Quantitative methods for food allergens: a review.

The quantitative detection of allergens in the food chain is a strategic health objective as the prevalence of allergy continues to rise. Food allergenicity is caused by proteins either in their native form or in forms resulting from food processing. Progress in mass spectrometry greatly opened up the field of proteomics. These advances are now available for the detection and the quantification of traces of allergenic proteins in complex mixtures, and complete the set of biological tests used until now, such as ELISA or PCR. We review methods classified according to their ability to simultaneously quantify and identify allergenic proteins and underline major advances in the mass-spectrometric methods

The value of well-designed experiments in studying diseases with special reference to amphibians

Relatively few studies of amphibian diseases have employed standard ecological experimental designs. We discuss what constitutes a well-designed ecological experiment and encourage their use in disease studies. We illustrate how well-designed experiments can be used to determine the effects of pathogens on amphibians and we illustrate how ancillary information, including that collected using molecular tools, can be used to enhance the value of such experiments

Population recovery following decline in an endangered stream-breeding frog (mixophyes fleayi) from subtropical Australia

Amphibians have undergone dramatic declines and extinctions worldwide. Prominent among these have been the streambreeding frogs in the rainforests of eastern Australia. The amphibian chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) has been postulated as the primary cause of these declines. We conducted a capture-mark-recapture study over a 7-year period on the endangered Fleay’s barred frog (Mixophyes fleayi) at two independent streams (30 km apart) in order to assess the stability of these populations. This species had undergone a severe decline across its narrow geographic range. Markrecapture modelling showed that the number of individuals increased 3–10 fold along stream transects over this period. Frog detection probabilities were frequently above 50% but declined as the populations increased. Adult survival was important to overall population persistence in light of low recruitment events, suggesting that longevity may be a key factor in this recovery. One male and female were present in the capture record for .6 years. This study provides an unambiguous example of population recovery in the presence of Bd

Experimental exposures of boreal toads (Bufo boreas) to a pathogenic Chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis)

One of the major causes of worldwide amphibian declines is a skin infection caused by a pathogenic chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis). This study documents the interactions between this pathogen and a susceptible amphibian host, the boreal toad (Bufo boreas). The amount of time following exposure until death is influenced by the dosage of infectious zoospores, duration of exposure, and body size of the toad. The significant relation between dosage and the number of days survived (dose-response curve) supports the hypothesis that the degree of infection must reach a particular threshold of about 107–108 zoosporangia before death results. Variation in air temperature between 12°C and 23°C had no significant effect on survival time. The infection can be transmitted from infected to healthy animals by contact with water containing zoospores; no physical contact between animals is required. These results are correlated with observations on the population biology of boreal toads in which mortalities associated with B. dendrobatidis have been identified