Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control

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Authors: M. Kumar , S.S Athari *

Allergic asthma as a heterogeneous disease, is a main global problem in health. Newly, 300 million people worldwide have asthma. In recent years, asthma has become an increasingly prevalent disease worldwide, especially for children. Allergic asthma is characterized by symptoms of wheezing, coughing, shortness of breath, airway inflammation. Asthma has a strong genetic background but exposing to allergens and other nonspecific environmental factors could activate this susceptibility. The involved allergen specific immune response induces T helper 2 lymphocytes that active eosinophils, mast cells, basophils, airway epithelial cells, and immunoglobulin-secreting B cells that lead to allergic and inflammation responses (Bel, 2013; Corren et al., 2011). Today, several drugs have been developed to control asthma. Traditional medicines, especially herbal ones have been used to control and manage it for a long time. Recently, tends to traditional medicine has been increased due to their low side effects and cost (Athari, 2013; Bel, 2013). According to the unofficial reports, in some countries such as Iran, local people believe that eating hedgehog meat can completely cure asthma sufferers. Eating hedgehog's meat is not only ineffective but it can be harmful in some cases of severe asthma since hedgehog proteins can cause allergic reactions in atopic patients and exacerbate asthma attacks. It could be kind of food allergies that lead to asthma. The infections and parasites of the animal meat can also be risk factors for it. On the other hand, there is no scientific evidence to prove that eating hedgehog's meat is useful for the treatment of asthma, so far. To date, no cure for asthma has been identified, rather only controlling drugs and techniques have been proposed. The slaughter of the animals due to something that does not benefit in terms of work, in ethical and moral glance, is inhuman. It will damage wildlife and the environment. Therefore, this is a dangerous approach in public health and a serious threat to health that is important warning for consumers and health care providers till by informing these people do this to avoid.

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Authors: K.W. Witwer *

In a recent editorial article published by Salehi (2014) in Journal of Food Quality and Hazards Control (1: 93), the author cited two studies of plant microRNAs (miRNAs) as supporting "adverse health consequences" of genetically modified foods (Zhang et al., 2012a; Zhang et al., 2012b). The first of these studies reported that a conserved, ubiqui-tous, and high-abundance plant microRNA could regulate expression of the mammalian gene LDLRAP1 (Zhang et al., 2012a). On the other hand, analysis of public RNA expres-sion datasets (Zhang et al., 2012b) found little evidence for uptake of plant dietary miRNAs, or “xenomiRs” (Witwer, 2012) by ingesting animals. Strikingly, and of some poten-tial concern, it was suggested that the foods examined in these two studies (plants without specific modifications) are safe, while a food category not examined in the studies (ge-netically modified plants) represents a health risk. It might be useful to examine the two cited studies more closely, as well as to consider the more recent literature on the topic of xenomiRs. The first issue to resolve is that Zhang et al. (2012b) have not claimed that "double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) generat-ed in genetically modified plants...can create biosafety risks" indicated by mentioned article. Instead, they reported that MIR168a, a ubiquitous and abundant mature endogenous plant miRNA (not dsRNA), can affect the expression of a mammalian gene in the liver (Zhang et al., 2012b). This result was questioned in light of new evidence from a sub-sequent study (Dickinson et al., 2013) that included im-portant additional experimental controls. Had the initial finding been validated, it would still have had no specific relevance to genetically modified food as opposed to plants in general. If adverse consequences could be inferred from the original study, the logical conclusion would be "to avoid the hazards of..." eating any and all plants, not just genet-ically modified foods. Genetic modification, in this scenario, would have provided useful tools to reduce the expression of the putatively harmful MIR168a and thus allow safer con-sumption of plant material. The point is moot, however, since no xenomiR-based harm has been established for mod-ified or unmodified plants. Secondly, a subsequent independent publication (Zhang et al., 2012b) did not state that dietary xenomiRs "enter the serum and plasma of humans and animals." Quite the oppo-site: examining around 80 public datasets, the authors found that meager, highly variable evidence of xenomiR detection was most consistent with contamination rather than actual uptake. Sources of environmental plant RNA abound, espe-cially in labs that study plant sequences. Contamination is easily detected with sensitive high-throughput techniques (Tosar et al., 2014) and gives a possible explanation for previous, apparently positive results. The history of safe plant consumption demonstrates that hypothetical xenomiR-based regulatory mechanisms are not a health risk. Indeed, essential human genes contain many binding sites for plant RNA products, without evidence of adverse consequences (Jensen et al., 2013). Since interac-tions of these genes with foreign xenomiRs or other RNA interference effectors would have resulted in negative selec-tion, we must assume that the interactions do not occur. One reason why xenomiRs do not affect genes in the ingesting animal—and contrary to the statement that "food-derived small RNAs and dsRNAs can enter the circulation"—is that they are not normally present in circulation and cannot reach copy numbers in mammalian cells that would be consistent with regulatory influence. An increasing number of investi-gators have found no significant uptake of plant xenomiRs into mammalian blood (Baier et al., 2014; Dickinson et al., 2013; Snow et al., 2013; Witwer et al., 2013), even when the most abundant miRNAs in the food sources are examined. None has reported uptake of dsRNA. The many barriers to uptake and function of dietary RNA have been reviewed elsewhere (Petrick et al., 2013; Witwer and Hirschi, 2014). Considering the mounting evidence against uptake and func-tion of even high-abundance, ubiquitous plant xenomiRs, there is currently no scientific reason to discourage ingestion of genetically modified plants on the basis of small RNA considerations.

