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Epigenetic repression has been linked to the regulation of different cell states. In this study, we focus on the influence of this repression, mainly by H3K27me3, over gene expression in muscle cells, which may affect mineral content, a phenotype that is relevant to muscle function and beef quality. Based on the inverse relationship between H3K27me3 and gene expression (i.e., epigenetic repression) and on contrasting sample groups, we computationally predicted regulatory genes that affect muscle mineral content. To this end, we applied the TRIAGE predictive method followed by a rank product analysis. This methodology can predict regulatory genes that might be affected by repressive epigenetic regulation related to mineral concentration. Annotation of orthologous genes, between human and bovine, enabled our investigation of gene expression in the Longissimus thoracis muscle of Bos indicus cattle. The animals under study had a contrasting mineral content in their muscle cells. We identified candidate regulatory genes influenced by repressive epigenetic mechanisms, linking histone modification to mineral content in beef samples. The discovered candidate genes take part in multiple biological pathways, i.e., impulse transmission, cell signalling, immunological, and developmental pathways. Some of these genes were previously associated with mineral content or regulatory mechanisms. Our findings indicate that epigenetic repression can partially explain the gene expression profiles observed in muscle samples with contrasting mineral content through the candidate regulators here identified.

Milk analysis can be successfully performed by dilution of samples with CFA-C, a commercial mixture of water-soluble tertiary amines, and measurements by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). However, due to the costs of this reagent and contamination, the work here described investigated an alternative reagent that could be used instead of CFA-C. Qualitative analysis showed that the commercial mixture does not contain boric acid or EDTA. A potentiometric titration of a CFA-C 10% v/v aqueous solution using HCl as titrant showed two peaks and it was inferred that 90% of the acid was consumed for neutralization of free amines and the remaining 10% was consumed for protonation of an anion of a weak acid employed to generate a buffer R3N/R3NH+ with the molar ratio 10:1. For simulating the CFA-C reagent, it was prepared a solution containing 6.06 mol L-1 monoethanolamine (MEA) plus 0.20 mol L-1 citric acid, triprotic, to form a buffer 10:1. The citrate anion is a good chelating ligand for Ca(II). An other citrate buffer was prepared (1.52 mol L-1) using trishydroxymethylaminomethane (TRIS), which is an amine less soluble in water. These mixtures were characterized by potentiometric and thermal analysis. Both amine/citrate buffers presented a performance comparable to the commercial reagent.

The contents of Ca, Cu, K, Mg, Na, P and S were simultaneously determined in grape juices and soft drinks using ICP-OES. The experimental results were analyzed by methods of exploratory analysis: principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA). The results showed that Na was the principal element for discrimination among samples. Preservatives addition and mineral salts contents also were important to discriminate the clusters. Exploratory analysis was of great help in the data treatment giving information that would be too difficult to extract from the original data matrix.

The correlation and grouping of mineral waters from different regions of São Paulo state was carried out using exploratory analysis of pH values and Ba, Ca, K, Mg, Na and V contents. By using principal components analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) was possible to evaluate the similarity of mineral water samples through group formation that was directly correlated with their sources. Employing scores, loadings and dendogram graphics was possible to observe the formation of two groups and the separation of Ibirá and Itú mineral water samples. The first group is composed by samples from Serra da Mantiqueira region (Águas da Prata, Campos do Jordão and Lindóia) and the other one is formed by samples from cities located above the Guarani Aquifer (Águas de Santa Bárbara, Palmares Paulista, Presidente Prudente, São Carlos, São Simão e Santa Rosa do Viterbo). The segregation of Ibirá samples was due to predominant presence of Na and V in their mineral composition, while for Itú samples it was observed higher contribution of Ba, Ca and Mg elements. The application of exploratory analysis enabled to correlate the chemical composition with the geographical source of the mineral water samples producing useful results for establishing of classification and prevision models.

Determination of Cr(VI) and Cr(III) was studied in soil samples accidentally contaminated with sulphochromic solution. Molecular absorption spectrophotometry based on the diphenylcarbazide method was used for the determination of Cr(VI) after its alkaline extraction. The total chromium concentration was determined using ICP OES. The quantification of Cr(III) was accomplished by subtracting the Cr(VI) concentration from the total chromium concentration. Regardless of the known contamination of the soil samples by sulphochromic solution, concentrations of Cr(VI) were below the detection limit. Addition and recovery experiments for Cr(VI) in soil samples with and without organic matter indicated its influence on the reduction of Cr(VI) to Cr(III).

Iron (Fe) is an essential mineral for metabolism and plays a central role in a range of biochemical processes. Therefore, this study aimed to identify differentially expressed (DE) genes and metabolic pathways in Longissimus dorsi (LD) muscle from cattle with divergent iron content, as well as to investigate the likely role of these DE genes in biological processes underlying beef quality parameters. Samples for RNA extraction for sequencing and iron, copper, manganese, and zinc determination were collected from LD muscles at slaughter. Eight Nelore steers, with extreme genomic estimated breeding values for iron content (Fe-GEBV), were selected from a reference population of 373 animals. From the 49 annotated DE genes (FDR