relevant scientific information on in silico prediction methods for protein toxicity, that could support the food and feed risk assessment. Several proteins are associated with adverse (toxic) effects in humans and animals, by a variety of mechanisms. These are produced by plants, animals and bacteria to prevail in hostile environments. In the present report, we present an integrated pipeline to perform a comprehensive literature and database search applied to proteins with toxic effects. \u201cToxin activity\u201d and \u201ctoxin-antitoxin system\u201d strings were used as inputs for this pipeline. UniProtKB was considered as the reference database, and only the UniProtKB curator-reviewed proteins were considered in the pipeline. Experimentally- determined structures and homology-based in silico 3D models were retrieved from protein structures repositories; family-, domain-, motif- and other molecular signature-related information was also obtained from specific databases which are part of the InterPro consortium. Protein aggregation associated with adverse effects was also investigated using different search strategies. This work can serve as the basis for further exploring novel risk assessment strategies for new proteins using in silico predictive methods

Analysis of geochemical tracers in different systems soil-Citrus limon (L.) Osbeck

Today is increasing the attention of consumers for the origin of food and high reputation of products with a distinct geographical identity. Food traceability is an important issue in food safety and quality control, with impacts on food security, its quantity and overall availability. The knowledge of a chemistry relationship between the soil and the agricultural products is an important tool for the quality assessment of food. Citrus Limon is the most important fruit tree crop in the world and the detection of potential fraud could improve by using tools linking the chemistry composition of this production to its typical growing area. This study use rare earth elements (REEs) as geochemical tracers. The REEs are a set of 14 elements, from lanthanum to lutetium that can be divided in light rare earth elements (LREEs), from La to Gd and heavy rare earth elements (HREEs), from Tb to Lu. The REEs have recognized as very useful tracers due to their generally coherent and predictable behavior. The aim of the research is to observe whether the fruits of various cultivars of citrus cultivated on the same soil and their products (fruit and juice) reproduce the same distribution of REEs. Taking into account of our previous works carried out on grapevine – soil system [1, 2], we applied the same technique to evaluate and trace the REEs distribution in soil– Citrus Limon fruits system. Ten different varieties of Lemon fruits (Citrus limon Osbeck (L.)) were sampled. Lemon plant were grafted onto an unique rootstock (Citrus × aurantium L.), grown on volcanic soil in two experimental farms, located at the "Acireale" region (latitude 37 ° 37'23 N, longitude 15° 09'51.00 E and 205 m a.s.l., in Sicily, Italy) and “Portici” region (latitude 40 ° 81' 55 N, longitude 14° 34'75.00 E and 75 m a.s.l., in Campania, Italy). The varieties selected were: Akragas, Erice, Selinunte, Segesta, Continella, Femminello Siracusano, Femminello Dosaco, Kamarina, Sfusato, Ovale di Sorrento, Interdonato. A sample of 2 kg of fruit was collected at technological ripeness from each plant of three for every cultivar. As well as, three soil samples (about 2 kg) in the field corresponding to lemon sampling were collected and to reduce any surface contamination from a depth of 10–30 cm. The REEs amount, the HREEs/LREEs relations and their distribution in the fruit and citrus juice with respect to the own soil were determined and calculated. Results obtained were treated with statistical methods. The intriguing results obtained with a geochemical approach are the first on the soil–Citrus Limon fruits system

Effetti degli oli essenziali di agrumi applicati in post-emergenza sul controllo delle infestanti e sulla comunit\ue0 microbica del suolo

