Individual and combined toxicity of a mycotoxin, the deoxynivalenol and a trace metal, the cadmium on the intestine

Deoxynivalenol (DON) is a type B trichothecene mycotoxin mainly produced by Fusarium genus. It is one of the most prevalent mycotoxins widely found in cereals and cereal-derived products. Cadmium is a component of earth’s crust and also a common environmental pollutant. It is a nonessential trace metal and toxic for humans and animals health. Although the individual toxicity of DON and Cd has been well investigated, their combined effect is poorly studied. As intestine is the first organ targeted by food contaminants, the aim of this study is to explore the combined effect of DON and Cd on the intestinal barrier function using in vitro, in vivo and ex vivo models. In vitro, the human intestinal epithelail cells Caco-2 were treated with a series of concentrations of DON and Cd (0-30 μM) alone or in combination. The barrier function of Caco-2 cells was assessed through the measurement of transepithelial electrical resistance (TEER), paracellular permeability and junctional proteins. DON, Cd and DON+Cd mixture decreased the TEER and increased the paracellular permeability in a concentration-dependent manner. The abundance of junctional proteins E-cadherin and occludin was considerably reduced in cells exposed to DON, Cd and DON+Cd, while the expression of ZO-1, and claudin-3 and -4 remained unchanged. The mixture DON+Cd induced slightly higher or similar effects than the most toxic contaminant. In vivo, rats were exposed to DON-contaminated feed (8.2 mg/kg feed), and Cd-contaminated drinking water (5 mg/L) or to the mixture DON+Cd for 4 weeks. The results showed no effect on body weight gain during the experiment. Mild morphological damage characterized by edema in lamina propria and villi flattening and fusion was found in rat exposed to each contaminant. The lesional score of jejunum was higher in all the treated animals than that in control animals. A significant decrease of jejunal crypt depth was observed in rats exposed to DON, Cd and DON+Cd, whereas villi height remained unaffected. A lower immunostaining of E-cadherin in the jejunum of rats exposed to contaminants alone or in combination was also observed, whereas occludin was only decreased in rats exposed to DON and DON+Cd. As shown in vitro, in vivo exposure to both DON and Cd induced similar effects than the most toxic contaminant. Ex vivo, jejunal explants of pigs were exposed to DON (0-24 μM), Cd (0-96 μM) and in combination DON+Cd. DON alone and mixture DON+Cd stimulated immune response in jejunum by upregulating mRNA expression of IL-1, IL-1, IL- 8 and TNF- in a dose-dependent manner, while Cd alone did not affect these genes. Gene expression of metallothioneins (MTs) including MT1A and MT2A was dose-dependently upregulated by Cd alone and mixture, but not affected by DON alone. The upregulation of cytokine and MTs genes induced by DON+Cd was similar than by DON or Cd alone. In conclusion, both DON and Cd alter intestinal barrier function and the combined effect is similar with their individual effect. The effect of the mixture did not demonstrate any synergy, suggesting that regulation on individual contaminant is protective enough for consumers exposed to DON and Cd mixtures

Singing voice correction using canonical time warping

Expressive singing voice correction is an appealing but challenging problem. A robust time-warping algorithm which synchronizes two singing recordings can provide a promising solution. We thereby propose to address the problem by canonical time warping (CTW) which aligns amateur singing recordings to professional ones. A new pitch contour is generated given the alignment information, and a pitch-corrected singing is synthesized back through the vocoder. The objective evaluation shows that CTW is robust against pitch-shifting and time-stretching effects, and the subjective test demonstrates that CTW prevails the other methods including DTW and the commercial auto-tuning software. Finally, we demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method in a practical, real-world scenario

Stacking sequence determines Raman intensities of observed interlayer shear modes in 2D layered materials - A general bond polarizability model

2D layered materials have recently attracted tremendous interest due to their fascinating properties and potential applications. The interlayer interactions are much weaker than the intralayer bonds, allowing the as-synthesized materials to exhibit different stacking sequences (e.g. ABAB, ABCABC), leading to different physical properties. Here, we show that regardless of the space group of the 2D material, the Raman frequencies of the interlayer shear modes observed under the typical configuration blue shift for AB stacked materials, and red shift for ABC stacked materials, as the number of layers increases. Our predictions are made using an intuitive bond polarizability model which shows that stacking sequence plays a key role in determining which interlayer shear modes lead to the largest change in polarizability (Raman intensity); the modes with the largest Raman intensity determining the frequency trends. We present direct evidence for these conclusions by studying the Raman modes in few layer graphene, MoS2, MoSe2, WSe2 and Bi2Se3, using both first principles calculations and Raman spectroscopy. This study sheds light on the influence of stacking sequence on the Raman intensities of intrinsic interlayer modes in 2D layered materials in general, and leads to a practical way of identifying the stacking sequence in these materials.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figure