Heavy metal contamination and antibiotic residues in poultry feed and meat in Bangladesh

Presence of harmful contaminants and residues in poultry feed and meat have serious public health consequence. This study was carried out to identify and quantify antibiotic residues, heavy metals and toxins in poultry feed and meat in the two selected poultry production belts of Bangladesh. A total of 94 broiler feed samples and 60 broiler meat samples were collected and tested by Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC), High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) for identification and quantification of the parameters. Antibiotic residues were detected in 18.89% of the feed samples, whereas, there were no toxin (Aflatoxin) positive samples. Among the antibiotic positive samples, Oxytetracycline (OTC) was found predominant and detected in 12.22% cases. The mean concentrations of Cadmium (Cd), Lead (Pb), Chromium (Cr) were found as 0.04 mg/kg, 1.28 mg/kg and 2.55 mg/kg respectively in feed samples. In the case of meat samples, the mean concentration of OTC, Ciprofloxacin (CIP), and Tetracycline (TCL) residues were found 8.67 ppb, 7.18 ppb and 0.81 ppb accordingly. The highest mean concentration of Oxytetracycline (OTC) (10.15 ppb) was found in samples collected from local poultry sellers, whereas, the highest mean concentration of Tetracycline (TCL) (1.35 ppb) and Ciprofloxacin (CIP) (10.62 ppb) were observed in the samples obtained from local farm. The highest percentage of TCL and CIP (64% and 48% respectively) were found in samples collected from local farm. Chlortetracycline (CTC) was found predominant (70%) in samples collected from Contract farms. On the other hand, out of 60 meat samples, Cd and Cr were detected in only one meat sample with concentration of 56.41 mg/kg and 14.44 mg/kg respectively. Lead was not detected in any of the meat samples. Asian Australas. J. Food Saf. Secur. 2021, 5 (2), 71-78

Physicochemical Property and Some Vitamin Contents of Telfaria occidentalis Seeds Oil

Fluted pumpkin, a member of the Cucurbitaceae family, is a versatile fruit and is used for various food processing application in Nigeria. As a result of its versatility, this study was conducted to ascertain the physiochemical characteristics and some vitamins content of its seeds oil. The pumpkin pods were gotten from a local farm in Benin metropolis, Edo state, Nigeria. The extraction of oil was conducted by the use of Seed-2-oil ® hot press machine. Various other standard methods were employed in the study. The physicochemical characteristics showed that the light yellow oil had a refractive index of 1.4710C ± 0.001 and melting point of 19.670C ± 1.80 while the chemical properties revealed acid value (0.64 mg KOH/ g of oil ± 0.05), peroxide value (0.99 Meq of 𝑂2/Kq of Oil ± 0.01), saponification value (189.73 mg KOH/g of oil ± 5.20) and p-anisidine (0.09 ± 0.01) respectively. The findings for the vitamins revealed vitamin A (781IU ± 1.35), D (1361IU ± 0.14) and K3 (8.145IU ± 0.36) respectively. The findings from this study revealed that pumpkin seed oil can be a good nutritive enrichment of foods and food products and a possible utilization in pharmaceuticals.

Physicochemical Property and Some Vitamin Contents of Telfaria occidentalis Seeds Oil

Fluted pumpkin, a member of the Cucurbitaceae family, is a versatile fruit and is used for various food processing application in Nigeria. As a result of its versatility, this study was conducted to ascertain the physiochemical characteristics and some vitamins content of its seeds oil. The pumpkin pods were gotten from a local farm in Benin metropolis, Edo state, Nigeria. The extraction of oil was conducted by the use of Seed-2-oil ® hot press machine. Various other standard methods were employed in the study. The physicochemical characteristics showed that the light yellow oil had a refractive index of 1.4710C ± 0.001 and melting point of 19.670C ± 1.80 while the chemical properties revealed acid value (0.64 mg KOH/ g of oil ± 0.05), peroxide value (0.99 Meq of 𝑂2/Kq of Oil ± 0.01), saponification value (189.73 mg KOH/g of oil ± 5.20) and p-anisidine (0.09 ± 0.01) respectively. The findings for the vitamins revealed vitamin A (781IU ± 1.35), D (1361IU ± 0.14) and K3 (8.145IU ± 0.36) respectively. The findings from this study revealed that pumpkin seed oil can be a good nutritive enrichment of foods and food products and a possible utilization in pharmaceuticals.