Sebbene gli erbicidi sintetici ad oggi siano il mezzo pi\uf9 utilizzato per il controllo delle erbe infestanti, \ue8 ampiamente dimostrato che essi hanno un impatto negativo sul suolo, sull'ambiente e, inoltre, iniziano a manifestarsi fenomeni di resistenza. Pertanto, \ue8 importante sviluppare mezzi alternativi che siano al contempo efficaci e rispettosi dell\u2019ambiente. Gli olii essenziali estratti dalle piante sono stati da sempre utilizzati per molteplici usi come agenti battericidi, virucidi, fungicidi, insetticidi, medicinali e cosmetici. Diversi studi hanno dimostrato tali attivit\ue0 degli oli essenziali estratti dagli agrumi, ma scarsi sono gli studi che hanno investigato il loro potenziale uso come erbicidi. Inoltre, anche se diversi studi hanno dimostrato un effetto antimicrobico, tali studi sono stati condotti prevalentemente in vitro e non in vivo. Obiettivo del presente lavoro \ue8 stato quello di valutare la potenzialit\ue0 degli oli essenziali estratti dalle bucce di limone e arancia i) per limitare lo sviluppo delle erbe infestanti e ii) il loro effetto sulla comunit\ue0 microbica del suolo. Gli oli essenziali testati sono stati estratti per idrodistillazione e con pressa a freddo: LI e AI, olio essenziale di limone e arancio, rispettivamente, estratti con pressa a freddo; LU e AU, olio essenziale di limone e arancio, rispettivamente, estratti tramite idrodistillazione. Ai fini del presente lavoro, il suolo utilizzato \ue8 stato prelevato presso un campo sperimentale dell'Universit\ue0 degli Studi di Palermo. Dopo il prelievo, il suolo \ue8 stato essiccato all'aria e setacciato con setaccio con fori del diametro di un centimetro. Successivamente, 500 grammi di suolo sono stati posti in 20 vaschette di alluminio (10 7 20 cm) ed incubati in condizioni naturali. Durante l\u2019incubazione il suolo \ue8 stato mantenuto al 50% della sua capacit\ue0 idrica di campo (WHC). Dopo l\u2019emergenza delle piantine, ovvero alla comparsa della terza foglia (ventesimo giorno dall\u2019inizio dell\u2019incubazione), ciascun olio essenziale \ue8 stato applicato nebulizzandolo sulle piantine, a giorni alterni per una settimana (tre applicazioni in totale). Per ogni vaso e per ogni trattamento, sono stati applicati 5 mL di una soluzione contenente 1 L di acqua, 10 mL di olio essenziale e 1 mL di emulsionante. Nel suolo di controllo la soluzione applicata alle piantine non conteneva olio essenziale. Dopo 15 giorni dall\u2019ultima applicazione dei trattamenti, i suoli sono stati campionati in modo totale, setacciati ed analizzati per la determinazione del carbonio della biomassa microbica (metodo fumigazione-estrazione), respirazione basale (emissione di CO2) e struttura della comunit\ue0 microbica (analisi degli acidi grassi dei fosfolipidi). Inoltre, per ogni trattamento sono stati determinati alcuni parametri delle piante come peso secco e fresco totale, numero di specie e numero di piante per specie. In questo lavoro vengono riportati e discussi i principali risultati

ATR-FTIR chemical screening for adulterants and sugar characterisation in honeys

The search for improvements in honey analysis is an important topic due to the relevance that adulterations and variations of sugar composition have in this food. Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transform InfraRed spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) is a reliable and fast analytical instrumentation for analysis of liquids, semi-solids and solids, which is currently used in food chemistry for qualitative and quantitative investigations. This work is aimed to build a fast analytical method, using ATR-FTIR and Partial Least Square (PLS) chemometric tool, to quantitative determination of glucose, fructose and sucrose present in honeys. We analyzed 25 honeys from Trentino and Sicily and a significant spectral range from the whole ATR-FTIR spectra were selected. Then a PLS multivariate calibration model was built by using mixtures of glucose, fructose and sucrose at various concentration. Samples for cross-validation were selected, thereby allowing quantitative evaluation of glucose, fructose and sucrose in all samples. Furthermore, a representative number of honeys were mixed with common adulterant syrups to simulate adulteration procedures and to verify the reliability of the ATR-FTIR technique in recognizing them. Preliminary results revealed not only the quantitative reliability of ATR-FTIR spectroscopy in the evaluation of sugars in honeys, but also its ability in recognizing honey adulteration

Preliminary studies of geochemical tools to traceability of Sicilian honey

Today is increasing the attention of consumers for the origin of food and high reputation of products with a distinct geographical identity. Food traceability is an important issue in food safety and quality control, with impacts on food security, its quantity and overall availability. Furthermore, the possibility of tracing the origin of foodstuff is assuming an increasingly important role at the legislative level, as a tool that may allow to prove on product authenticity and to control adulteration So, establish systems to trace food or feed products through specified stages of production, processing and distribution play a key role also to ensure food safety. For these reason, in the last years, a various of analytical techniques have been tested to found ways to establish the geographical origin of different kinds of food and many works reported that the combination of different analytical methods associated a multifactorial analysis of the data seems to be the most promising system to establish univocal traceability systems. Despite, the honey is a well appreciated natural product in the world and the detection of potential fraud could be favored through tools linking the chemistry composition of this production to producing area. A relatively small number of investigations regarding traceability of honey can be found in the scientific literature. Therefore, in these contest the development of fingerprinting techniques based on the determination of the specific markers of provenance analyzed whit chemometric approach represents an interesting area of research. Recent works have been demonstrated the potentiality of the study of the distribution patterns of rare earth as a promising analytical method for traceability of food products due coherent and predictable chemical behaviour of these compounds. Also, have been demonstrated that their distribution in soil keeps unaltered in plants growing on that soil and eventually in agricultural products obtained from those plants and through the normalization of the REEs distribution, it is possible to appreciate their relative enrichments in soil-plant- agro food products The aim of the research is to observe if the REEs normalizated pattern of honey is kept unaltered respect the soils of production to establish a correlation between geographic area and honey product. In this first study the REE approach, give very intriguing results in the geographical traceability of honey samples. The results have been supported by statistical treatment. A larger study is in progress to optimize the analytical methodology and to extend the research to a major number of sample for a better geographical characterization

