Research Publications (Food Safety)

Red dragon fruit peel, as a fruit waste, is rich in plant-based nutritional pectins that can be applied as food additives. The present study aims to characterize a novel phosphorylated red dragon fruit peel pectin (PRDFP-P) and to explore its functional activities. The thermal analysis, morphology analysis, antibacterial, antioxidant and antitumor activities of PRDFP-P were evaluated. The results showed that the phosphorylated derivative PRDFP-P had typical phosphate groups.

Deoxynivalenol (DON), a mycotoxin produced by Fusarium graminearum, is one of the most prevalent contaminants in livestock feed and causes very large losses to animal husbandry every year. Taraxasterol, isolated from Taraxacum officinale, has anti-inflammatory, antioxidative stress, and antitumor effects.

Transmission of pathogens present in the indoor air can occur through aerosols. This study evaluated the efficacy of an evaporated mix of essential oils to reduce the numbers of culturable aerosolized coronavirus, bacterium and fungus. The essential oil-containing gel was allowed to vaporize inside a glass chamber for 10 or 20 min.

Small fruits such as strawberries have been increasingly implicated in outbreaks of foodborne illnesses. Salmonella enterica and Listeria monocytogenes may contaminate strawberries leading to potential public health concern. The objective of this study was to investigate the efficacy of a combined lactic acid bacteria (LAB) treatment of Lactobacillus plantarum and Pediococcus pentosaceus for controlling S.

International Journal of Food Science & Technology, Volume 57, Issue 4, Page 2149-2158, April 2022. Chilli is one of the valuable spices commercialised globally, added as condiments in various cuisines and is easily susceptible to aflatoxin contamination (produced mainly by Aspergillus flavus) during pre- and post-harvesting stages. The important factors such as temperature, moisture content and humidity affect the growth of fungi producing aflatoxins.

International Journal of Food Science & Technology, Volume 57, Issue 4, Page 2185-2194, April 2022. The aflatoxin contamination of chilli pepper grown and marketed in Tamil Nadu, a southern Indian state, was assessed. Chilli samples were collected at different stages of the value chain and were quantified using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test.

To determine the efficacy of a panel of nine EPA-registered disinfectants against two human norovirus (HuNoV) surrogates [feline calicivirus (FCV) and Tulane virus (TuV)] and Clostridioides difficile endospores. Nine EPA-registered products, five of which contained H2O2 as active ingredient, were tested against infectious FCV, TuV, and C. difficile endospores using two ASTM methods, a suspension and carrier test.

Stray cat populations can represent a significant threat of the transmission of zoonotic diseases such as salmonellosis.

Postharvest deterioration of ginger rhizome caused by microorganisms or wound infections causes significant economic losses. Fusarium solani is one of the important causal agents of prevalent ginger disease soft rot across the world. The massive and continuous use of chemical fungicides in postharvest preservation pose risks to human health and produce environmental contamination.

Increasing microbial safety and prolonging the shelf life of products is one of the major challenges in the food industry. Active food packaging made from nanofibrous materials enhanced with antimicrobial substances is considered a promising way.

Cytochrome P-450 (CYP) enzymes have a key role in the metabolism of xenobiotics of food origin, and their highly polymorphic nature concurs with the diverse inter-individual variability in the toxicokinetics (TK) and toxicodynamics (TD) of food chemicals. Ochratoxin A is a well-known mycotoxin which contaminates a large variety of food and is associated with food safety concerns.

Salmonella spp. continues to figure prominently in world epidemiological registries as one of the leading causes of bacterial foodborne disease. We characterised 43 Brazilian lineages of Salmonella Typhimurium (ST) strains, characterized drug resistance patterns, tested copper (II) complex as control options, and proposed effective antimicrobial measures.

Letters in Applied Microbiology, Accepted Article. Antimicrobial resistance has silently turned into one of the biggest threats to global health, marking the fall of the Golden age of antibiotics. In the search for antibiotic replacement or enhancement, plant-derived natural compounds have attracted lots of interest. Even though firmly believed, the low resistance tendency of pathogenic bacteria against plant extracts has been scarcely demonstrated.

