Objective—To evaluate the possible effects of paraquat spraying among workers on deciduous fruit farms in the Western Cape, South Africa. Paraquat is a commonly used herbicide world wide and is a well documented cause of pulmonary fibrosis in studies of laboratory animals and in humans after exposure to a high dose (usually accidental or as parasuicide). The respiratory eVects of long term, low...

272 India accounts for 12-15% of world’s oilseed area, 7-8% of oilseeds output, 6-7% of vegetable oil production, 9-12% of vegetable oil import and 9-10% of vegetable oil consumption (Hegde, 2009). The country produces seven edible oilseed crops viz. groundnut, rapeseed-mustard, soybean, sunflower, sesame, safflower and niger and two non edible oilseeds viz. castor and linseed. Though the diver...

Prenatal in utero conditions are thought to play a role in the development of adult diseases including Parkinson's disease (PD). Paraquat is a common herbicide with chemical structure similar to 1-methyl-4-phenyl 1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine, a neurotoxin known to induce parkinsonism. In order to assess the role of in utero paraquat exposure in PD, uptake in maternal and fetal brains were measure...

The use of transgenic crops as feeds for ruminant animals has prompted study of the possible uptake of transgene fragments by ruminal micro-organisms and/or intestinal absorption of fragments surviving passage through the rumen. The persistence in buffered ruminal contents of seven different recombinant DNA fragments from GM rapeseed expressing the 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (E...

BACKGROUND Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are an important class of genetic marker for target gene mapping. As of yet, there is no rapid and effective method to identify SNPs linked with agronomic traits in rapeseed and other crop species. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We demonstrate a novel method for identifying SNP markers in rapeseed by deep sequencing a representative library an...

The entire mitochondrial genome of rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) was sequenced and compared with that of Arabidopsis thaliana. The 221 853 bp genome contains 34 protein-coding genes, three rRNA genes and 17 tRNA genes. This gene content is almost identical to that of Arabidopsis: However the rps14 gene, which is a pseudo-gene in Arabidopsis, is intact in rapeseed. On the other hand, five tRNA ge...

26 This narrative review compares evidence from experimental, epidemiological and 27 clinical studies of the health benefits of rapeseed (Canola) oil and olive oil in order to 28 assess if rapeseed oil is suitable as a sustainable alternative to olive oil as part of a 29 Mediterranean-style diet in countries where olive trees do not grow. From 30 epidemiological studies, the evidence for cardio...

The Shanghai RAPESEED Database (RAPESEED, http://rapeseed.plantsignal.cn/) was created to provide the solid platform for functional genomics studies of oilseed crops with the emphasis on seed development and fatty acid metabolism. The RAPESEED includes the resource of 8462 unique ESTs, of which 3526 clones are with full length cDNA; the expression profiles of 8095 genes and the Serial Analysis ...