The Effect of Raw Soybeans in Mixtures for Laying Hens on Egg Quality and Egg Shell Quality

The study was conducted on hens at the age of 49 - 57 weeks to identify opportunities for replacing, with raw grain, thermally processed soybean Lana variety with a reduced level and Lydia variety with a standard level of trypsin inhibitor. The effect of using different levels of participation of both varieties of raw soybean in mixtures for layers on egg quality and eggshell quality was examined. The research was conducted according to the principle of two-factorial experiment (2 varieties x 4 levels of participation of raw soybeans). The average values of properties of the external and internal egg quality were under statistically significant influence of the level of participation of raw soybean in the mixture. Share of 8 % of raw soybeans of both varieties in diets for layers influenced significantly lower eggshape index, albumen height and Haugh's unit in relation to the mixture with a lower level of participation of raw soybeans. Yolk color and eggshell firmness were not significantly influenced by the studied factors

Immunomodulatory Properties of Pomegranate Peel Extract in a Model of Human Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cell Culture

Pomegranate peel extract (PoPEx) has been shown to have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, but its effect on the adaptive immune system has not been sufficiently investigated. In this study, the treatment of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) with PoPEx (range 6.25-400 mu g/mL) resulted in cytotoxicity at concentrations of 100 mu g/mL and higher, due to the induction of apoptosis and oxidative stress, whereas autophagy was reduced. At non-cytotoxic concentrations, the opposite effect on these processes was observed simultaneously with the inhibition of PHA-induced PBMC proliferation and a significant decrease in the expression of CD4. PoPEx differently modulated the expression of activation markers (CD69, CD25, ICOS) and PD1 (inhibitory marker), depending on the dose and T-cell subsets. PoPEx (starting from 12.5 mu g/mL) suppressed the production of Th1 (IFN-gamma), Th17 (IL-17A, IL-17F, and IL-22), Th9 (IL-9), and proinflammatory cytokines (TNF-alpha and IL-6) in culture supernatants. Lower concentrations upregulated Th2 (IL-5 and IL-13) and Treg (IL-10) responses as well as CD4+CD25hiFoxp3+ cell frequency. Higher concentrations of PoPEx increased the frequency of IL-10- and TGF-beta-producing T-cells (much higher in the CD4+ subset). In conclusion, our study suggested for the first time complex immunoregulatory effects of PoPEx on T cells, which could assist in the suppression of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases

Analysis of redox status and HDL subclasses in patients with lymphoma and the associations with FDG-PET/CT findings

Newer research points to alterations in the plasma redox status and the HDL subclass distributions in cancer. We aimed to assess the redox status and the HDL subclass distributions, lipids, and inflammatory markers in lymphoma patients in order to determine whether they were correlated with changes in FDG-PET/CT scans. At the beginning of this study, redox status, HDL subclasses, lipids, and inflammation biomarkers were determined in 58 patients with lymphoma (Hodgkin lymphoma, n=11 and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, n=47), and these same measurements were reassessed during their ensuing treatment (in 25 patients). Initially, the total oxidation status (TOS), the prooxidant–antioxidant balance (PAB), the OS index (OSI), the total protein sulfhydryl groups (SH-groups), and the advanced oxidation protein products (AOPP) were significantly higher in lymphoma patients as compared to healthy subjects, but the total antioxidant status (TAS) was significantly reduced. The PAB had a strong correlation with the CRP and interleukin-6 (rho=0.726, p[removed

Beneficial effects of pomegranate peel extract on plasma lipid profile, fatty acids levels and blood pressure in patients with diabetes mellitus type-2: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study

Pomegranate peel contains high levels of various phytochemicals. We evaluated the effects of pomegranate peel extract (PoPEx) consumption on plasma lipid profile, fatty acids (FA) level and blood pressure (BP) in patients with diabetes mellitus type 2 (DMT2). Thirty-seven subjects were recruited in this double blind, placebo controlled randomized trial. The study group (n = 19) received over 8 week's capsules containing PoPEx twice a daily, while the placebo group received placebo. Treatment with PoPEx induced a significant lowering of both systolic and diastolic BP. The plasma levels of triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (LDL-C/HDL-C), and HbA1c were significantly decreased, while the level of HDL-C was significantly increased, compared with placebo intake. Moreover, the PoPEX treatment significantly improved the plasma lipids fatty acids content. It is concluded that consumption of PoPEx in DMT2 subject had favourable effects on some metabolic parameters, BP, lipid profile and plasma lipid FA composition

