Suchergebnisse

ACCORDING TO AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ASSESSMENTS, THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE MAJOR SOURCE OF STATE-SPONSORED INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM. THE THE PERCEIVED THREAT OF IRAN AS A LEADING SUPPORTER OF TERRORISM IS SUBSTANTIALLY RAISED BY REPORTS THAT IRAN IS SEEKING NUCLEAR WEAPONS TECHNOLOGY. A NEW ISLAMIC THREAT IS, HOWEVER, ON THE RISE AS A RESULT OF THE ACTIVITIES OF AD HOC TERRORIST GROUPS BECAUSE THEY LACK A WELL-ESTABLISHED ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY, AND THEY TEND TO DECENTRALIZE AND COMPARTMENTALIZE THEIR ACTIVITIES. THEY ARE CAPABLE OF PRODUCING SOPHISTICATED CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS, AS WELL AS CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL AGENTS. THESE NEW GROUPS SEEK TO PUNISH THE UNITED STATES AND OTHER WESTERN NATIONS BY INFLICTING HEAVY CIVILIAN CASUALTIES. THESE GROUPS ARE WELL FUNDED, AND SOME HAVE DEVELOPED SOPHISTICATED INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT NETWORKS THAT PROVIDE THEM GREAT FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT AND INCREASE THEIR OPPORTUNITIES TO ATTACK THE INTERESTS OF THE US ON A GLOBAL BASIS.

We assembled the mitogenome of Apis mellifera siciliana, which was previously identified as African by the tRNA-leu-cox2 intergenic region. The mitogenome is 16,590 bp long. The gene content and organization are identical to other A. mellifera mitogenomes, containing 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, and 2 ribosomal RNA genes. Phylogenetic analysis showed a close mitochondrial relationship between A. m. siciliana and other African subspecies such as Apis mellifera sahariensis, Apis mellifera intermissa, and Apis mellifera ruttneri. ; This work was supported by MEDIBEES - Monitoring the Mediterranean Honey Bee Subspecies and their Resilience to Climate Change for the Improvement of Sustainable Agro-Ecosystems; BEEHAPPY ([POCI-01-0145- FEDER-029871]; FCT and COMPETE/QREN/EU). MEDIBEES is part of the PRIMA program supported by the European Union. Fundac¸~ao para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) provided financial support by national funds (FCT/MCTES) to CIMO [UIDB/00690/2020]. Dora Henriques is supported by the project BEEHAPPY ([POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029871]; FCT and COMPETE/QREN/EU). ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Salmonella is one of the major causes of food borne disease in the European Union (EU). Some of the human cases are related to pork products. An EU baseline survey to assess the Salmonella pork prevalence was performed. Mesenteric lymph nodes were cultured and Salmonella sp. isolates were serotyped. Data concerning the animal and the slaughterhouse was also collected. The aim of the present study was to search for potential risk factors to the presence of Salmonella sp. in pigs lymph nodes in Portugal and to search for differences in the risk profile between groups of serotypes. The data was analysed using a Bayesian approach to incorporate the hierarchical structure of the data (samples nested in slaughterhouses). Two models were analysed: a binomial (presence/absence of Salmonella sp.) and categorical model (absence of Salmonella sp., serotype Typhimurium or serotype 1,4,[5],12:i:-, other serotypes). A total number of 659 samples were tested, belonging to 36 slaughterhouses. Around 23.7% of the samples were positive for Salmonella sp. In the binomial model a significant association was found for region of the slaughterhouse - Lisbon and Tagus Valley Region with lower risk compared to the Centre Region (OR=0.36). In the categorical model a significant association for category Typhimurium or 1,4,[5],12:i:- was found for the variable hour when the sample was taken - afternoon with lower risk compared to morning (OR=0.20). The association found for the slaughterhouse region should be a matter of furthers studies to evaluate the hygiene practices in the slaughterhouses of that region.

