No description available.

Contaminated tomatoes have become a commonly implicated vehicle of Salmonella outbreaks. Exposure of tomatoes to pathogen could occur in the field. Blossom inoculation with Salmonella can result in contaminated fruit but natural routes of blossom contamination are not well known. Salmonellae have been known to survive in agricultural soil. Since dispersal of soil particulate by wind is a common phenomenon, the potential of airborne soil particulate as a vehicle of Salmonella contamination in tomato blossoms was examined. It was determined that Salmonella enterica serotype Anatum, Baildon, Braenderup, Montevideo, Newport, Javiana had similar survival patterns in both soil and water. At the end of 40 days, populations of Salmonella in soil dropped by 2.59 log CFU/g and 5.11 log CFU/g when enumerated on Tryptic Soy Agar Yeast Extract (TSAYE) and xylose lysine Tergitol 4 (XLT4) agar respectively. Salmonella populations in water reduced by 2.55 log CFU/ml (TSAYE, enumeration) and 2.94 log CFU/ml (XLT4, enumeration). Blossom to fruit formation takes 20-30 days in tomatoes hence the introduction or presence of the pathogen in agricultural soil and water could increase risk of blossom contamination. Also, it was determined that all Salmonella serotypes tested were capable of biofilm production on glass coverslips and quartz particles. Biofilm based attachment of Salmonella to sand might aid in its dispersal. To visualize transfer of pathogen from soil particulate to blossom in real-time, bioluminescent S. Baildon, S. Braenderup, S. Newport, S. Javiana and S. Anatum were created.Heat shock procedure was developed to improve electrotransformation efficiency in Salmonella. Transformed strains were compared for bioluminescence production and plasmid stability. S. Newport had the best bioluminescence properties but no difference was observed between strains for plasmid stability. Imaging of soil particulate - S. Newport mixture inoculated blossoms, indicated that the event led to pathogen transfer to blossom. It was also determined that S. Newport â soil particulate contaminated blossoms developed into fruits that were positive for S. Newport. S. Newport presence in blossom, fruit surface and internal tissue indicates that contaminated soil particulate could serve as a vehicle of tomato contamination. / Ph. D.

Fifty-eight meat and poultry plants in Virginia were assessed during spring and summer of 2000. These assessments were all conducted in the presence of state inspection and were designed to be non-regulatory. The audit team included N.G. Marriott, M.A. Tolbert and B.P. Quinn. The audits consisted of a tour of the facility and a review of SSOPs and all HACCP related documentation. To assist in these audits, a HACCP check sheet was developed and utilized to indicate suggestions or deficiencies. Most of the plants had an understanding of how to implement HACCP properly. The majority of the suggestions that were noted were not so much about the HACCP concept, but more with regards to the legality of a HACCP document. The most noted deficiency was improper cross-outs. If there is a correction, one line should be drawn through the error and then must be initialed. With respect to the HACCP plan, most deficiencies were related to the hazards and the critical control points. During these audits, two microbial determination methods (Standard Plate Count and Bioluminescence) were used to evaluate processing equipment. Typically, three pieces of equipment were tested at each plant. When the data were collected, the two microbial determination methods were correlated. The "corr" function in SAS resulted in a correlation coefficient of .4478, which is low and indicates a poor correlation. A pass/fail method similar to one done by Illsley et. al. resulted in a 48.9% agreement between the methods in this research. / Master of Science

No description available.

