Industrial wastes may produce leachates that can contaminate the aquatic ecosystem. Toxicity testing in acute and chronic levels is essential to assess environmental risks from the soluble fractions of these wastes, since only chemical analysis may not be adequate to classify the hazard of an industrial waste. In this study, ten samples of solid wastes from textile, metal-mechanic, and pulp and...

The use of in vitro (fish cell lines) is a cost-effective, very rapid, and informative tool for toxicological assessments. Using the neutral red (NR) assay, we compared acute toxicity (20hEC50) twenty-six chemical substances on rainbow trout gonad line (RTG-2) with their vivo to Barbados Millions Poecilia reticulata (48hLC50, OECD 203) crustacean Daphnia magna (48hEC50, 202). 20hEC50 values obt...

D. Cosco, S. Bulotta, D. Paolino and M. Fresta 1 Department of Health Sciences, University “Magna Græcia”of Catanzaro, Campus Universitario “S. Venuta” Building of BioSciences, Viale S. Venuta, I-88100 Germaneto Catanzaro, Italy 2 IRC FSHInterregional Research Center for Food Safety & Health, University “Magna Græcia”of Catanzaro, Campus Universitario “S. Venuta” Building of BioSciences, Viale ...

The bioaccumulation of estrone by Daphnia magna was determined. Direct uptake via the aqueous medium occurred within the first 16 h. A bioconcentration factor of 228 was established over all temporal periods. Ingestion via Chlorella vulgaris gave a partitioning factor of 24, which may approximate to a biomagnification factor assuming steady state conditions. These preliminary results indicate t...

The success of large-scale screening for Chlamydia trachomatis depends on the availability of noninvasive samples, low costs, and high-quality testing. To evaluate C. trachomatis testing with pregnant women, first-void urine specimens from 750 consecutive asymptomatic pregnant women from the Rotterdam area (The Netherlands) were collected. Initially, we investigated the performance of three dif...

To ensure final product safety, clearance of host cell DNA from the drug substance is essential in the manufacturing process for therapeutic proteins and monoclonal antibody (MAB) drugs. We have developed and validated an automated process for monitoring clearance of Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) DNA impurities during the capture and polishing steps of downstream processing. This method, which el...

Migratory movements and alteration of host communities through livestock production are examples of ecological processes that may have consequences on wildlife pathogens. We studied the effect of co-grazing of cattle and wild elk, and of elk migratory behaviour on the occurrence of the giant liver fluke, Fascioloides magna, in elk. Migratory elk and elk herds with a higher proportion of migrato...

1. A series of experiments examined growth of Daphnia magna on three algal diets (Rhodomonas minuta, Scenedesmus acutus and Synechococcus sp.) at varying physiological states [nitrogen and phosphorus (P) limitations] to test whether variation in algal fatty acid and/or elemental composition can predict Daphnia growth. 2. These algae differed widely in their essential fatty acid (EFA) compositio...

Automated nucleic acid extraction is an attractive alternative to labor-intensive manual methods. We compared two automated methods, the BioRobot M48 instrument (Qiagen, Inc.) and MagNA Pure (Roche Applied Sciences) methods, to two manual methods, the QIAamp Viral RNA Mini kit (Qiagen) and TRIzol (Invitrogen), for the extraction of enterovirus RNA. Analytical sensitivity was assessed by dilutio...

Insect resistance is the second most common trait globally in cultivated genetically modified (GM) plants. Resistance is usually obtained by introducing into the plant's genome genes from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) coding for insecticidal proteins (Cry proteins or toxins) that target insect pests. The aim of this study was to examine the hypothesis that a chronic, high-dose dieta...