ApoE polymorphisms and diarrheal outcomes in Brazilian shanty town children

A series of studies have shown that the heavy burdens of diarrheal diseases in the first 2 formative years of life in children living in urban shanty towns have negative effects on physical and cognitive development lasting into later childhood. We have shown that APOE4 is relatively common in shanty town children living in Brazil (13.4%) and suggest that APOE4 has a protective role in cognitive development as well as weight-for-height in children with heavy burdens of diarrhea in early childhood (64/123; 52%), despite being a marker for cognitive decline with Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular diseases later in life. APOE2 frequency was higher among children with heaviest diarrhea burdens during the first 2 years of life, as detected by PCR using the restriction fragment length polymorphism method, raising the possibility that ApoE-cholesterol balance might be critical for growth and cognitive development under the stress of heavy diarrhea burdens and when an enriched fat diet is insufficient. These findings provide a potential explanation for the survival advantage in evolution of genes, which might raise cholesterol levels during heavy stress of diarrhea burdens and malnutrition early in life

Transient expression of organophosphorus hydrolase to enhance the degrading activity of tomato fruit on coumaphos*

We constructed an expression cassette of the organophosphorus pesticide degrading (opd) gene under the control of the E8 promoter. Then opd was transformed into tomato fruit using an agroinfiltration transient expression system. β-Glucuronidase (GUS) staining, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), wavelength scanning, and fluorescent reaction were performed to examine the expression of the opd gene and the hydrolysis activity on coumaphos of organophosphorus hydrolase (OPH) in tomato fruit. The results show that the agroinfiltrated tomato fruit-expressed OPH had the maximum hydrolysis activity of about 11.59 U/mg total soluble protein. These results will allow us to focus on breeding transgenic plants that could not only enhance the degrading capability of fruit and but also hold no negative effects on pest control when spraying organophosphorus pesticides onto the seedlings in fields