High quality three-dimensional bioluminescence tomographic (BLT) images, if available, would constitute a major advance and provide much more useful information than the two-dimensional bioluminescence images that are frequently used today. To-date, high quality BLT images have not been available, largely because of the poor quality of the data being input into the reconstruction process. Many significant confounds are not routinely corrected for and the noise in this data is unnecessarily large and poorly distributed. Moreover, many of the design choices affecting image quality are not well considered, including choices regarding the number and type of filters used when making multispectral measurements and choices regarding the frequency and uniformity of the sampling of both the range and domain of the BLT inverse problem. Finally, progress in BLT image quality is difficult to gauge owing to a lack of realistic gold-standard references that engage the full complexity and uncertainty within a small animal BLT imaging experiment. Within this dissertation, I address all of these issues. I develop a Cerenkov-based gold-standard wherein a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) image can be used to gauge improvements in the accuracy of BLT reconstruction algorithms. In the process of creating this reference, I discover and describe corrections for several confounds that if left uncorrected would introduce artifacts into the BLT images. This includes corrections for the angle of the animal’s skin surface relative to the camera, for the height of each point on the skin surface relative to the focal plane, and for the variation in bioluminescence intensity as a function of luciferin concentration over time. Once applied, I go on to derive equations and algorithms that when employed are able to minimize the noise in the final images under the constraints of a multispectral BLT data acquisition. These equations and algorithms allow for an optimal choice of filters to be made and for the acquisition time to be optimally distributed among those filtered measurements. These optimizations make use of Barrett’s and Moore-Penrose pseudoinverse matrices which also come into play in a paradigm I describe that can be used to guide choices regarding sampling of the domain and range.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:30:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-02-06Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:21:24Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 arnoldi_fgc_dr_rcla.pdf: 2897071 bytes, checksum: fa1429945e5319eef834777ced11123a (MD5) / A partir dos coleópteros luminescentes, mais de 20 luciferases já foram clonadas e seqüenciadas. Dessas, a maioria é de lampirídeos das regiões Neártica e Paleártica, quatro de elaterídeos jamaicanos e uma de um fengodídeo asiático. Apenas outras cinco são oriundas da América do Sul, o continente mais rico em espécies de coleópteros luminescentes e o provável berço evolutivo de Lampyridae, a família com maior número de coleópteros luminescentes. Espécies desta região apresentam a maior variedade de cores de bioluminescência. No presente trabalho clonamos e seqüenciamos luciferases dos gêneros Brasilocerus sp., Phrixothrix sp. e Taximastinocerus sp., da família Phengodidae. Com base na análise filogenética dessas luciferases e outras já publicadas, concluímos que as luciferases das lanternas laterais e cefálicas são codificadas por genes parálogos, e propusemos um modelo para a evolução das cores da bioluminescência nessa família. Também determinamos o genoma mitocondrial de Pyrophorus divergens, membro da família Elateridae. A partir desse genoma e outros já publicados, analisamos a evolução da bioluminescência na superfamília Elateroidea sensu Lawrence e Newton (1995) e concluímos que essa pode ter surgido três vezes independentemente nesse grupo. / From luminescent Coleopteran's, more than 20 luciferases have already been cloned and sequenced. Among them, most part is from lampyrids of Neartic and Paleartic regions, four are from Jamaican elaterids and one is from Asiatic phengodids. Just five are from South American species, the richest continent in luminescent Coleopteran's and, probably, the evolutionary cradle of Lampyridae. Species from this region display the greatest range of bioluminescence colors. At the present work, we cloned and sequenced luciferases from the genera Brasilocerus sp., Phrixothrix sp. and Taximastinocerus sp., from Phengodidae family. Based on the phylogenetic analysis of these genes and other already published, we concluded that head and lateral lantern luciferases are coded by paralogous genes, and we also proposed a model for bioluminescence color evolution in this family. We also sequenced the mitochondrial genome of Pyrophorus divergens, an Elateridae member. Based on this genome and other already published, we analysed the evolutionary history of bioluminescence in Elateroidea superfamily sensu Lawrence e Newton (1995) and concluded that it could have appeared three times independently in this group.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:30:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-03-16Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:01:02Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 silvaneto_aj_dr_rcla.pdf: 1006827 bytes, checksum: 223c29e7447f0dc08588487b12b8e5f3 (MD5) / Neste trabalho foi feita a expressão e purificação das luciferases recombinantes do elaterídeo Pyrearinus termitilluminans e dos fengodídeos Phrixotrix hirtus e Phrixotrix viviani, e a determinação e comparação de suas propriedades físico-químicas. Estimamos os Kms para luciferina e ATP, as constantes catalíticas, pH ótimo e outros dados cinéticos nas três luciferases. Através do uso de sondas fluorescentes, fizemos uma inspeção da polaridade dos sítios de ligação da luciferina. Além disso, foi feita a modelagem molecular para complementar os estudos experimentais e identificar os resíduos do sítio-ativo que afetam a polaridade e os espectros de bioluminescência nestas luciferases. Os dados sugerem que a luciferase de Pyrearinus termitilluminans tem o sítio ativo mais hidrofóbico entre as luciferases estudadas e a luciferase de Phrixotrix hirtus o mais polar. Estes dados suportam a importância da polaridade e polarizabilidade orientada na determinação dos espectros de bioluminescência. Além disto, os resultados de termoestabilidade e cinética de luminescência da luciferase de Pyrearinus termitilluminans sugerem que esta enzima seja particularmente apropriada para aplicações de bioimageamento. / In this work, purification and comparative physical-chemical characterization of the recombinant luciferases from the elaterid Pyrearinus termitilluminans and from the phengodids Phrixotrix hirtus and Phrixotrix viviani was performed. The Kms for luciferin and ATP, the Kcat, optimum pH and other kinetics data were estimated in the three luciferases. Through fluorescent probes, we assessed the active-site polarity. Furthermore, molecular modeling was performed in order to support the experimental studies and suggest putative active site residues that could be responsible for changes of polarity. These data suggest that the luciferin binding site is more hydrophobic for Pyrearinus luciferase than in the other luciferases studied and support the polarity hypothesis as a mechanism for modulation of bioluminescence colors.

