Summary
Food safety is a critical public health issue for consumers and the food industry because microbiological contamination of food causes considerable social and economic burdens on health care. ...Most foodborne illness comes from animal production, but as of the mid‐1990s in the United States and more recently in the European Union, the contribution of fresh produce to foodborne outbreaks has rapidly increased. Recent studies have suggested that sterilization with nonthermal plasma could be a viable alternative to the traditional methods for the decontamination of heat‐sensitive materials or food because this technique proves capable of eliminating micro‐organisms on surfaces without altering the substrate. In the last 10 years, researchers have used nonthermal plasma in a variety of food inoculated with many bacterial species. All of these experiments were conducted exclusively in a laboratory and, to our knowledge, this technique has not been used in an industrial setting. Thus, the purpose of this review is to understand whether this technology could be used at the industrial level. The latest researches using nonthermal plasma on fresh produce were analysed. These evaluations have focused on the log reduction of micro‐organisms and the treatment time.
The aim of this study was the evaluation of the occurrence of pathogenic
Campylobacter
,
Escherichia coli
O157:H7,
E. coli
virulence genes and
Salmonella
spp. in different wastewater treatment plants ...(WWTPs) using a method based on an enrichment step and PCR. This method was sensitive enough to detect low levels (∼2 CFU100 ml
-1
of raw sewage) of all the investigated pathogens. In the WWTP samples,
E. coli
O157:H7 DNA and the
eae
gene were never found, but 33 % of influents and effluents exhibited amplicons corresponding to Shiga-like toxin I. Twenty-five percent of the influent and 8 % of the effluent exhibited the presence of Shiga-like toxin II.
Campylobacter jejuni
and
C. coli
DNA were identified in 50 and 25 % of the influents and in 8 and 25 % of the effluents, respectively.
Salmonella
spp. DNA was present in all the samples. Considering the results obtained, the method tested here offers a reliable and expeditious tool for evaluating the efficiency of the effluent treatment in order to mitigate contamination risk. Influent contamination by
Salmonella
spp. and
Campylobacter
spp. provides indirect information about their circulation; moreover, their presence in effluents underlines the role of WWTPs in the contamination of the receiving surface waters, which affects public health directly or indirectly.
Background: Ataxia‐telangiectasia (A‐T) is a non‐curable neurodegenerative disorder, associated with progressive neurological dysfunction, oculocutaneous telangiectasia, immunodeficiency, ...predisposition to cancer and radiosensitivity. A recent study documented improvement in neurological symptoms after a short‐term therapy with betamethasone in patients with A‐T.
Aim of this study was to evaluate the minimum therapeutically effective dosage of betamethasone on neurological symptoms of A‐T.
Methods: Six responsive patients with A‐T, received two 20‐day cycles of oral betamethasone at 0.01 and 0.03 mg/kg/day (10% and 30% of the previously used full dosage), each followed by a 20‐day washout period. Clinical and laboratory evaluations were carried out at T0 and at the end of each cycle. Neurological assessment was performed through the Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (SARA). The glucocorticoid‐induced leucine zipper (GILZ) and glucocorticoid receptor (GR) RNA expression were evaluated before and during the trial through real‐time PCR.
Results: SARA scores significantly improved in all patients at the dosage of 0.03 mg/kg/day. In particular, three patients exhibited an improvement in 5/8 variables and two patients of 7 and 8 variables, respectively. Furthermore, the clinical improvement was already evident after the lower dosage. The basal GILZ and GR RNA expression were significantly lower in patients than in controls. GILZ expression increased in all patients after the beginning of the therapy, whereas no correlation between GR and the response was found.
Conclusion: Our data indicate that betamethasone is effective in A‐T at a minimal dosage and that GILZ may be a useful biomarker of the clinical response. This study provides Class IIIA evidence that betamethasone at very low dosage is effective in improving neurological signs of patients affected with ataxia‐telangiectasia.
Background and purpose
Ataxia‐telangiectasia (A‐T) is a rare neurodegenerative disease, due to A‐T mutated (ATM) gene mutations, which typically presents with signs of progressive neurological ...dysfunction, cerebellar ataxia and uncoordinated movements. A‐T severely affects patients’ quality of life. Successful treatment options are still not available. The aim of this multicenter study, performed with a blind evaluation procedure, was to define the minimal effective dosage of oral betamethasone, thus preventing the occurrence of side effects.
Methods
Nine A‐T patients were enrolled to receive betamethasone at increasing dosages of 0.001, 0.005 and 0.01 mg/kg/day. Neurological assessment and the evaluation of quality of life were performed through the Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia and the Italian version of the Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire (CHAQ) at each time‐point. The drug safety profile was evaluated. Patients were categorized as responders, partial responders and non‐responders.
Results
Four of nine patients had a benefit at a dose of 0.005 mg/kg/day of oral betamethasone. Using the higher dosage, only one additional patient had a positive response. Conversely, a daily dose of 0.001 mg/kg was ineffective. A correlation between the serum adrenocorticotropic hormone levels and the clinical response was observed. Five of 30 CHAQ items improved in four patients.
Conclusions
These data suggest that a short‐term betamethasone oral treatment, at a daily dosage of 0.005 mg/kg, is effective in some patients. Pre‐existing risk factors for side effects should be taken into account before therapy.
