Lipid hydroperoxide-induced tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha, vascular endothelial growth factor and neovascularization in the rabbit cornea: effect of TNF inhibition.

Lipid hydroperoxides (LHP) at high concentrations are cytotoxic, but at sublethal concentration, they induce synthesis of cytokine vascular growth factors. Intracorneal injections of 30 µg LHP placed 5 mm from the superior limbus stimulated early vasodilation of limbal vasculature and a rapidly developing, sustained neovascularization. Under these conditions, vessels grew at the rate of 0.3 mm/day to a total length of 7.5 mm, 25 days after injection. Cholesterol peroxides were less effective. Developing vessels were oriented towards the stimulus. Around the developing vessel there was dissolution of the stromal extracellular matrix. The most distal endothelial cells displayed prominent endoplasmic reticulum, a lack of basement membrane or tight junction complexes and leakage of fluorescein dye. Both the injection site and superior quadrant showed increased levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha and vascular endothelial growth factor after exposure to LHP. The neovascular response was inhibited by simultaneous administration of TNF-alpha antibody or pentoxifylline, an inhibitor of TNF-alpha synthesis. This corneal model of peroxide-induced neovascularization should prove useful for temporal studies of events in the initiation and propagation of signals leading to neovascularization, and for evaluating effects of treatment on neovascular growth.

Seafood Spoilage Predictor--development and distribution of a product specific application software.

To allow shelf-life prediction of a range of products, the Seafood Spoilage Predictor (SSP) software has been developed to include both kinetic models for growth of specific spoilage microorganisms and empirical relative rates of spoilage models. SSP can read and evaluate temperature profile data of different formats and in this way the software is a flexible device for electronic time-temperature integration. Predicted values of microbial growth and of remaining product shelf life can be exported from SSP as graphs and tables in ASCII, HTML and eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML) formats and this allows SSP to be used in combination with other programmes. More than 300 people have downloaded SSP and distribution of this software from the internet has been efficient in stimulating the application of predictive microbiology and of mathematical seafood shelf-life models within industry, research, seafood inspection and teaching.