New clones and old varieties: Quality of sicilian hillside apple cultivation

Aims: The aim of this study is to evaluate the qualitative characteristics of the new clones according to the Mediterranean hillside growing environment and, at the same time, to highlight the qualitative peculiarities of the old varieties in order to avoid genetic loss. Introduction: Several apple varieties are constantly selected for improved quality traits and introduced for cultivation and marketing in addition to a few traditional and affirmed varieties. On the other side, local genotype and ancient varieties are still valorised due to the request of a niche market. Methods: We have studied the physico-chemical quality and the sensory traits of the fruit obtained in this particular environment. Results: Our study reveals a qualitative response to the environment in a genotype-dependent manner. As expected, the physico-chemical characteristics favour the new clones. Conclusion: Both old varieties and new clones of apple fruit, grown in the Mediterranean area, turned out to be of high quality. Nevertheless, results revealed the better characteristics of new clones for commercialization in large-scale supply chain

Using principal component analysis to incorporate multi-layer soil moisture information in hydrometeorological thresholds for landslide prediction: an investigation based on ERA5-Land reanalysis data

A key component for landslide early warning systems (LEWSs) is constituted by thresholds providing the conditions above which a landslide can be triggered. Traditionally, thresholds based on rainfall characteristics have been proposed, but recently, the hydrometeorological approach, combining rainfall with soil moisture or catchment storage information, is becoming widespread. Most of the hydrometeorological thresholds proposed in the literature use the soil moisture from a single layer (i.e., depth or depth range). On the other hand, multi-layered soil moisture information can be measured or can be available from reanalysis projects as well as from hydrological models. Approaches using this multi-layered information are lacking, perhaps because of the need to keep the thresholds simple and two-dimensional. In this paper, we propose principal component analysis (PCA) as an approach for deriving two-dimensional hydrometeorological thresholds that use multi-layered soil moisture information. To perform a more objective assessment we also propose a piecewise linear equation for the identification of the threshold's shape, which is more flexible than traditional choices (e.g., power law or bilinear). Comparison of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) (true skill statistic, TSS) of thresholds based on single- and multi-layered soil moisture information also provides a novel tool for identifying the significance of multi-layered information on landslide triggering in a given region. Results for Sicily island, considering the ERA5-Land reanalysis soil moisture data (available at four different depth layers), corroborate the advantages of the hydrometeorological approach gained in spite of the coarse spatial resolution and the limited accuracy of reanalysis data. Specifically, the TSS of traditional precipitation intensity–duration thresholds is equal to 0.5, while those of the proposed hydrometeorological thresholds is significantly higher (TSS=0.71). For the analyzed region, however, multi-layered information seems not to be relevant, as performances in terms of TSS are similar to those obtained with single-layer soil moisture at the upper depths, namely 0–7 and 7–28 cm, which can imply that in Sicily landslide phenomena are mainly influenced by soil moisture in most shallow soil layers.</p

Modified Atmosphere Packaging and low temperature storage extend marketability of cherimoya (Annona cherimola Mill.)

Cherimoya is a subtropical fruit characterized by a delicious, sweet flavor and beneficial health properties, which found suitable growing conditions in the South of Italy. However, the marketing of this product is halted by its high perishability, which limits the shelf-life of the fresh fruit to few days after harvest and does not allow for commercialization beyond local markets. Studies have shown that storage of this fruit in controlled atmosphere, using Modified Atmosphere Packaging technologies, extended the post-harvest life of Cherimoya, but little is still known about the evolution of its sensory, nutraceutical and microbiological characteristics during such storage period. In this paper, we studied the effect of a 4-days long active-MAP (30% CO2 – 10% O2 – 60% N2) storage period, associated with cold temperatures, on the physico-chemical, sensory, nutraceutical and microbiological quality traits of Italian-grown cherimoya fruits, compared with passive-MAP (Air composition, 21% O2 + 1% CO2 + 78% N2) and simple cold storage. Active-MAP proved effective in delaying the reaching of the optimal consumption point until 10 days from harvest, besides showing absence of microbial growth until after 7 days from harvest. Both active- and passive-MAP treatments maintained better nutraceutical values than control until the end of the trial period, and sensory analysis confirmed that active-MAP treated fruits were at the optimal commercial stage after 10 days from harvest