First cross-border outbreak of foodborne botulism in the European Union associated with the consumption of commercial dried roach ().

Botulism outbreaks due to commercial products are extremely rare in the European Union. Here we report on the first international outbreak of foodborne botulism caused by commercial salt-cured, dried roach (). Between November and December 2016, an outbreak of six foodborne botulism type E cases from five unrelated households was documented in Germany and Spain.

Noradrenergic and opioidergic alterations in neuropathy in different rat strains.

The Fischer 344 (F344) rat strain differs from the Lewis strain in the response to neuropathic pain. Recently, we found that F344 rats totally recover from mechanical allodynia induced by chronic constriction injury (CCI) of the sciatic nerve 28 days after surgery whereas Lewis rats are initiating their recovery at this time point. Thus, the use of this neuropathic pain model in these different rat strains constitutes a good strategy to identify possible target genes involved in the development of neuropathic pain.

Changes in BDNF gene expression correlate with rat strain differences in neuropathic pain.

The Fischer 344 (F344) rat inbred strain differs from the inbred Lewis and the outbred Sprague-Dawley (SD) in the response to different pain stimuli, which has been partially attributed to differences in the endogenous opioid and noradrenergic systems. Since brain-derived neutrophic factor (BDNF) modulates both the endogenous opioid and noradrenergic systems, we have now studied specific changes in BDNF gene expression related to the maintenance of neuropathic pain in the three rat strains. F344 rats were found to be the only strain that completely recovered from neuropathic pain (mechanical allodynia) 28 days after chronic constriction injury (CCI) of the sciatic nerve.