Chlorophyll catabolism and gene expression in the peel of ripening banana fruits

The biochemical and molecular basis of chlorophyll (Chl) catabolism in bananas was investigated during ripening at 20°C and at an elevated temperature (35°C) where degreening is inhibited. Biochemical analysis showed that Chl breakdown products could be isolated from fruit ripened at both temperatures. The coloured breakdown products, chlorophyllide and pheophorbide, were not detected at any stage of ripening in the two treatments; however, a non-fluorescent Chl catabolite accumulated to a higher concentration at 20 than at 35°C. To investigate the ripening-related gene expression associated with these changes, a cDNA library was generated from the peel of fruit ripened at 20°C. Differential screening of this library produced 20 non-redundant families of clones including those encoding enzymes involved in ethylene biosynthesis, respiration, starch metabolism, cell wall degradation and other metabolic events. The expression of these genes was followed by northern analysis in fruit ripened at 20 and 35°C.

Isolation and genotyping of Toxoplasma gondii causing fatal systemic toxoplasmosis in an immunocompetent 10-year-old cat

A 10-year-old male, neutered domestic shorthair cat was presented with fever, anorexia, vomiting, and diarrhea. Serologic testing for Feline immunodeficiency virus and Feline leukemia virus were negative. Fine-needle aspirates of mesenteric lymph nodes revealed the presence of banana-shaped apicomplexan parasites. The cat died after 4 days of hospitalization. Postmortem polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis confirmed the presence of Toxoplasma gondii in all examined organs. Parasites were ex vivo isolated in outbred mice and subsequently transferred into cell culture. Genotyping, using genetic markers for SAG2, SAG3, BTUB, GRA6, c22-8, c29-2, L358, PK1, and Apico for PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism, revealed infection with type II T. gondii displaying type II alleles at all loci except Apico, which exhibited a type I allele. This is the most frequently identified genotype among cats acting as definitive hosts in central Europe, but to the authors' knowledge, it has never been associated with systemic toxoplasmosis in an adult, immunocompetent cat.

Fruit yogurt: any erosive potential regarding teeth?

OBJECTIVE: The capability of drinks and foods to resist pH changes brought about by salivary buffering may play an important role in the dental erosion process in children. The aim of the present study was to test fruit yogurt, a popular snack for children, and the degrees of saturation (pK-pl) with respect to hydroxyapatite and fluorapatite to determine their erosive potential. METHOD AND MATERIALS: A variety of fruit yogurt was tested. To test the pH, 8 readings were taken with a pH electrode for each yogurt. Calcium content was detected by atomic absorption spectrophotometer, phosphorus by the inductively coupled plasma method, and fluoride content by ion chromatography. The degrees of saturation of hydroxyapatite and fluorapatite were calculated by use of a computer program. Statistical analysis was performed using 2-tailed analysis of variance (P < .05) and a post hoc test (Tukey) to determine differences between groups. RESULTS: The pH of each fruit concentrate was significantly different, except for banana yogurt. Except for the phosphorus content of raspberry yogurt, the calcium and phosphorus content for each fruit concentrate were significantly different. Fluoride levels were the same for all yogurts tested, and the degrees of saturation of hydroxyapatite and fluorapatite was positive, indicating supersaturation. CONCLUSION: It could be stated that fruit yogurt has no erosive potential.

Foreign Direct Investment in Agriculture: Land Grab or Food Security Improvement?

“Large-scale acquisition of land by foreign investors” is the correct term for a process where the verdict of guilt is often quicker than the examination. But is there something really new about land grab except in its extent? In comparison with colonial and post-colonial plantation operations, should foreign investors today behave differently? We generally accept coffee and banana exports as pro-growth and pro-development, just as for cars, beef and insurance. What then is wrong with an investment contract allowing the holder to buy a farm and to export wheat to Saudi Arabia, or soybeans and maize as cattle feed to Korea, or to plant and process sugar cane and palm oil into ethanol for Europe and China? Assuming their land acquisition was legal, should foreigners respect more than investment contracts and national legislation? And why would they not take advantage of the legal protection offered by international investment law and treaties, not to speak of concessional finance, infrastructure and technical cooperation by a development bank, or the tax holidays offered by the host state? Remember Milton Friedman’s often-quoted quip: “The business of business is business!” And why would the governments signing those contracts not know whether and which foreign investment projects are best for their country, and how to attract them? This chapter tries to show that land grab, where it occurs, is not only yet another symptom of regulatory failures at the national level and a lack of corporate social responsibility by certain private actors. National governance is clearly the most important factor. Nonetheless, I submit that there is an international dimension involving investor home states in various capacities. The implication is that land grab is not solely a question whether a particular investment contract is legal or not. This chapter deals with legal issues which seem to have largely escaped the attention of both human rights lawyers and, especially, of investment lawyers. I address this fragmentation between different legal disciplines, rules, and policies, by asking two basic questions: (i) Do governments and parliaments in investor home countries have any responsibility in respect of the behaviour of their investors abroad? (ii) What should they and international regulators do, if anything?

Blue bananas: development of a task to investigate the representation of synaesthetic experiences

Research has mainly focussed on the perceptual nature of synaesthesia. However, synaesthetic experiences are also semantically represented. It was our aim to develop a task to investigate the semantic representation of the concurrent and its relation to the inducer in grapheme-colour synaesthesia. Non-synaesthetes were either tested with a lexical-decision (i.e., word / non-word) or a semantic-classification (i.e., edibility decision) task. Targets consisted of words which were strongly associated with a specific colour (e.g., banana - yellow) and words which were neutral and not associated with a specific colour (e.g., aunt). Target words were primed with colours: the prime target relationship was either intramodal (i.e., word - word) or crossmodal (colour patch - word). Each of the four task versions consisted of three conditions: congruent (same colour for prime and target), incongruent (different colour), and unrelated (neutral target). For both tasks (i.e., lexical and semantic) and both versions of the task (i.e., intramodal and crossmodal), we expected faster reaction times (RTs) in the congruent condition than in the neutral condition and slower RTs in the incongruent condition than the neutral condition. Stronger effects were expected in the intramodal condition due to the overlap in the prime target modality. The results suggest that the hypotheses were partly confirmed. We conclude that the tasks and hypotheses can be readily adopted to investigate the nature of the representation of the synaesthetic experiences.