Estimating internal pelvic sizes using external body measurements in the double-muscled Belgian Bleu beef breed

In the double-muscled (DM) Belgian Blue beef (BBB) breed, caesarean section (CS) is being applied systematically as a management tool to prevent dystocia. As a matter of fact, CS is the only possible way of calving in the breed. High birth weight and a relatively small pelvic area are the main causes of dystocia and, in the DM-BBB breed, the reasons for the systematically applied CS. Selection for lower birth weight and larger pelvic sizes might reduce dystocia and routine CS. Few data on inner pelvic sizes of pedigree animals are available. Using external measurements to estimate the inner pelvic sizes might be an option to resolve this problem. In this study, animals of the DM-BBB breed were measured and weighed on farms and in abattoirs. External and internal pelvic sizes increased with live weight and age of the animals. Gender had a significant influence on inner pelvic traits. Increased muscular conformation was associated with decreased inner pelvic dimensions. Models with weight, gender, age, withers height and outer pelvic width (TcTc) can be used to estimate inner pelvic sizes (R-2 between 0.35 and 0.77). The estimated inner pelvic sizes can then be used to genetically evaluate pelvic traits in the DM-BBB breed. Improving weight, withers height and TcTc width in combination with lowering muscular conformation may help to decrease the high rate of caesarean section in the DM-BBB

The attitudes of European consumers toward innovation in bread; interest of the consumers toward selected quality attributes

16 pages, 7 tables, 4 figures.-- The definitive version is available at www3.interscience.wiley.comThe present survey is integrated in the European project entitled EU-FRESHBAKE. This three years project started in October 2006. It aims at developing innovative processes and innovative formulations for the Bake Off technology taking into consideration, energy demand of the process, nutrition parameters and overall quality of the bread. To help and to advise the project on the expectations of the European consumers toward innovation, a consumer survey has been carried out taking into consideration 1050 consumers from 5 countries (Belgium, Croatia, Spain, France and Poland). The global objectives are (i) to better understand the attitudes of the European innovations in bread and (ii) to understand the main determinants of it. Globally the key points that arose from the survey were the environmental concern and the concern regarding health; these two aspects seem to steer the attitudes of the consumer. Basically, two categories of consumers were observed; (i) frequent (daily) buyers with a focus on quality and pleasure and (ii) less frequent buyers (once a week) with a more pronounced interest in nutrition and energy (process). The first group was named the crust group and the second one the crumb group. The crumb family seems to be the one that is the most interested in the outcomes of the EU-FRESHBAKE project. This group is concerned by nutrition quality and would prefer a bread which has been done with a less energy demanding process. The “crust” group is schematically less interested in the nutrition, in the shelf life and in the energy demand of the process used to prepare the bread. The results from this survey should be handled with care due to the relative small size of the sample and to the fact that the average age of the sample was rather young.This study (report, paper, workshop…) has been carried out with financial support from the Commission of the European Communities, FP6, Thematic Area “Food quality and safety”, FOOD-2006-36302 EU-FRESH BAKE.Peer reviewe

A dual fluorescent multiprobe assay for prion protein genotyping in sheep

BACKGROUND: Scrapie and BSE belong to a group of fatal, transmissible, neurodegenerative diseases called TSE. In order to minimize the risk of natural scrapie and presumed natural BSE in sheep, breeding programmes towards TSE resistance are conducted in many countries based on resistance rendering PRNP polymorphisms at codons 136 (A/V), 154 (R/H) and 171 (R/H/Q). Therefore, a reliable, fast and cost-effective method for routine PRNP genotyping in sheep, applicable in standard equipped molecular genetic laboratories, will be a vital instrument to fulfill the need of genotyping hundreds or thousands of sheep. METHODS: A dual fluorescent multiprobe assay consisting of 2 closed tube PCR reactions containing respectively 4 and 3 dual-labelled fluorescent ASO probes for the detection in real-time of the 7 allelic variants of sheep PRNP mentioned above. RESULTS: The assay is succesfully performed using unpurified DNA as a template for PCR, without any post-PCR manipulations and with semi-automatic determination of the PRNP genotypes. The performance of the assay was confirmed via PCR-RFLP and sequencing in a cross-validation study with 50 sheep. CONCLUSIONS: We report the development and validation of a robust, reliable and reproducible method for PRNP genotyping of a few to many sheep samples in a fast, simple and cost-effective way, applicable in standard equipped molecular genetic laboratories. The described primer/probe design strategy can also be applied for the detection of other polymorphisms or disease causing mutations

Identification of valid housekeeping genes for quantitative RT-PCR analysis of cardiosphere-derived cells preconditioned under hypoxia or with prolyl-4-hydroxylase inhibitors

Infarction irreversibly damages the heart, with formation of an akinetic scar that may lead to heart failure. Endogenous cardiac stem cells (CSCs) are a promising candidate cell source for restoring lost tissue and thereby preventing heart failure. CSCs may be isolated in vitro, via the formation of cardiospheres, to give cardiosphere-derived cells (CDCs). Although qRT-PCR analyses of CDCs have been performed, no justification for the selection of the housekeeping gene has been published. Here, we evaluated the most suitable housekeeping gene for RNA expression analysis in CDCs cultured under normoxia, hypoxia or with prolyl-4-hydroxylase inhibitors (PHDIs), from both neonatal and adult rats, to determine the effects of ageing and different culture conditions on the stability of the housekeeping gene for CDCs. Six candidate housekeeping genes, [glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), beta-actin (Actb), hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase 1 (HPRT-1), beta-2-microtubulin (β2M), 60S acidic ribosomal protein large P1 (RPLP-1) and TATA box binding protein (Tbp)] were evaluated in this study. Analysis using geNorm and NormFinder revealed that GAPDH was the most constant housekeeping gene among all genes tested under normoxia for both neonatal and adult CDCs, whereas Actb was the most stable housekeeping gene under hypoxia. For the PHDI-treated CDCs, overall, GADPH, Actb and β2M were more consistently expressed, whereas HPRT-1, RPLP-1 and Tbp showed unstable expression. The ranking for β2M, HPRT-1 and RPLP-1 stability was different for neonatal and adult cells, indicating that expression of these genes was age-dependent. Lastly, independent of age or culture conditions, Tbp was the least stable housekeeping gene. In conclusion, a combination of Actb and GADPH gave the most reliable normalization for comparative analyses of gene transcription in neonatal and adult rat CDCs preconditioned by hypoxia or PHDIs