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The safety and quality of food
Published in Geoffrey P. Webb, Nutrition, 2019
There were political repercussions as well as medical and economic ones. The MAFF was widely criticised for its role in this affair (and a subsequent outbreak of foot and mouth disease); it was dissolved in 2002 and replaced by The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). A non-ministerial government department, FSA, was formed to take over responsibility for ensuring food safety and food hygiene and for generally overseeing consumer interests with respect to food. There have even been suggestions that dissatisfaction with government handling of the BSE crisis was a factor in their defeat in the 1997 general election.
Diet and health promotion
Published in Théodore H. MacDonald, Rethinking Health Promotion, 2012
The task of health promotion is huge and, while primary health teams countrywide are involved in working towards ‘health of the nation’ targets, and initiatives such as ‘Heartbeat Wales’ have achieved dietary improvements, non-government organisations such as the Food Commission constantly challenge the status quo. Surely, what is needed is an independent food agency which would be responsible for food safety, but without being compromised by the food industry. As things stand now, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) represents the consumer but also the meat industry and farmers countrywide. The promotion of healthy environments is particularly complex, but we need not render it impossible. Inequalities within Britain as regards dietary health are not discussed vigorously enough and often ignore root causes such as poverty. Surely, it is at this level, that dietary health promotion should especially be focusing.
Radionuclides in Foodstuffs and Food Raw Material
Published in Michael Pöschl, Leo M. L. Nollet, Radionuclide Concentrations in Food and the Environment, 2006
Pascal Froidevaux, Tony Dell, Paul Tossell
The site operator’s initial measurements gave a dose rate of around 1.4 mSv/h, but it was not clear whether this was all from surface contamination of the birds or internal contamination as well. The MAFF investigated the level of internal contamination in the birds. Results showed that there was significant internal contamination of up to 110 kBq/kg. More than 50 kBq/kg 137Cs was found in one sample of pigeon breast meat, about 40 times the community food intervention level (CFIL) for 137Cs in meat, which is 1250 Bq/kg. The CFILs are maximum permitted levels of radionuclides in foodstuffs that would apply in the event of a nuclear accident or emergency, and therefore do not actually apply in this case, but are a good measure for comparison.
Mechanical strain mimicking breathing amplifies alterations in gene expression induced by SiO2 NPs in lung epithelial cells
Published in Nanotoxicology, 2019
Carmen Schmitz, Jennifer Welck, Isabella Tavernaro, Marianna Grinberg, Jörg Rahnenführer, Alexandra K. Kiemer, Christoph van Thriel, Jan G. Hengstler, Annette Kraegeloh
Among the genes upregulated by NPs plus cyclic stretch /cytokines (Table 4) as well as three genes related to inflammation (IL6, PTX3, ICAM1). CXCL8 was the only gene induced under stretch conditions in the absence of NPs. Further genes upregulated by NPs plus stretch are related to signaling, stress, or apoptosis (EFNA1, DUSP5, SOD2, PPP1R15A) or have been described as transcription factors or related to transcription (Table 4). Out of the latter group, MAFF was the only gene induced by NP treatment in the absence of stretch. Interestingly, all of the nine genes encoding for chemokines/cytokines as well as additional four genes have been described to be induced by treatment of A549 cells with TNF-α (Dos Santos et al. 2004) (Table 4). Further, four upregulated genes are related to NF-κB signaling (Table 4). The corresponding gene products are known to be involved in either the upregulation of the canonical NF-κB pathway (IRAK2) or inhibition of this pathway (TNFAIP3, BIRC3) as well to be involved in the alternative NF-κB pathway (NFKB2).
The importance of hypoxia in radiotherapy for the immune response, metastatic potential and FLASH-RT
Published in International Journal of Radiation Biology, 2022
Eui Jung Moon, Kristoffer Petersson, Monica M. Olcina
While ROS are also known to induce tumor invasion and metastasis after radiation (Kambach et al. 2014; Gu et al. 2015), regulation of redox pathways might also reduce the radiation-mediated metastatic features of cancer. NRF2 is a basic leucine zipper (bZIP) protein, which is well known for its regulation of antioxidant responses (Moon and Giaccia 2015). Although BACH1 was known as a negative regulator of redox pathways via competition with NRF2, a recent study provided significant insights indicating that NRF2 and BACH1 interact to promote tumor metastasis (Lignitto et al. 2019). Although extensive studies by Rosner and Lee have identified the important role of BACH1 in tumor metastasis, the function of BACH1 in radiation responses has not been reported (Sun et al. 2013; Lee et al. 2014, 2019). Studies suggest the importance of NRF2 in tumor biology and radiation resistance (McDonald et al. 2010; Jeong et al. 2017). Given that ROS might play a major role in promoting radiation-induced metastasis through upregulation of metastatic factors, it will be important to understand the impact of NRF2 or BACH1 pathways on tumor progression after radiotherapy. A recent study by Moon and colleagues determined that MAFF, an indispensable binding partner of NRF2 and BACH1, is more responsible for hypoxia regulation and tumor metastasis (Moon et al. 2021). Unpublished data by Moon also suggested that MAFF is highly induced by radiation, indicating its potential role in radiation and radiation-induced metastasis. Therefore, a better understanding of regulation of antioxidant responses could provide therapeutic targets to improve patient outcomes, including in the metastatic setting.
Encapsulation of S-nitrosoglutathione: a transcriptomic validation
Published in Drug Development and Industrial Pharmacy, 2019
Ramia Safar, Rémi Houlgatte, Alain Le Faou, Carole Ronzani, Wen Wu, Luc Ferrari, Hélène Dubois-Pot-Schneider, Bertrand H. Rihn, Olivier Joubert
As expected, the gene number displaying significant expression changes depends on the exposure conditions (Table 2). Following a 4-h exposure, 598 differentially regulated genes were found in 1.4 µM GSNO-exposed cells (GSNO1.4; full list of genes available in Supplementary Table S9). In contrast, after exposure to GNP50_4, there was only 47 differentially expressed genes (supporting information Supplementary Table S10). Musculoaponeurotic fibrosarcoma oncogene homolog F (MAFF) was the unique up-regulated gene common in both conditions (Figure 2(A)).