Brain abscess is uncommon in paediatric population, but of clinical importance because of significant long-term morbidity and mortality. In this multicentre study, promoted by the Italian Society for ...Paediatric Infectious Diseases, we retrospectively collected patients aged 0–18 years, with a diagnosis of ‘brain abscess’. Seventy-nine children were included; the median age was 8·75 years. As predisposing factor, 44 children had preceding infections. The Gram-positive cocci were mostly isolated (27 cases). Sixty (76%) children underwent a surgical intervention. Intravenous antibiotic therapy was administered in all patients, then switched to oral treatment. Clinical sequelae were recorded in 31 (39·2%) children. Twenty-one of them had a single sequela, of which, the most represented, was epilepsy in nine of them. This study focus the attention on the need to have standardized national guidelines or adequate recommendations on type and duration of antibiotic treatment.
AIM: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of plasma‐enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) treatment on selected bacteria and spores and to contribute to the understanding of the ...synergistic effect of UV‐directed plasma. METHODS AND RESULTS: The experiments were conducted on pure cultures of Aspergillus brasiliensis and Escherichia coli and on naturally contaminated pistachios that were exposed to pure oxygen‐, pure argon‐ and to a mixture of oxygen–argon‐generated plasma for different treatment times and at different micro‐organism concentrations. Optical emission spectroscopy (OES) measurements were performed to observe the active species in the plasma. After exposure, the effectiveness of decontamination was assessed through microbiological techniques by calculating the growth reduction on a logarithmic scale. A treatment time of 30 min resulted in a 3·5 log reduction of A. brasiliensis using pure oxygen or argon, while treatment times of 5 min, 1 min and 15 s resulted in a 5·4 log reduction using a mixture of argon and oxygen (10 : 1 v/v). Treatment times of 1 min and 30 s resulted in a 4 log reduction of E. coli with oxygen and argon, respectively, which led to a complete elimination of the micro‐organisms. Two‐log reductions of fungi were achieved for pistachios after a treatment time of 1 min. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that this newly designed plasma reactor offers good potential applications for the reduction in micro‐organisms on heat‐sensitive materials, such as foods. The plasma that was generated with Ar/O₂was more effective than that which was generated with pure oxygen and pure argon. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: An improvement in the knowledge about PECVD mechanisms was acquired from the chemical and biological points of view, and the suitability of the method for treating dry food surfaces was demonstrated.
Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) have become a major issue in the field of environmental science due to their ability to interfere with the endocrine system. Recent studies show that surface ...water is contaminated with EDCs, many released from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP). This pilot study used biological (E-screen assay) and chemical (stir bar sorptive extraction–GC–MS) analyses to quantify estrogenic activity in effluent water samples from a municipal WWTP and in water samples of the recipient river, upstream and downstream of the plant.
The E-screen assay was performed on samples after solid phase extraction (SPE) to determine total estrogenic activity; the presence of estrogenic substances can be evaluated by measuring the 17-β-estradiol equivalency quantity (EEQ). Untreated samples were also assayed with an acute toxicity test (
Vibrio fischeri) to study the correlation between toxicity and estrogenic disruption activity.
Mean EEQs were 4.7 ng/L (±
2.7 ng/L) upstream and 4.4 ng/L (±
3.7 ng/L) downstream of the plant, and 11.1 ng/L (±
11.7 ng/L) in the effluent. In general the WWTP effluent had little impact on estrogenicity nor on the concentration of EDCs in the river water. The samples upstream and downstream of the plant were non-toxic or weakly toxic (0
<
TU
<
0.9) while the effluent was weakly toxic or toxic (0.4
<
TU
<
7.6). Toxicity and estrogenic activity were not correlated.
At most sites, industrial mimics, such as the alkylphenols and phthalates, were present in higher concentrations than natural hormones. Although the concentrations of the detected xenoestrogens were generally higher than those of the steroids, they accounted for only a small fraction of the EEQ because of their low estrogenic potency. The EEQs resulting from the E-screen assay and those calculated from the results of chemical analyses using estradiol equivalency factors were comparable for all samples and closely correlated.
Background and purpose: Ataxia‐telangiectasia (A‐T) is a rare autosomal recessive disorder caused by alterations of the A‐T mutated (ATM) gene. Although A‐T is a noncurable disease, we, previously, ...documented a clear improvement of cerebellar functions during a short‐term betamethasone trial. The aim of this study was to define the underlying biochemical mechanism.
Methods: In six A‐T patients receiving a short‐term steroid therapy, intracellular glutathione (GSH) levels were evaluated with a colorimetric assay. The lipid peroxidation level and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production were evaluated using commercial assays. All the parameters were compared with the improvement of cerebellar functions expressed as delta (Δ) of the Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (SARA).
Results: We observed an inverse correlation between Δ SARA and the severity of cerebellar atrophy and between the latter and basal GSH values. Four of the five patients with the highest Δ SARA also had the highest GSH values. Moreover, even though basal ROS values were comparable in patients and controls, in the only patient studied at different time‐points of therapy, a remarkable reduction in ROS levels was documented.
Conclusion: We suggest that antioxidative mechanisms play a role in favouring the improvement of cerebellar functions observed in A‐T patients receiving a short‐term betamethasone trial.
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