RESUMO
Date pits are agricultural waste byproducts and are available in tons yearly. Milk MUFAs are lipids beneficial for health and sorted out for food product development. This work is aimed at researching the effect of supplementing dairy goats with date pit powder (DPP) as a source of fatty acids (FA), an alternative to enhancing the unsaturated FA in milk and analysed via chemometrics in a 3-month supplementation-based study. Saanen-Boer crossed dairy goats were divided into six groups comprising of control, 10 g and 20 g both for Ajwa DPP (high-quality dates) and Mariami DPP (agricultural waste byproduct), and another 30 g for Mariami DPP only. The supplementation exercise was done daily on each dairy goat. The DPP and milk samples were analysed for its FA profile applying GC-FID and followed by chemometric techniques, namely, PCA and PLS. Results indicated that the n-6/n-3 ratio was the highest for the unsupplemented group compared to the DPP-treated goats with lower n-6/n-3 ratios. The M30 group showcased the most promising health-related class of FAs viewed by 3D PCA and PLS model clustering patterns, in particular monounsaturated FA (MUFA) (C18:1n9c or oleic acid). These results suggest that Mariami DPP supplementation at higher doses and time to lactating Saanen-Boer cross goats can be a means to milk FA quantity and quality enhancement and that chemometrics via pattern recognition can be useful statistical tools when dealing with overwhelming data.
RESUMO
The COVID-19 disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is highly infective within the human population. The virus is widely disseminated to almost every continent with over twenty-seven million infections and over ninety-thousand reported deaths attributed to COVID-19 disease. SARS-CoV-2 is a single stranded RNA virus, comprising three main viral proteins; membrane, spike and envelope. The clinical features of COVID-19 disease can be classified according to different degrees of severity, with some patients progressing to acute respiratory distress syndrome, which can be fatal. In addition, many infections are asymptomatic or only cause mild symptoms. As there is no specific treatment for COVID-19 there is considerable endeavour to raise a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, in addition to engineering neutralizing antibody interventions. In the absence of an effective vaccine, movement controls of varying stringencies have been imposed. Whilst enforced lockdown measures have been effective, they may be less effective against the current strain of SARS-CoV-2, the G614 clade. Conversely, other mutations of the virus, such as the Δ382 variant could reduce the clinical relevance of infection. The front runners in the race to develop an effective vaccine focus on the SARS-Co-V-2 Spike protein. However, vaccines that produce a T-cell response to a wider range of SARS-Co-V-2 viral proteins, may be more effective. Population based studies that determine the level of innate immunity to SARS-CoV-2, from prior exposure to the virus or to other coronaviruses, will have important implications for government imposed movement control and the strategic delivery of vaccination programmes.
