Research Publications (Food Safety)

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) represent the largest group of endogenous compounds and serves as a novel alternative to traditional antibiotics for the treatment of pathogenic microorganisms. Moricin is an important α-helical AMP plays a crucial role in insect humoral defense reactions.

Sample clean-up remains the most time-consuming and error-prone step in the whole analytical procedure for aflatoxins (AFTs) analysis. Herein, an automated and high-throughput sample clean-up platform was developed with a disposable, cost-effective immunoaffinity magnetic bead-based kit. Under optimized conditions, the automated method takes less than 30 min to simultaneously purify 20 samples without requiring any centrifugation or filtering steps.

by Philip J. Palumbo, Yinfeng Zhang, Jessica M. Fogel, Xu Guo, William Clarke, Autumn Breaud, Paul Richardson, Estelle Piwowar-Manning, Stephen Hart, Erica L. Hamilton, Ngo T. K. Hoa, Mariya Liulchuk, Latifah Anandari, Tran Viet Ha, Kostyantyn Dumchev, Zubairi Djoerban, Irving Hoffman, Brett Hanscom, William C. Miller, Susan H. Eshleman

Background

Bacteroides pyogenes is found in the human and animal gut and is implicated in the pathogenesis of metritis in cows. We report the draft genome sequences of four Bacteroides pyogenes isolates obtained from the uterus of metritic cows. This will increase the understanding of its pathogenicity, antimicrobial resistance, and differentiation across hosts.

Author(s): Stephen R. Cattle, Carl Robinson, Mark Whatmuff

Author(s): Xueyan Li, Aijing Li, Wenjuan Zhang, Xiaowei Liu, Yong Liang, Xinglei Yao, Maoyong Song

Author(s): Xi Cao, Linmeng Liao, Fengqin Feng

The present investigation was aimed at evaluating the occurrence of transferable genes conferring resistance to tetracyclines, macrolide‐lincosamide‐streptogramin B (MLSB), vancomycin, beta‐lactams, and aminoglycosides in 32 samples from eight batches of ready‐to‐eat crickets (Acheta domesticus) commercialized by four European Union producers (two batches per producer).

An efficient high‐speed shear homogenization extraction (HSHE) technique was employed for extracting stevioside (STV) and rebaudioside A (RA) from Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni) leaves. The HSHE extraction procedure was optimized and compared with other conventional extraction techniques. HSHE showed a better extraction efficiency than solvent extraction (SE), ultrasound‐assisted extraction (UAE), and microwave‐assisted extraction (MAE) methods.

As a result of the obesity epidemic, the prevalence of non‐alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is increasing. No drug is approved for the treatment of NASH. We have investigated the effect of a nutritional supplement, Mastiha or Chios mastic gum, on metabolic and histological parameters and on the gut microbiome in mice with NASH and fibrosis. Methods and results Advanced NASH was induced by feeding C57BL/6J mice a diet rich in fat, sucrose and cholesterol for 41 weeks.

ABSTRACT We conducted a serological survey to detect antibodies against influenza A virus (IAV) in Japanese wild boars in Kagoshima prefecture, Japan, between 2014 and 2017. Sero‐prevalence against a pandemic‐like swine H1N1 (H1N1pdm) virus was identified in 27.1% of specimens, and 1.7% were positive for both swine H1N2 and H3N2 viruses, indicating that wild boars could play an important role in the dynamics of H1N1pdm viral dispersion in the wild.

The impact of cold atmospheric pressure plasma treatment on the inactivation kinetics of Bacillus cereus ATCC 14579 and the resulting quality changes was investigated in tiger nut (Cyperus esculentus L.) milk (TNM). The effect of input power (39, 43, and 46 W) and treatment time (0 to 270 s) was fitted using the Weibull model to represent the microbial kinetic inactivation in the treated TNM. Inactivation efficacy increased with an increase in treatment time and input power.

ABSTRACT

Author(s): Stefan EBMEYER, Erik KRISTIANSSON, D.G. Joakim LARSSON

Author(s): Ling Mo, Xiaobo Zheng, Chunyou Zhu, Yuxin Sun, Lehuan Yu, Xiaojun Luo, Bixian Mai

Author(s): Surbhi Dabral, Yashaswee, Ajit Varma, Devendra Kumar Choudhary, Rajeev Nayan Bahuguna, Manoj Nath

Significance and Impact of the Study: Microbial contamination of air and surfaces in hospitals play an important role in healthcare‐associated infections. The aim was the assessment of Klebsiella pneumoniae elimination using radiant catalytic ionization (RCI). K. pneumoniae are aetiological agent of nosocomial infections, such as: pneumonia, infections of urinary tract, blood, e.t.c. The strains producing the New Delhi metallo‐β‐lactamases are one of the greatest epidemiological threat.

Microcins are low-molecular-weight, ribosomally produced, highly stable, bacterial-inhibitory molecules involved in competitive, and amensalistic interactions between Enterobacteriaceae in the intestine.

Colistin is a last resort antibiotic used for the treatment of human infections associated with carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriales.

The aim of this study was to quantify, identify, evaluate antimicrobial resistance, and characterize the virulence factors of enteropathogenic (EPEC), Shiga-toxigenic (STEC), and enterohemorrhagic (EHEC) Escherichia coli in raw milk (RM) and legal (LMFC) and illegal (IMFC) Minas Frescal cheeses in southern and northeast Brazil. Illegal cheeses are those made without official inspection service or sanitary surveillance.

Ciguatera is the term for poisoning resulting from eating fish from tropical or subtropical regions. The causative toxins collectively named ciguatoxins (CTXs) widely differ in structures depending on their geographic origins, which range from the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean to the Caribbean Sea. Neurotoxic shellfish poisoning (NSP) is caused by the ingestion of bivalve shellfish contaminated with brevetoxins (BTXs).

Clostridium perfringens enterotoxin (CPE) contributes to diarrhea and an often-lethal enterotoxemia. CPE action starts when it binds to claudin receptors, forming a small complex (90 kDa). Six small complexes then oligomerize to create prepores, followed by insertion of beta-hairpins from CPE to form beta-barrel pores named CH-1 or CH-2. Of the ~27 members of the human claudin protein family, only some bind CPE.

Infections due to multi-drug resistant bacteria are on the rise and there is an urgent need to develop new antibacterials. In this regard, a series of six functionally diverse new quinazolinone compounds were synthesized by a facile one-pot reaction of benzoic acid derivatives, trimethoxymethane and aniline derivatives. Three compounds of 3-aryl-8-methylquinazolin-4(3H)-one, and 3-aryl-6,7-dimethoxyquinazolin4(3H)-one were prepared and tested against multi-drug resistant bacteria.