Journal of Applied Microbiology, Accepted Article. In food animals, Salmonella can exist as multiserovar populations, and the goal of this study was to determine whether Salmonella-positive animal feed samples also consist of multiserovar populations. Fifty Salmonella positive samples, collected from ten countries, were cultured using three different media for Salmonella isolation: Universal pre-enrichment broth,

The costly desulfation processes have severely restricted the development and industrial application of hydrometallurgy lead recovery process. In this work, new high efficiency and value-added desulfation method of the spent lead paste is proposed.

Salmonella spp. is one of the most important zoonotic pathogens with economic impact in public health worldwide. The relevance of Salmonella increases with the appearance of resistant strains. The aim of this study was to determine the level of antimicrobial resistance in 332 Salmonella isolates selected from 3 different poultry productive orientations in Eastern Spain during 3 years (2015 to 2017).

Journal of Applied Microbiology, Accepted Article. This study was conducted to test the ability of a carvacrol-based formulation (Phodé, France) to decrease the C. jejuni caecal load in inoculated broiler chickens and to study the impact of the C. jejuni inoculation alone or combined with the product, on the caecal microbiota. At day 1, chickens were either fed a control feed or the same diet supplemented with a carvacrol-based product.

Previous studies demonstrate that the leaching of heavy metals in unreliable waste forms causes serious environmental pollution and health concerns. Thus, research is focused on identifying an effective, safe strategy for disposing of metal-laden solid waste such as lead (Pb).

Campylobacter enteritis (En) is the most frequently diagnosed bacterial En worldwide, including in Japan. Campylobacter spp. can also cause bloodstream infection (BSI), reactive arthritis, and Guillain-Barré syndrome. The purpose of this study was to clarify the characteristics of Campylobacter jejuni strains that cause BSI in comparison with En-causing strains.

An electrochemical aptasensing strategy was developed with a novel bioplatform based on a multivariate titanium metal–organic framework, i.e. MTV polyMOF(Ti), to detect zearalenone (ZEN). MTV polyMOF(Ti) was prepared by using mixed linkers of polyether polymer (pbdc-xa or L8, pbdc = poly(1,4-benzenedicarboxylate) and 1,4-benzenedicarboxylic acid (H2bdc or L0) as well as tetrabutyl titanate as nodes (MTV polyMOF(Ti)-L8,0).

Residue profiling was used to determine the degradation curves of four key insecticides registered for use in US tart cherries. Single and multiple application treatment regimens with minimum and maximum seasonal applications were tested for their effects on residue levels at harvest. The effects of the cherry washing procedure were also tested.

Bacillus cereus is a major food poisoning pathogen that generates spores and biofilms, allowing it to survive in varied food systems. This study revealed the incidence, virulence toxin gene profiling, multi-drug resistance of B.

A colorimetric assay based on an enzyme-inhibition strategy is promising for the on-site detection of pesticide residues. Due to the high cost and low stability of enzymes, nanozymes (nanomaterials with enzyme-like activities) are widely developed as substitutes of enzymes. However, the inhibition of pesticides toward enzymes and nanozymes generally lacks selectivity. It is of great significance and challenge to design a specific pesticide assay based on an activity-inhibition strategy.

Hydrolysis, photolysis, and soil degradation are important degradation pathways of pesticides and might generate toxic chemicals and pose threats to the environment. Sulfoxaflor is a widely used neonicotinoid pesticide, but few studies have been conducted to research its environmental behaviors and residues. Herein, the hydrolysis and photolysis of sulfoxaflor in water and degradation in four typical Chinese soils were systematically studied.

by Duarte N. Guerreiro, M. Graciela Pucciarelli, Teresa Tiensuu, Diana Gudynaite, Aoife Boyd, Jörgen Johansson, Francisco García-del Portillo, Conor P. O’Byrne The general stress response (GSR) in Listeria monocytogenes plays a critical role in the survival of this pathogen in the host gastrointestinal tract. The GSR is regulated by the alternative sigma factor B (σB), whose role in protection against acid stress is well established.