Slaughterhouse wastewater treatment by combined chemical coagulation and electrocoagulation process

Slaughterhouse wastewater contains various and high amounts of organic matter (e.g., proteins, blood, fat and lard). In order to produce an effluent suitable for stream discharge, chemical coagulation and electrocoagulation techniques have been particularly explored at the laboratory pilot scale for organic compounds removal from slaughterhouse effluent. The purpose of this work was to investigate the feasibility of treating cattle-slaughterhouse wastewater by combined chemical coagulation and electrocoagulation process to achieve the required standards. The influence of the operating variables such as coagulant dose, electrical potential and reaction time on the removal efficiencies of major pollutants was determined. The rate of removal of pollutants linearly increased with increasing doses of PACl and applied voltage. COD and BOD(5) removal of more than 99% was obtained by adding 100 mg/L PACl and applied voltage 40 V. The experiments demonstrated the effectiveness of chemical and electrochemical techniques for the treatment of slaughterhouse wastewaters. Consequently, combined processes are inferred to be superior to electrocoagulation alone for the removal of both organic and inorganic compounds from cattle-slaughterhouse wastewater.     

Multimeric Recombinant M2e Protein-Based ELISA: A Significant Improvement in Differentiating Avian Influenza Infected Chickens from Vaccinated Ones

Killed avian influenza virus (AIV) vaccines have been used to control H5N1 infections in countries where the virus is endemic. Distinguishing vaccinated from naturally infected birds (DIVA) in such situations however, has become a major challenge. Recently, we introduced the recombinant ectodomain of the M2 protein (M2e) of H5N1 subtype as a novel tool for an ELISA based DIVA test. Despite being antigenic in natural infection the monomer form of the M2e used in ELISA had limited antigenicity and consequently poor diagnostic capability. To address this shortcoming, we evaluated the use of four tandem copies of M2e (tM2e) for increased efficiency of M2e antibody detection. The tM2e gene of H5N1 strain from Indonesia (A/Indonesia/CDC540/2006) was cloned into a pMAL- p4x expression vector and expressed in E.coli as a recombinant tM2e-MBP or M2e-MBP proteins. Both of these, M2e and tM2e antigens reacted with sera obtained from chickens following live H5N1 infection but not with sera from vaccinated birds. A significantly stronger M2e antibody reaction was observed with the tM2e compared to M2e antigen. Western blotting also supported the superiority of tM2e over M2e in detection of specific M2e antibodies against live H5N1 infection. Results from this study demonstrate that M2e tetramer is a better antigen than single M2e and could be more suitable for an ELISA based DIVA test.     

Intrabasin variation in allometry coefficients of Lenkoran Capoeta capoeta gracilis (Keyserling, 1861) in the Gorganroud basin,southeast Caspian Sea,Iran

It is believed that streams of a basin may contribute to stream‐specific variation in allometry coefficients related to between‐habitat differences. To test intra‐basin variation of the allometry coefficients of Lenkorn Capoeta capoeta gracilis (Keyserling, 1861), a total of 1731 individuals were sampled in six streams of the Gorganroud basin (southeast Caspian Sea) between April and May 2008. Values of b ranged from 2.647 for males of Chelchai to 2.964 for females of Madarsou, indicating negative allometric growth for the fish in the basin. There were variations in the allometry coefficient among the considered groups, which can be interpreted as species’ response to different habitats. To the best knowledge of the authors, this study documents the comparative reference on variation of allometry coefficient of Capoeta capoeta gracilis in southeast Caspian streams.