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Asparagine is one of the precursors of acrylamide that can form during bread production. The aim of this work was to determine the effect of genotype, environment, sulfur fertilization, and the interaction of those factors on the asparagine content, technological value of wheat, and acrylamide level in bread. The research material consisted of five wheat cultivars grown in two locations in Poland with nitrogen fertilization of 110 kg ha-1 and sulfur fertilization of 30 kg ha-1. The standard ISO method for analyzing the milling and baking properties of wheat was used. The UHPLC-MS/MS method for analyzing the amino acids and the GC/MS method for acrylamide in bread were implemented. The analysis of variance results indicated that the location influenced the total variance in the measured asparagine content and quality of wheat the most, followed by the cultivar and then by the interaction between the environment and cultivar. Sulfur fertilization had no significant effect on the asparagine content, but slightly lowered the gluten quality and loaf volume of bread. However, sulfur fertilization in connection with the cultivar characterized by low starch damage had a positive effect on lowering the acrylamide in bread. Asparagine content in wheat and acrylamide in bread varies mostly depending on cultivar and environment.

RNA viruses have evolved elaborate strategies to protect their genomes, including 5' capping. However, until now no RNA 5' cap has been identified for hepatitis C virus 1,2 (HCV), which causes chronic infection, liver cirrhosis and cancer 3. Here we demonstrate that the cellular metabolite flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) is used as a non-canonical initiating nucleotide by the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, resulting in a 5'-FAD cap on the HCV RNA. The HCV FAD-capping frequency is around 75%, which is the highest observed for any RNA metabolite cap across all kingdoms of life 4-8. FAD capping is conserved among HCV isolates for the replication-intermediate negative strand and partially for the positive strand. It is also observed in vivo on HCV RNA isolated from patient samples and from the liver and serum of a human liver chimeric mouse model. Furthermore, we show that 5'-FAD capping protects RNA from RIG-I mediated innate immune recognition but does not stabilize the HCV RNA. These results establish capping with cellular metabolites as a novel viral RNA-capping strategy, which could be used by other viruses and affect anti-viral treatment outcomes and persistence of infection.

It is known that SEM accumulates in bones, binds to proteins and is likely to be produced during purification of proteins. It may also occur in food/feed products due to: nitrofuran or nitrofurazone being metabolized to SEM, natural occurrence in the environment and certain food sources (such as shrimps) as well as other processing of food/feed.