Chemical characterization and nutritional quality investigations of healthy extra virgin olive oil flavored with chili pepper.

The production of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) flavored with diverse spices, herbs, fruits, and vegetables or natural aromas is believed to provide advantageous properties considering either the high nutritional value or biological activity in addition to the flavoring and industrial aspects. The biological activities including antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of Tunisian EVOO obtained from "Chemlali" variety and mixed with chili pepper were investigated. Molecular analyses, including the detection of twelve olive-infecting viruses and Pseudomonas savastanoi pv savastanoi, were performed to ensure that the samples were obtained from healthy olive trees and EVOO quality was not affected.

Establishment of a Sensitive qPCR Methodology for Detection of the Olive-Infecting Viruses in Portuguese and Tunisian Orchards.

Sensitive detection of viruses in olive orchards is actually of main importance since these pathogenic agents cannot be treated, their dissemination is quite easy, and they can have eventual negative effects on olive oil quality. The work presented here describes the development and application of a new SYBR Green-based real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) analysis for specific and reliable quantification of highly spread olive tree viruses: (OLV-1) (TNV-D), (OMMV), and (OLYaV). qPCR methodology revealed high specificity and sensitivity, estimated in the range of 0.

A new QRT-PCR assay designed for the differentiation between elements provided from Agrobacterium sp. in GMOs plant events and natural Agrobacterium sp. bacteria.

The question asked in the present work was how to differentiate between contamination of field samples with and GM plants contained sequences provided from this bacterium in order to avoid false positives in the frame of the detection and the quantification of GMO. For this, new set of primers and corresponding TaqMan Minor Groove Binder (MGB) probes were designed to target Agrobacterium sp. using the tumor-morphology-shooty gene (TMS1).

A new specific reference gene based on growth hormone gene (GH1) used for detection and relative quantification of Aquadvantage® GM salmon (Salmo salar L.) in food products.

Genetic transformation of fish is mainly oriented towards the improvement of growth for the benefit of the aquaculture. Actually, Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) is the species most transformed to achieve growth rates quite large compared to the wild. To anticipate the presence of contaminations with GM salmon in fish markets and the lack of labeling regulations with a mandatory threshold, the proper methods are needed to test the authenticity of the ingredients.

A new dual plasmid calibrator for the quantification of the construct specific GM canola Oxy-235 with duplex real-time PCR.

To overcome the difficulties of obtaining the Certified Reference Material (CRM) and according to the key documents of the European Union Reference Laboratory (EU-RL), a new standard reference molecule containing the construct specific of the canola event Oxy-235 (3'-junction Nitrilase/Tnos) and the canola endogenous reference gene (acety-CoA-carboxylase) was constructed and used for duplex real-time quantitative analysis. The limits of detection (LOD) were less than 5 Haploid Genome Copy (HGC) and the limits of quantification (LOQ) were about 10 HGC. Furthermore, mixed GM and non-GM canola samples were analysed with duplex QRT-PCR to evaluate the performance criteria as required for validation procedures in the EU-RL, namely, the precision and the accuracy.