Research Publications (Food Safety)

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a multifaceted and recurrent immune disorder that requires long‐term potent pharmacological treatment. Honey, as a natural food of nourishment and pharmaceutical value, has been found to defend against colitis. Methods and results We investigated the effects of different constituents in honey on dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)‐induced colitis in rats.

The Atlantic Goliath Grouper Epinephelus itajara, a large indigenous tropical reef fish, approached local extinction in U. S. waters by the 1980s as a result of intense fishing pressure. In 1990, federal and state laws intervened to protect this species. The resulting fishery closure, over the intervening years, allowed limited, slow population recovery in Florida waters while populations outside of the United States remained vulnerable (IUCN).

The industrial processing water of fruit and vegetables has raised serious environmental concerns due to the presence of many important bioactive compounds being disposed in the wastewater. Bioactive compounds have great potential for the food industry to optimize their process and to recover these compounds in order to develop value‐added products and to reduce environmental impacts.

Food product safety is a public health concern. Most of the food safety analytical and detection methods are expensive, labor intensive, and time consuming. A safe, rapid, reliable, and nondestructive detection method is needed to assure consumers that food products are safe to consume. Terahertz (THz) radiation, which has properties of both microwave and infrared, can penetrate and interact with many commonly used materials.

Peanut allergy has garnered significant attention because of the high sensitization rate, increase in allergy, and severity of the reaction. Sufficiently reliable therapies and efficient mitigating techniques to combat peanut allergy are still lacking. Current management relies on avoiding peanuts and nuts and seeds with homologous proteins, although adverse events mostly occur with accidental ingestion.

Fresh produce, like fruits and vegetables, are important sources of nutrients and health‐promoting compounds. However, incidences of foodborne outbreaks associated with fresh produce often occur; it is thus important to develop and expand decay‐control technologies that can not only maintain the quality but can also control the biological hazards in postharvest, processing, and storage to extend their shelf life.

The public concerns about agrifood safety call for innovative and reformative analytical techniques to meet the inspection requirements of high sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility. Enzyme‐mimetic nanomaterials or nanozymes, which combine enzyme‐like properties with nanoscale features, emerge as an excellent tool for quality and safety detection in the agrifood sector, due to not only their robust capacity in detection but also their attraction in future‐oriented exploitations.

Dysphagia or swallowing difficulty is a common morbidity experienced by those who have suffered a stroke or those undergone such treatments as head and neck surgeries. Dysphagic patients require special foods that are easier to swallow.

A large range of ingredients for food and food products are subject to fungal contamination, which is a major cause of destruction of crops, exposure of animals and humans to invasive mycotoxins, and food spoilage. The resistance of fungal species to common preservation methods highlights the necessity of new ways to increase the shelf life of raw material for food and food products.

The aim of this paper is to review the development of food safety management systems (FSMS) from their origins in the 1950s to the present. The food safety challenges in modern food supply systems are explored and it is argued that there is a need for a more holistic thinking approach to food safety management.

Deep learning has been proved to be an advanced technology for big data analysis with a large number of successful cases in image processing, speech recognition, object detection, and so on. Recently, it has also been introduced in food science and engineering. To our knowledge, this review is the first in the food domain.

Quorum sensing (QS)‐mediated biofilm‐forming rhizobacteria are indispensable due to their competitiveness in the crop rhizosphere. In the present work, we have reported on the occurrence of diversified bacterial species capable of producing N‐acyl homoserine lactone (AHL) as the QS signal in the roots of a rice plant grown under field conditions.

The aim of this study was to identify and characterize the SE‐P3, P16, P37, and P47 phages infecting Salmonella Enteritidis. Transmission electron microscopy analysis showed that the SE phages belonged to the Myoviridae or Siphoviridae family and had plaque sizes between 0.622 ± 0.027 and 1.630 ± 0.036 mm in diameter. sefC, pefA, spvC, sopE, and gipA virulent gene regions were absent in their genome and their calculated genome sizes were between 35.9 and 37.8 kbp.