Microbiome Associated with Slovak Traditional Ewe’s Milk Lump Cheese

Worldwide consumers increasingly demand traditional/local products, to which those made from ewe’s milk belong. In Slovakia, dairy products made from ewe’s milk have a long tradition. A total of seventeen farmhouse fresh ewe’s milk lump cheeses from various local farm producers in central Slovakia were sampled at farms and then analyzed. Based on the sequencing data analysis, the phylum Firmicutes dominated (60.92%) in ewe’s lump cheeses, followed with the phylum Proteobacteria (38.23%), Actinobacteria (0.38%) and Bacteroidetes (0.35%). The phylum Firmicutes was represented by six genera, among which the highest amount possessed the genus Streptococcus (41.13%) followed with the genus Lactococcus (8.54%), Fructobacillus (3.91%), Enterococcus (3.18%), Staphylococcus (1.80%) and the genus Brochotrix (0.08%). The phylum Proteobacteria in ewe’s lump cheeses involved eight Gram-negative genera: Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, Enterobacter, Ewingella, Escherichia-Shigella, Pantoea and Moraxella. The phylum Bacteroidetes involved three genera: Bacteroides, Sphingobacterium and Chrysobacterium. Results presented are original; the microbiome of Slovak ewe’s milk lump cheese has been not analyzed at those taxonomic levels up to now.

An Overview of the Use of Genotyping Techniques for Assessing Genetic Diversity in Local Farm Animal Breeds

Globally, many local farm animal breeds are threatened with extinction. However, these breeds contribute to the high amount of genetic diversity required to combat unforeseen future challenges of livestock production systems. To assess genetic diversity, various genotyping techniques have been developed. Based on the respective genomic information, different parameters, e.g., heterozygosity, allele frequencies and inbreeding coefficient, can be measured in order to reveal genetic diversity between and within breeds. The aim of the present work was to shed light on the use of genotyping techniques in the field of local farm animal breeds. Therefore, a total of 133 studies across the world that examined genetic diversity in local cattle, sheep, goat, chicken and pig breeds were reviewed. The results show that diversity of cattle was most often investigated with microsatellite use as the main technique. Furthermore, a large variety of diversity parameters that were calculated with different programs were identified. For 15% of the included studies, the used genotypes are publicly available, and, in 6%, phenotypes were recorded. In conclusion, the present results provide a comprehensive overview of the application of genotyping techniques in the field of local breeds. This can provide helpful insights to advance the conservation of breeds.

Effect of Supplementation Selenium and Vitamin E on Blood and Stress Parameters of Awassi Lambs

The study was established in local farm sheep in Muwafaqia / Wasit - Iraq, from 1/10/2018 until 15/1/2019, to evaluate the effect of adding selenium with or without Vitamin E on some of the physiological characteristics of Awassi male lambs. Sixteen lambs were selected after weaning with an average weight of (24.30) kg and aged (3-4) months. All lambs fed 2% of body weight with a concentrated diet and randomly divided into (4) groups. Control group (no additives), Selenium group (0.4 mg selenium), Vitamin group (100 mg vitamin E) and combination of selenium + vitamin E group (0.4 mg selenium + 100 mg vitamin E) per kg dietary dry matter for 90 days. At the end of the experiment, blood parameters (white blood cell (WBC), red blood cell (RBC), packed cell volume (PCV), hemoglobin (HB), mean concentration hemoglobin (MCH), and mean concentration hemoglobin count (MCHC) and stress parameters were measured. The result showed selenium + vitamin E and selenium treatments significantly increased (p <0.05) in PCV as compared with vitamin treatment and the control group. While treatment of vitamin significantly increased (p <0.05) in hemoglobin concentration compared to treatment of combination selenium + vitamin E. Stress parameters such as respiratory rate and heartbeat decreased significantly (p <0.05) in treatment of combination selenium + vitamin E compared to other treatments. There were no significant differences between the study treatments in the WBC count

Machine Learning Strategy for Soil Nutrients Prediction Using Spectroscopic Method

The research presented in this paper is based on the hypothesis that the machine learning approach improves the accuracy of soil properties prediction. The correlations obtained in this research are important for understanding the overall strategy for soil properties prediction using optical spectroscopy sensors. Several research results have been stated and investigated. A comparison is made between six commonly used techniques: Random Forest, Decision Tree, Naïve Bayes, Support Vector Machine, Least-Square Support Vector Machine and Artificial Neural Network, showing that the best prediction accuracy cannot always be achieved by the most common and complicated method. The influence of the chosen category for nutrient characterization was investigated, indicating better prediction when a multi-component strategy was used. In contrast, the prediction of single-component soil properties was less accurate. In addition, the influence of category levels was not as significant as expected when choosing between 3-level, 5-level or 13-level nutrient characterization for some nutrients, which can be used for a more precise nutrient characterization strategy. A comparative analysis was performed between soil from a local farm with similar texture and soils collected from different locations in Slovenia, which gave a better prediction for a local farm. Finally, the influence of principal component analysis was validated using 5, 10, 20 and 50 first principal components, indicating the better performance of machine learning when using the 50 principal components.