Prediction of the Lee retention indices of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by artificial neural network

A quantitative structure retention relationship technique using an artificial neural network (ANN) has been used for the prediction of the Lee retention indices for PAHs on SE-52 and DB-5 stationary phases. The selected descriptors that appear in the ANN model are the boiling point, molecular weight, connectivity index and the Schabron molecular size descriptor. The network was trained and optimized using a training and validation data sets. For the evaluation of the predictive power of the ANN, the optimized network was used to predict the temperature-prograrnmed Lee retention indices of two unseen testing data sets. The results obtained showed that the mean of relative errors and the correlation coefficients between the calculated ANN and the experimental values of Lee retention indices for the validation and two testing sets are 1.42% and 0.9460 on SE-52; 1.32% and 0.9381; 1.43% and 0.8939 on DB-5 stationary phases, respectively. These values are in good agreement with the relative error obtained by experiment

Prediction of programmed-temperature retention indices of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the Lee index scale by artificial neural network

A feed-forward artificial neural network (ANN) model was used to predict the programmed-temperature retention indices RIs in the Lee index scale of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The data used in this paper include 96 RIs in Lee index scale of 48 parent and alkylated PAHs obtained on SE-52 and DB-5 slightly polar stationary phases with three different temperature programmes. Four parameters: boiling point, molecular weight, connectivity index and F-number were used as input parameters. The data containing 96 RIs were randomly divided into three sets: a training set (including 32 RIs obtained on SE-52 stationary phase), a validation set (including 16 RIs for the same SE-52 phase) and testing sets (including 48 RIs obtained on DB-5 stationary phase and with two different temperature programme, 30 at one and 18 RIs at the other programmes, respectively). The structures of networks and the number of learning epochs were optimized. The best network structure is 4-6-1. The optimum number of learning epoch is 1000. The results obtained in this study showed that the average percentage deviation between the predicted ANN values and the experimental values of Lee retention indices for. the validation and two testing sets were 1.42% on the SE-52 and 1.32 and 1.43% on the DB-5 stationary phases, respectively. The result illustrated that the prediction performance of ANN in the field of investigating the programmed-temperature retention behavior of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons is very satisfactory

Multivariate analyses of microelement contents in wheat cultivated in Serbia (2002)

Microelements in soft winter wheat grain samples collected from all over Serbian wheat growing regions were analyzed quantitatively by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Microelement contents differed markedly among wheat samples harvested from various regions. The most frequently occurring pattern is Fe gt Mn gt Zn gt Cu gt Ph gt As gt Cd gt Hg. Principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA) were applied to classify the samples according to their microelement contents. Four PCs, explaining 84% of total variance, correlate well with the following elements: PC1 with Cu, Mn, and Zn content; PC2 with Pb and As; PC3 with Cd; and PC4 with Hg. Iron fails to load significantly on any PCs. Physical meaning of PCs could be attributed to metabolic processes in wheat, soil type, vicinity of industrial centers and busy motorways, and application of agrochemicals

Unfolding thermodynamics of cysteine-rich proteins and molecular thermal-adaptation of marine ciliates

Euplotes nobilii and Euplotes raikovi are phylogenetically closely allied species of marine ciliates, living in polar and temperate waters, respectively. Their evolutional relation and the sharply different temperatures of their natural environments make them ideal organisms to investigate thermal-adaptation. We perform a comparative study of the thermal unfolding of disulfide-rich protein pheromones produced by these ciliates. Recent circular dichroism (CD) measurements have shown that the two psychrophilic (E. nobilii) and mesophilic (E. raikovi) protein families are characterized by very different melting temperatures, despite their close structural homology. The enhanced thermal stability of the E. raikovi pheromones is realized notwithstanding the fact that these proteins form, as a rule, a smaller number of disulfide bonds. We perform Monte Carlo (MC) simulations in a structure-based coarse-grained (CG) model to show that the higher stability of the E. raikovi pheromones is due to the lower locality of the disulfide bonds, which yields a lower entropy increase in the unfolding process. Our study suggests that the higher stability of the mesophilic E. raikovi phermones is not mainly due to the presence of a strongly hydrophobic core, as it was proposed in the literature. In addition, we argue that the molecular adaptation of these ciliates may have occurred from cold to warm, and not from warm to cold. To provide a testable prediction, we identify a point-mutation of an E. nobilii pheromone that should lead to an unfolding temperature typical of that of E. raikovi pheromones