Disease relevance of Food Chain

• The extent to which slaframine and swainsonine mycotoxicosis pose threats to animal husbandry and, indeed, to humans, if these alkaloids were to enter the human food chain, deserves serious consideration [1].
• This is particularly relevant to assessments of the risk posed by DEHP and DEHA present as contaminants in foods, since human exposure via the food chain has been estimated by Shiota, Chou & Nishimura (1980) as 30 micrograms/kg body weight/day, several orders of magnitude less than the lowest exposure level used in these experiments [2].
• Environmental lead, arsenic, mercury, and other heavy metals that enter the food chain can seriously deplete body stores of iron, vitamin C and other essential nutrients leading to decreased immune defenses, intrauterine growth retardation, impaired psycho-social faculties and other disabilities associated with malnutrition [3].
• A food chain consisting of toluene, toluene-degrading Pseudomonas sp. PS+ and a bacterivorous flagellated amoebae Vahlkampfia sp. was established in a batch culture [4].

High impact information on Food Chain

• Polonium and plutonium in an intertidal food chain [5].
• This phenomenon may be related to an increase of fluoride in the food chain, especially from the use of fluoridated water in food processing, increased use of infant formulas with measurable fluoride content, and even unintentional ingestion of fluoride dentifrices [6].
• Past emissions from zinc smelters gave rise to contamination of the environment with cadmium, which gets into the food chain and has the potential to cause renal dysfunction and alterations in zinc and copper homeostasis [7].
• The capacity for detoxification and internal storage of Cd resulted in a strong potential for trophic transfer of Cd through the aquatic food web [8].
• We here report biomagnification (the increasing accumulation of bioactive, often deleterious molecules through higher trophic levels of a food chain) of the neurotoxic nonprotein amino acid beta-methylamino-l-alanine (BMAA) in the Guam ecosystem [9].

Biological context of Food Chain

• Algal blooms reduce the uptake of toxic methylmercury in freshwater food webs [10].
• However, delta13C displayed little seasonal variation and was positively correlated with PCB concentrations among food web members (r2 = 0.69) [11].
• Radiolabeled benzo-((alpha)-pyrene, benzidine, and vinyl chloride were evaluated in laboratory model ecosystems for environmental fate, degradation pathways, bioconcentration, and food chain accumulation [12].
• There is no evidence of biomagnification of cadmium within marine or fresh water food webs [13].
• Factors causing concentrations in large pike to be higher in Sargent Lake may include higher bioavailability of methylmercury and a food web that enhances bioaccumulation [14].

Associations of Food Chain with chemical compounds

• In terms of organic chemicals, the best known examples of bioaccumulation in aquatic food chains are the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins, and organochlorine pesticides such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) [15].
• It seems likely that melatonin initially evolved as an antioxidant, becoming a vitamin in the food chain, and in multicellular organisms, where it is produced, it has acquired autocoid, paracoid and hormonal properties [16].
• Radionuclides in the lichen-caribou-human food chain near uranium mining operations in northern Saskatchewan, Canada [17].
• It is shown that for chemicals with log octanol water partition coefficients greater than about 3, the role of food chain transfer to fish consumed by humans becomes the more dominant route over drinking water [18].
• North Atlantic Oscillation synchronizes food-web interactions in central European lakes [19].

Gene context of Food Chain

• While aquatic mammals including seal species are at the top of food chain and highly contaminated by xenochemicals such as PCBs, induction of CYP2/3 subfamilies by such chemical exposure and their regulatory mechanisms have not yet been established in these animals [20].
• However, the ability of RIT1 to facilitate Zn and Cd uptake when these metals are present at elevated concentrations suggests that RIT1 may be one pathway for the entry of toxic metals into the food chain [21].
• The origin of sul1 and sul2 found in isolates from healthy humans is speculative, but their spread from pigs to humans via the food chain is possible [22].
• Chemical pollutants in the Great Lakes have found their way through the food chain into humans because of their environmental persistence and lipophilicity [23].
• Results indicate that under the OTM rule less than 1 animal in the last 12 months of the incubation period would enter the food chain in 2003 [24].

Analytical, diagnostic and therapeutic context of Food Chain

• Laboratory experiments can predict HCB levels in mussels but underestimate those for fish, suggesting distribution mechanisms such as food-chain relationships and metabolic capabilities which usually cannot be predicted from bioassays [25].
• Epidemiological studies of food contamination in an area of intensive agriculture for the years 1975-1983 showed that hexachlorobenzene (HCB) was present in all food-chain links, although HCB has not been used in Czechoslovakian agriculture since 1980 [26].

References