Salmonella is the second most frequent cause of foodborne illness in the European Union (EU), so EU enforced legislation to achieve a reduction in Salmonella prevalence in the swine sector. To set the reduction target each country carried out a baseline survey to estimate Salmonella prevalence. The aim of our study was to identify risk factors for the presence of Salmonella in breeding pigs based on the data of the Baseline Study for Salmonella in Breeding Pigs in Portugal. In total, 1670 pen fecal samples from 167 herds were tested by culture and 170 samples tested positive. Along with the collection of the samples a survey was applied to collect information about the herd management and potential risk factors. Multilevel analysis was applied to the data using generalized linear mixed models and a logit link function. The outcome variable was the presence/absence of Salmonella in the pen fecal samples. The first level was assigned to the pen fecal samples and the second level to the herds. The results showed significant associations between Salmonella occurrence and the factors (p < 0.05): maternity pens versus mating pens (OR = 0.39, 95%CI: 0.24–0.63), feed from external or mixed source versus home source (OR = 2.81, 95%CI: 1.19–6.61), more than 10 animals per pen versus 10 animals per pen (OR = 2.02, 95%CI: 1.19–3.43), North Region versus Alentejo Region (OR = 3.86, 95%CI: 1.08–13.75), rodents control (OR = 0.23, 95%CI: 0.090–0.59), more than 90% of boars homebred or no boars versus more than 90% of boars from an external source (OR = 0.54, 95%CI: 0.3–0.97), semen from another herd versus semen from insemination centers (OR = 4.47, 95%CI: 1.38–14.43) and herds with a size of 170 or more sows (OR = 1.82, 95%CI: 1.04–3.19). This study offers very relevant information for both the Portuguese veterinary authorities and the pig farmers currently developing control programmes for Salmonella. This is the first study providing evidence for semen and boars source as risk factors for Salmonella in breeding pigs.

This work has received funding from the Programa Nacional Apícola 2020-2022 under the project "AUTENT+ Desenvolvimento de abordagens inovadoras com vista à valorização e exploração do potencial de mercado do mel Português". The authors are also grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support by national funds FCT/MCTES to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020). D. Henriques is supported by the project BeeHappy (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029871) funded by FEDER (Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional) through the program COMPETE 2020—POCI (Programa Operacional para a Competividade e Internacionalização), and by Portuguese funds through FCT and A.R. Lopes by the PhD scholarship funded by the FCT (SFRH/BD/143627/2019). ; Honey is a natural product widely consumed around the globe, not only for its taste and nutritional value, but also for its health benefits. Being a product of high dietary relevance and increasing demand, it has also become a target of economically motivated adulteration. According to the 2014 European Parliament report on the food crisis, fraud in the food chain and the control thereof, honey is among the 10 food products most prone of being adulterated [1]. Up until now, honey authenticity was mainly focused on the issues of sugars addition and botanical and geographical origin. However, recently an increased attention has been paid to the entomological origin of honey. To this aim, different approaches have been proposed to differentiate honey produced by different Apis mellifera subspecies, including those from distinct mitochondrial (mt) DNA lineages [2]. This work aimed to develop a novel real-time PCR method coupled with HRM analysis that allows for the simultaneous differentiation of honeybee from maternal lineages A, M and C, for further application in honey authentication. In this sense, data previously obtained from the mitogenomes of a total of 112 honeybees of different lineages were considered for the development of new DNA markers. Considering the aim of further application in honey, new primer sets were designed to amplify short fragments that included different single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) allowing for HRM application. Three primer sets were proposed, amsCOI-F/amsCOI-R targeting the Cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene, amsND1-F-amsND1-R targeting the NADH-ubiquinone oxidoreductase chain 1 (ND1) gene and amsCox3-F/amsCox3-R targeting the Cytochrome oxidase subunit III (Cox3) gene. Each primer set was first tested using qualitative PCR using DNA extracted from honeybees of A, M and C mtDNA lineages. After optimizing the real-time PCR conditions, each primer set was tested using a series of mtDNA extracted from honeybees. While amsCOI-F/amsCOI-R allowed only for the separation of the honeybees in two clusters, with lineage C and M clustering together, both the amsCox3-F/amsCox3-R and amsND1-F/amsND1-R set of primers allowed to differentiate the three lineages in separate clusters, with high level of confidence. As future work, the methodology will be assayed in commercial honey samples. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion