Prospective Study of Zinc Intake and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Women

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to investigate the intake of zinc in relation to risk of type 2 diabetes in U.S. women. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Dietary intakes of zinc and other nutrients were assessed and updated using a validated food frequency questionnaire from 1980 to 2002 among 82,297 women who were aged 33–60 years at baseline in 1980 and followed up to 2004 in the Nurses' Health Study. RESULTS: During the 24 years of follow-up, 6,030 incident cases of type 2 diabetes were ascertained. After adjustment of lifestyle and dietary risk factors, the relative risks (RRs) (95% CI) of type 2 diabetes comparing the highest with the lowest quintiles were 0.90 (0.82–0.99) (Ptrend = 0.04) for total zinc intake and 0.92 (0.84–1.00) (Ptrend = 0.009) for dietary zinc intake from food sources, respectively. We further found an inverse association for dietary zinc to heme iron ratio. After multivariate adjustment of covariates, the RRs (95% CI) across quintiles of this ratio were 1.0 (reference), 0.93 (0.86–1.01), 0.86 (0.79–0.94), 0.82 (0.75–0.90), and 0.72 (0.66–0.80), respectively (Ptrend < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Higher zinc intake may be associated with a slightly lower risk of type 2 diabetes in women. More studies are warranted to confirm this association and to explore potential mechanisms

Saccharomyces cerevisiae Ngl3p is an active 3′–5′ exonuclease with a specificity towards poly-A RNA reminiscent of cellular deadenylases

Deadenylation is the first and rate-limiting step during turnover of mRNAs in eukaryotes. In the yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, two distinct 3′–5′ exonucleases, Pop2p and Ccr4p, have been identified within the Ccr4-NOT deadenylase complex, belonging to the DEDD and Exonuclease–Endonuclease–Phosphatase (EEP) families, respectively. Ngl3p has been identified as a new member of the EEP family of exonucleases based on sequence homology, but its activity and biological roles are presently unknown. Here, we show using in vitro deadenylation assays on defined RNA species mimicking poly-A containing mRNAs that yeast Ngl3p is a functional 3′–5′ exonuclease most active at slightly acidic conditions. We further show that the enzyme depends on divalent metal ions for activity and possesses specificity towards poly-A RNA similar to what has been observed for cellular deadenylases. The results suggest that Ngl3p is naturally involved in processing of poly-adenylated RNA and provide insights into the mechanistic variations observed among the redundant set of EEP enzymes found in yeast and higher eukaryotes

Targeting fungicide inputs according to need

Fungicides should be used to the extent required to minimize economic costs of disease in a given field in a given season. The maximum number of treatments and maximum dose per treatment are set by fungicide manufacturers and regulators at a level that provides effective control under high disease pressure. Lower doses are economically optimal under low or moderate disease pressure, or where other control measures such as resistant cultivars constrain epidemics. Farmers in many countries often apply reduced doses, although they may still apply higher doses than the optimum to insure against losses in high disease seasons. Evidence supports reducing the number of treatments and reducing the applied dose to slow the evolution of fungicide resistance. The continuing research challenge is to improve prediction of future disease damage and account for the combined effect of integrated control measures to estimate the optimum number of treatments and the optimum dose needed to minimize economic costs. The theory for optimizing dose is well developed but requires translation into decision tools because the current basis for farmers’ dose decisions is unclear