Orientador: Vadim Viviani / Banca: Márcia Regina Brochetto Braga / Banca: Jonas Contiero / Banca: Dulce Helena Ferreira de Souza / Banca: Leonardo Fernandes Fraceto / Resumo: Neste trabalho foi feita a expressão e purificação das luciferases recombinantes do elaterídeo Pyrearinus termitilluminans e dos fengodídeos Phrixotrix hirtus e Phrixotrix viviani, e a determinação e comparação de suas propriedades físico-químicas. Estimamos os Kms para luciferina e ATP, as constantes catalíticas, pH ótimo e outros dados cinéticos nas três luciferases. Através do uso de sondas fluorescentes, fizemos uma inspeção da polaridade dos sítios de ligação da luciferina. Além disso, foi feita a modelagem molecular para complementar os estudos experimentais e identificar os resíduos do sítio-ativo que afetam a polaridade e os espectros de bioluminescência nestas luciferases. Os dados sugerem que a luciferase de Pyrearinus termitilluminans tem o sítio ativo mais hidrofóbico entre as luciferases estudadas e a luciferase de Phrixotrix hirtus o mais polar. Estes dados suportam a importância da polaridade e polarizabilidade orientada na determinação dos espectros de bioluminescência. Além disto, os resultados de termoestabilidade e cinética de luminescência da luciferase de Pyrearinus termitilluminans sugerem que esta enzima seja particularmente apropriada para aplicações de bioimageamento. / Abstract: In this work, purification and comparative physical-chemical characterization of the recombinant luciferases from the elaterid Pyrearinus termitilluminans and from the phengodids Phrixotrix hirtus and Phrixotrix viviani was performed. The Kms for luciferin and ATP, the Kcat, optimum pH and other kinetics data were estimated in the three luciferases. Through fluorescent probes, we assessed the active-site polarity. Furthermore, molecular modeling was performed in order to support the experimental studies and suggest putative active site residues that could be responsible for changes of polarity. These data suggest that the luciferin binding site is more hydrophobic for Pyrearinus luciferase than in the other luciferases studied and support the polarity hypothesis as a mechanism for modulation of bioluminescence colors. / Doutor

Explore fun nonfiction texts and resources for teaching bioluminescence and how animals use the light they produce to find prey, communicate, and defend themselves.

Reproduction de : Thèse de doctorat : Physique : Le Mans : 2005. / Titre provenant de l'écran-titre. Bibliogr. p. 133-135.