Comparative Analysis of Trace Elements Found in Commonly Used Vegetables Irrigated By Fresh And Waste Water in Karachi, Pakistan

Use of municipal waste water (both treated and untreated) has now become a common practice in urban and peri-urban areas. Mostly vegetables in urban cities like Karachi are being irrigated by sewerage water. In this study a comparison of sewage and fresh water-irrigated vegetables has been made with respect to trace metals. Among commonly used vegetables, green onion, cabbage, pumpkin, eggplant, bird’s eye chili and okra were selected. Two sets of these vegetables were collected, one from local farm where irrigation was done with well water and other set of samples was collected from Malir, Karachi where irrigation was done with waste water. Samples were analyzed for heavy metals i.e. K, Na, Pb, Zn, Cu, Cd, Fe, and As by Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy. It showed that both sets of samples were found to contain metal concentrations beyond the limits set by WHO/EU. Apart from tomato, the concentration of only Cd was near the standard value for both sets. Similar results were obtained for K except for pumpkin in which the concentration for waste water irrigated samples was fairly high. Amount of Cu and Fe were moderately higher than the standard in both samples. Arsenic in all the samples was considerably high while maximum concentration was obtained for Pd against the limits. These findings suggest waste water irrigated vegetables pose high risk to human health. The concentrations of As and Pb were high in fresh water samples possibly, the well water may contain metals, therefore it is important to know the source.

ISOLATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF BACTERIA ASSOCIATED WITH DECOMPOSING PIG (Sus scrofa) CARCASS

The emerging field of forensic biology has attempted to solve certain problems encountered when estimating post-mortem interval (PMI) by using predictable changes in the microbial and arthropod community structure. Pig (Sus scrofa) carcasses are widely used as animal models in clinical human studies. The objective of this study was to identify bacteria from the skin surface of pig carcass for possible use in forensic investigation. Three pigs (a suitable human substitute) were collected from a local farm and killed by suffocation and further place in a bush land for decomposition. 24hours later skin samples were collected and transported to the laboratory for the isolation of bacteria using standard pour plate techniques and identified using Bergey’s manual of systemic bacteriology. The experiment was conducted in February 2019 during the dry season of the year with an average temperature of 23.50c and relative humidity of 60.8% A total of fourteen (14) isolates were gotten from the pig carcass samples out of which four (4) were Gram-positive bacteria and the remaining ten (10) were Gram-negative. Staphylococcus spp. (28.6%) was the most abundant while Salmonella sp., Serratia sp., Klebsiella sp., Citrobacter sp. and Proteus sp. occurred at 14.3% each. This study focus on the type of bacteria communities during a decomposition process which will help provide baseline information in the application of forensic biology to determination of nature of death, abuse or neglect.

Pesticide residues determination in food premises in Bench-Maji zone, Southwest Ethiopia

Pesticides are very important risk factors in human life causing chronic human health effects. Pesticides are commonly used across the globe to enhance human endeavors. In Ethiopia, pesticides are widely used by local farmers and governmental organizations for pests control purpose. However, majority of pesticides are not specifically targeting the pest. As a result, pesticide residues in food items have been a concern to the consumers and environment they live in. Therefore, this study was aimed to determine the amount of organo-chlorine and organo-phosphate pesticide residues in cereal crops in Bench-Maji Zone, Ethiopia. Experimental study design was employed to determine the amount of pesticide residues and cereal crops were bought from the local farm sites and market of purposively selected sites. The samples were extracted using a Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged and Safe extraction and clean up method. Finally, the extracted samples were injected into Gas chromatography tandem Mass Spectrometer and the types, and concentrations of pesticide residues were analyzed using linear regression equation that obtained from calibration curves. The highest concentration of Endosulfan sulfate (0.076 mgkg− 1) was detected in rice, followed by Dimethoate (0.068 mgkg− 1) and p,p’-DDE (0.087 mgkg− 1) in Sorghum and common millet, respectively in the samples obtained from Gurafarda site. The highest concentration of p,p’-DDT (0.133 mgkg− 1) was detected in common millet, followed by Aldrin (0.082mgkg− 1) and Dimethoate (0.077mgkg− 1) in Sorghum and common millet, respectively in the samples obtained from North-Bench site. In addition, Aldrin detected in rice, sorghum and common millet obtained from the three sites was a residue of above the maximum residual limits set by Codex Alimentarius regulations and European Union. The finding shows that the detection of pesticide residues in cereal crops in samples obtained from the study area. It is an indication of the widespread use of pesticides in cereal crops production. Therefore, strict supervision of pesticide application in the fields, regulation of informal veterinary drug store and implmentation of integrated vector management strategy are recommended.