The aim of this study was to examine four strains of two yeast species in relation to their capability for assimilating alkanes in the presence of heavy metals (HMs). The four strains tested were Candida pseudoglaebosa ENCB‐7 and Kodamaea ohmeri ENCB‐8R, ENCB‐23, and ENCB‐VIK. Determination was made of the expression of CYP52 genes involved in alkane hydroxylation.

This study investigates the effect of metals (cadmium, lead, mercury, and tellurium) and organic pollutants (benzene, diesel, lindane, and xylene) on a dinoflagellate—Prorocentrum sigmoides Böhm—and its associated culturable bacteria. Two bacterial cultures (Bacillus subtilis strain PD005 and B. xiamensis strain PD006) were isolated from P. sigmoides and characterized by scanning electron microscopy, 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing, biochemical analyses, and growth curve studies.

Heavy metals such as lead, chromium, and metalloid like arsenic dominate the pinnacle in posing a threat to life. Being environment‐friendly, elucidating the mechanism by which microorganisms detoxify such elements has always been an active field of research hitherto. In the present study, we have investigated the capability of nitrogen‐deprived Papiliotrema laurentii strain RY1 toward enhanced tolerance and neutralizing toxic elements.

Metallothionein (MT) is a low‐molecular‐weight protein with a high metal binding capacity and plays a key role in organism adaptation to heavy metals. In this study, a metallothionein gene was successfully cloned and sequenced from Antarctic sea‐ice yeast Rhodotorula mucilaginosa AN5. Nucleotide sequencing and analysis revealed that the gene had four exons interrupted by three introns.

Removal of heavy metals from food material by growing micro‐organisms is limited by the toxicity to cells. In this study, different preincubation treatments were investigated to analyze their effects on cadmium resistance and removal ability of Pichia kudriavzevii A16 and Saccharomyces cerevisiae CICC1211. Sucrose preincubation improved the cadmium resistance of both yeast cells and increased the cadmium‐removal rate of P. kudriavzevii A16.

The likelihood of co‐selection for antibiotic resistance induced by heavy metals is a potential threat to human health, however direct evidence of heavy metal induced co‐selection of antibiotic resistance is lacking in soil. By using a metagenomic sequencing approach, zinc (Zn) driven co‐selection of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in soil was investigated through a microcosm experiment where Zn salts were added at different levels.

ESBL producing STEC are posing a constant threat to public health throughout the world leading to serious infections and raising key therapeutic issues. A total of 219 fecal samples were collected from piglets with diarrheoa, pig farmers, and water sources in North East India; and were processed for isolation of Escherichia coli. The isolates were screened for antimicrobial resistance and suspected isolates for ESBLs production by double disk synergy test (DDST). E.

Significance and Impact of the Study: The present study investigates the virucidal activity of tungsten carbide nanoparticles using the quantitative suspension test in accordance with the European norm EN 14476+A1 and the German DVV/RKI guidelines. Due to highly standardized assay conditions, results of this test are considered very reliable for evaluation of the virucidal activity of disinfectants.

Significance and Impact of the Study: Treated wastewater effluent contains Listeria monocytogenes which survives conventional wastewater treatment processes and can re‐enter human food chain, thus it is imperative to detect L.  monocytogenes using a rapid and an inexpensive method.

Significance and Impact of the Study: The ability to predict the growth and survival of Listeria monocytogenes in contaminated RTE foods is essential for listeriosis risk assessment. The results of this study provided valuable information on the kinetic parameters of survival of some L. monocytogenes strains found within the South African food environment.

This study investigated the existence of sulfonamides and colistin resistance genes among extended‐spectrum beta‐lactamase (ESBL)‐producing E. coli recovered from fish gut in Vietnam and evaluated the susceptibility patterns of the ESBL‐producing E. coli to relevant antimicrobials. A total of 88 ESBL‐producing E. coli isolates were analyzed for the presence of the ESBLs, sul (1,2,3) and mcr (1‐3) genes by PCR. Antimicrobial resistance phenotypes of isolates were determined by disc diffusion.

This study investigated the use of cold plasma to reduce the in vitro growth of two postharvest fungal plant pathogens, Colletotrichum alienum and C. fioriniae, isolated from avocados. Cold plasma (CP) was used to treat pure cultures and conidial suspensions of both pathogens, for 180 or 360 s, in either open or sealed environments from varying distances.