Li Wynn (zookevin1)
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.BACKGROUND More than 330 food additives (e.g. artificial sweeteners, emulsifiers, dyes) are authorized in Europe, with a great variability of use across food products. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to investigate the distribution and co-occurrence of food additives in a large-scale database of foods and beverages available on the French market. DESIGN The open access crowdsourced Open Food Facts database (https//world.openfoodfacts.org/) was used to retrieve the composition of food and beverage products commonly marketed on the French market (n = 126,556), based on the ingredients list. Clustering of food additive variables was used in order to determine groups of additives frequently co-occurring in food products. The clusters were confirmed by network analysis, using the eLasso method. RESULTS Fifty-three-point eight percent of food products contained at least 1 food additive and 11.3% at least 5. Food categories most likely to contain food additives (in more than 85% of food items) were artifics'.Resolution of population structure represents an effective way to define biological stocks and inform efficient fisheries management. In the present study, the phylogeography of the protogynous sparid Spondyliosoma cantharus, in the East Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea, was investigated with nuclear (S7) and mitochondrial (cytochrome b) DNA markers. Significant divergence of four regional genetic groups was observed North Eastern Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea, Western African Transition (Cape Verde) and Gulf of Guinea (Angola). The two southern populations (Cape Verde and Angola) each comprised reciprocally monophyletic mtDNA lineages, revealed low levels of diversity in Cape Verde and high diversity for Angola despite being represented by only 14 individuals. A complete divergence between North Atlantic and Mediterranean populations was depicted by the mitochondrial marker, but a highly shared nuclear haplotype revealed an incomplete lineage sorting between these regions. Bayesian skyline plots and associated statistics revealed different dynamics among the four regions. Cape Verde showed no expansion and the expansion time estimated for Angola was much older than for the other regions. Mediterranean region seems to have experienced an early population growth but has remained with a stable population size for the last 30000 years while the North Atlantic population has been steadily growing. The lack of genetic structuring within these regions should not be taken as evidence of demographic panmixia in light of potential resolution thresholds and previous evidence of intra-regional phenotypic heterogeneity.Many microbial species have been recognized as enteropathogens for humans. Here, we predicted the causative agents of acute diarrhea using data from multiplex quantitative PCR (qPCR) assays targeting 19 enteropathogens. For this, a case-control study was conducted at eight hospitals in Thailand. Stool samples and clinical data were collected from 370 hospitalized patients with acute diarrhea and 370 non-diarrheal controls. Multiple enteropathogens were detected in 75.7% and 13.0% of diarrheal stool samples using multiplex qPCR and bacterial culture methods, respectively. Asymptomatic carriers of enteropathogens were found among 87.8% and 45.7% of individuals by qPCR and culture methods, respectively. These results suggested the complexity of identifying causative agents of diarrhea. An analysis using the quantification cut-off values for clinical relevance drastically reduced pathogen-positive stool samples in control subjects from 87.8% to 0.5%, whereas 48.9% of the diarrheal stool samples were positive for any of the 11 pathogens. Among others, rotavirus, norovirus GII, Shigella/EIEC, and Campylobacter were strongly associated with acute diarrhea (P-value less then 0.001). Characteristic clinical symptoms, epidemic