In vivo assessment about the effects of a diet containing iodine-enriched foodstuffs. A pilot study in 30 volunteers.

BACKGROUND: Iodine deficiency (ID) still now represents one of the major worldwide health problems. ID is the result of insufficient dietary iodine intake. Iodine is an essential micronutrient but scarcely present in nature. The main strategy for the correction of ID is the fortification of table salt with iodide/iodine but Italy is far from reaching an iodized salt use higher 90% of population. Also because of the evidence for the risk on blood pressure, it is recommended to decrease the daily salt intake to less than 5 g/d. An opportunity to increase the iodine intake is the possibility to introduce iodine fortification in the industrial processing of foods. AIM: The aim was to evaluate the effectiveness of a diet containing iodized foods enriched during industry processing with protected iodized salt (Presal®). SUBJECTS AND METHODS: The evaluation of increasing of iodine intake was assessed by measuring the urinary iodine excretion (UIE) in 30 healthy volunteers who added to their alimentary habits a basket of iodine-enriched foodstuffs. RESULTS: Median UIE at baseline was 105 µg/l, 156 µg/l during the enriched diet and 90.5 µg/l a week after withdrawal of enriched diet. CONCLUSIONS: Stable iodized salt (Presal®) represents a good way to introduce iodine with the normal diet without increasing the normal consumption of salt for the healthy problems related to the blood pressure. The availability of stable iodized salt (Presal®) allows the preservation of iodine after cooking.

Enhanced methane production in a two-phase anaerobic digestion plant, after CO2 capture and addition to organic wastes.

Cost-effective technologies are needed to reach the international greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets in many fields, including waste and biomass treatment. This work reports the effects of CO(2) capture from a combustion flue gas and its use in a newly-patented, two-phase anaerobic digestion (TPAD) process, to improve energy recovery and to reduce CO(2) emissions. A TPAD process, fed with urban wastewater sludge, was successfully established and maintained for several months at pilot scale. The TPAD process with injection of CO(2) exhibits efficient biomass degradation (58% VSS reduction), increased VFA production during the acidogenic phase (leading to VFA concentration of 8.4 g/L) and high biomethane production (0.350 S m(3)/kg(SSV); 0.363 S m(3)/m(3)(react) · d). Moreover, CO(2) intake in the acid phase has a positive impact on the overall GHG balance associated to biomethane production, and suggests an improved solution for both emission reduction and biomass conversion into biomethane.

Tyrosine83 is essential for the activity of E. coli galactoside transacetylase.

The gene (lacA) coding for Escherichia coli galactoside transacetylase was cloned into the pTrcHisB plasmid, and the corresponding hexahistidine-tagged enzyme was over-expressed and purified. The kinetic constants of the tagged protein were determined, yielding values in excellent agreement with previous observations reported for the natural enzyme. LacA Tyrosine83 was then substituted with a Valine: by comparing the K(m) and k(cat) values observed for wild type and mutant enzymes using isopropyl-thio-beta-d-galactopyranoside or p-nitrophenyl-beta-d-galactopyranoside as substrates, Tyrosine83 was identified as an essential residue for the catalytic activity of E. coli galactoside transacetylase.

RNA complementary to the 5' UTR of mRNA triggers effective silencing in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Conditional silencing of target genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae by antisense RNAs expressed in vivo has been challenged. The MFalpha1::lacZ fusion present in S. cerevisiae SF51-3 was chosen as a model target, and fragments of this gene were cloned in reverse orientation into the expression vector pYES2, bearing the GAL1 promoter. Among the different antisense constructs tested, only the one complementary to the 5' UTR of target mRNA featured effective silencing. Nevertheless, the expression in vivo of this antisense RNA could not be properly tuned by the absence or presence of galactose in the culture medium. Accordingly, conditional silencing could not be attained by this antisense hosted into pYES2. On the contrary, cloning the same antisense construct into the expression vector pSAL4 yielded a fully conditional silencing linked to the control of antisense expression by the absence or presence of Cu(2+) into the culture medium.