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Authors: M. Moradi, A. Hassani, A. Ehsani, M. Hashemi *, M. Raeisi , S.S. Naghibi

Background: In current study, chemical composition and antibacterial activity of leaves and flowers essential oils of Origanum vulgare ssp. gracile against four food-borne pathogens including Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella thyphimurium and Staphylococcus aureus were examined. Methods: The different organs (leaves and flowers) of O. vulgare ssp. gracile were harvested at flowering stage from wild grown plants in Kurdistan province, Iran. Phytochemical properties of the essential oils were identified by GC and GC/MS analysis. Also, antibacterial effects of O. vulgare ssp. gracile against each bacterial strain were detected by calculating the minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericidal concentration using micro-dilution method. Data was analyzed by chi square and fisher exact tests using SPSS 16.0. Results: Main components of leaf and flower oils were carvacrol (46.5% and 60.6%), γ-terpinene (13.91% and 16.64%) and ρ-cymene (13.54% and 7.21%). E. coli and S. aureus had similar sensitivity to essential oils, but S. typhimurium showed more sensitivity. Output of composition analysis showed that the O. vulgare ssp. gracile flowers essential oil has more effect than those from leaves. Conclusion: This work showed substantial inhibitory effect of O. vulgare ssp. gracile essential oils on food-borne pathogens. The efficiency of O. vulgare ssp. gracile flowers oils in reduction of the bacterial activity was higher than the leaves essential oils. According to the results of this research, this essential oil can be utilized as a natural preservative in food products.

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Authors: B. Hajimohammadi, G. Eslami, A. Zohourtabar, A. Dehghani, A. Oryan, H. Pourmirzaei Tafti , F. Radouani

Background: Sarcocystosis is one of the most widespread parasitic diseases in cattle caused by three main species of Sarcocystis genus. The major aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of Sarcocystis spp. in meat produced in Yazd, central Iran with special reference to species identification, using Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). Methods: During March 2012 to May 2013, samples were randomly collected from esophagus, heart, diaphragm, intercostal muscle and tongue of 120 slaughtered cattle at Yazd, central Iran. After DNA extraction, PCR-RFLP was used for detection and identification of Sarcocystis spp. The statistical analysis was performed by Chi-Square test, using SPSS software (v. 16.0). Results: The molecular analysis showed that Sarcocystis spp. was found in 112 of 120 (93.3%) slaughtered cattle. The prevalence of S. cruzi, S. hirsuta and S. hominis were 90%, 38.3% and 57.5% respectively. Among the 112 infected cattle, single and multiple (infected by more than one species) infection were seen in 45 and 67 cattle, respectively. No significant association was detected between sex, age, sample type and the prevalence of Sarcocystis spp. (p>0.05). Conclusion: Considering its public health importance, high prevalence of S. hominis should be highlighted in this region. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first of its kind to be conducted in Iran. More detailed studies are needed to describe the distribution pattern and species identification of Sarcocycstis spp. in other regions of Iran.