In Côte d'Ivoire, the market of aphrodisiacs of natural origin has been significantly growing over the last decades. The objective of this study was to evaluate the cytotoxicity of the most employed by Ivorian men, called Aphro. For that, Caco-2/TC7 enterocytes and Vero ATCC cells kidney epithelial cells grown in DMEM medium were exposed to Aphro at concentrations ranging from 216 to 864 µg/mL. Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) released upon cell death was assayed after 1, 2 and 24h of exposure. In parallel, the effect of Apho was evaluated in differentiated confluent cells by measurements of the trans-epithelial electrical resistance. A time course and significant dose response related increase of LDH was measured in the culture medium of Caco-2/TC7 and Vero ATCC cells exposed to the aphrodisiac. The trans-epithelial electrical resistance of the Caco-2/TC7 cell monolayers also showed a significant decrease from 1400 Ω*cm2 at the onset of the experiment to 450 Ω*cm2 after 24 h of treatment. Cell detachment and structural disorganization were observed in both cell lines. This study reveals the strong cytotoxicity of Aphro extract on both cell lines.
The quality of food sold in the street is a major public health concern. This research was conducted to study the sanitary quality of grilled fish sold in the streets of three districts of Daloa. Seasoned and unseasoned grilled fish were collected in 3 districts of Daloa, namely Commerce, Soleil and Tazibouo. A total of 150 unseasoned and 150 seasoned grilled fish were collected and analyzed for the detection and enumeration of Enterobacteriaceae, Staphylococcus aureus and fungal flora. We also tested for the presence of heavy metals such as lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), mercury (Hg) and zinc (Zn). The antibiotic resistance of S. aureus was also checked. The results showed that Enterobacteriaceae represented the highest level of microbial load in the samples of seasoned grilled fish from the 3 districts. Total coliform levels ranged from (7.05 ± 2.1) x 103 colony-forming units (CFU)/g to (4.1 ± 1.9) x 105 CFU/g and from 2.8 ± 3.3 x102 to 3.4 ± 2.1x103 CFU/g for thermotolerant coliforms. The presence of heavy metals showed higher values in seasoned grilled fish than in unseasoned grilled fish. The highest values of heavy metals are Al (1.98±0.120 mg/kg), Pb (1.46±0.23 mg/kg), Cu (0.7±0.1 mg/kg), Hg (0.40±0.201 mg/kg) and Hg (0.9±0.201 mg/kg). The microbiological quality of both types of fish samples was unsatisfactory. The presence of S. aureus resistance was noticed with 80% resistance to vancomycin, lincomycin, gentamycin and erythromycin but all strains tested were sensitive to imipenem.
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