Edible peanut seed represents approximately forty percent of the total mass of the peanut plant at harvest. This plant material is a potential source of nutraceutical compounds. Aqueous acetone was used to extract polar compounds from the leaves and roots of peanut plants, and from the shells of peanut seeds. The antioxidant activities of the extracts using ORAC were determined and compared. Th...

BACKGROUND Double-blinded challenges are widely used for diagnosing food allergy but are time-consuming and cause severe reactions. Outcome relies on subjective interpretation of symptoms, which leads to variations in outcome between observers. Facial thermography combined with nasal peanut challenge was evaluated as a novel objective indicator of clinical allergy. METHODS Sixteen children wi...

BACKGROUND Peanut allergy creates the risk of life-threatening anaphylaxis that can disrupt psychosocial development and family life. The avoidance management strategy often fails to prevent anaphylaxis and may contribute to social dysfunction. Peanut oral immunotherapy may address these problems, but there are safety concerns regarding implementation in clinical practice. OBJECTIVE The purpo...

BACKGROUND Studies of perennial peanut (Arachis glabrata Benth.) suggest its hay and haylage have greater levels of rumen undegraded protein (RUP) than other legume forages such as alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.). Greater RUP can result in more efficient nitrogen utilization by ruminant animals with positive economic and environmental effects. We sought to determine whether, like red clover (Trifo...

The Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of hairy roots creates a rapid and simple means to introduce and express foreign genes in plant cells that are capable of synthesizing specific natural products. We describe a method for the production of transgenic hairy root cultures of peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) using Agrobacterium rhizogenes R1000, a strain with the binary vector pBI121. We evalua...

Peanuts receive major emphasis because of the crop's importance to the economy of southeastern Virginia and the magnitude of pesticide use in crop management. In 1992, growers planted 93,000 acres of the crop and harvested an estimated 123,225 tons of peanuts with a value of ca. 79 million dollars in farm income. When coupled with the shelling, processing and shipping industries in the Tidewate...

BACKGROUND Peanut allergy is one of the most severe food allergies in children. The diagnostic gold standard is the oral food challenge (OFC). However, OFC has inherent risks and is time consuming. The measurement of specific immunoglobulin E (sIgE) to peanut components in blood detects peanut sensitization, but the decision point predicting allergy is still unclear. The aim of this study was t...

BACKGROUND Although peanut oral immunotherapy (OIT) has been conclusively shown to cause desensitization, it is currently unknown whether clinical protection persists after stopping therapy. OBJECTIVE Our primary objective was to determine whether peanut OIT can induce sustained unresponsiveness after withdrawal of OIT. METHODS We conducted a pilot clinical trial of peanut OIT at 2 US cente...

BACKGROUND While a central role for the T helper (Th) 1/Th2 axis in food allergy has been established, the Th17 response in food-allergic humans has not been addressed. METHODS Th17 responses in 18 peanut-allergic children, who were also allergic to at least one additional food allergen, were assessed relative to 15 age-matched healthy controls. To account for the atopy background in the alle...

Peanut is one of the most important crops in the world, both for vegetative oil and as a protein source. Biotechnology approaches provide promising ways to increase peanut productivity, either through improved seed quality or stress resistance. These approaches require the identification of genes that control important agronomical traits, the understanding of gene regulation and metabolic pathw...