Research Publications (Food Safety)

Edible plant oil (EPO) is an indispensable nutritional resource for human health. Various cultivars of oil-bearing plants are grown worldwide, and the chemical compositions of different plant oils are diverse. The extremely complex components in oils lead to diverse standards for evaluating the quality and safety of different EPOs.

Author(s): Balachander Rakesh, Bhavani Shankara Bagepally, Ravibabu Kalahasthi, Madhumitha Haridoss

The branched isomer mixture 4‐nonylphenol (4‐NP) has been used worldwide as a surfactant, and can have endocrine‐disrupting effects on aquatic organisms. For instance, 4‐NP induces the formation of testis‐ova (i.e., testicular and ovarian tissue in the same gonad) or male to female sex reversal of various teleost fishes.

Drug-resistant bacteria infections and drug residues have been increasing and causing antibiotic resistance and public health threats worldwide. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are novel antimicrobial drugs with the potential to solve these problems. Here, a peptide based on our previously studied peptide PMAP-36PW was designed via N-terminal myristoylation and referred to as Myr-36PW.

by Jihyun An, Ha Il Kim, Seheon Chang, Ju Hyun Shim

Backgrounds and aims

Because of the known limitations of ultrasonography (US) alone, we re-evaluated whether complimentary testing for serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) is helpful in surveilling for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in high-risk populations.

Methods

Author(s): Quoc Tuc Dinh, Gabriel Munoz, Sung Vo Duy, Dat Tien Do, Stéphane Bayen, Sébastien Sauvé

Author(s): Yan Chen, Yue Wu, Jie Fu, Qinghan Fan

Candida albicans is the most common cause of fungal infection. The emergence of drug resistance leads to the need for novel antifungal agents. We aimed to design naphthofuranquinone analogs to treat drug-resistant C. albicans for topical application on cutaneous candidiasis. The time-killing response, agar diffusion, and live/dead assay of the antifungal activity were estimated against 5-fluorocytosine (5-FC)- or fluconazole-resistant strains.

ABSTRACT

by Gamal A. M. Abdu-Allah, Keon Mook Seong, Omprakash Mittapalli, James Adebayo Ojo, Weilin Sun, Omar Posos-Parra, David Mota-Sanchez, John M. Clark, Barry R. Pittendrigh

Author(s): Qin Wu, Qiang Zhu, Muhammad Abu Bakr Shabbir, Adeel Sattar, Dapeng Peng, Yanfei Tao, Dongmei Chen, Zonghui Yuan, Yulian Wang

In this study, organic compounds were screened in surface water collected from Xujiahe basin, China by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS). A total of 51 compounds were identified including 14 organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), 9 organophosphorus pesticides (OPs), 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and 12 chlorobenzene (CBs). The concentrations of OCPs, PAHs and CBs were generally low. The concentrations of OCPs in Xujiahe reservoir ranged from N.D.

Ground venison packets from shotgun- and archery-harvested White-tailed Deer in Illinois in 2013 and 2014 were analyzed for metal contamination. Radiographs indicated that 48% of 27 ground venison packets from 10 shotgun-harvested deer contained metal fragments, while none of the 15 packets from three archery-harvested deer contained fragments.

Pesticide-resistant plant pathogens are an increasing threat to the global food supply and have generated a need for novel, efficacious agrochemicals. The current regulatory process for approving new agrochemicals is a tedious but necessary process. One way to accelerate the safety evaluation process is to utilize in vitro systems to demonstrate pesticide degradation by soil microbes prior to ex vivo soil evaluations.

ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT

Smoking is an excellent food preservation method but also a source of contamination of foodstuffs with carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Herein we investigated the influence of smoking temperature, smoking time, and type of wood sawdust used as smoke source on PAH levels attained through controlled smoking of pork sausages. Four PAHs (benz[a]anthracene, chrysene, benzo[b]fluoranthene, benzo[a]pyrene) were monitored, as required by European Commission Regulation 835/2011.

A green, sensitive and accurate dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (DLLME) method was used to preconcentrate four selected pesticides in dam lake water samples for determination by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). Conditions of the DLLME method were comprehensively investigated and optimized according to type/volume of extraction solvent, type/volume of dispersive solvent, and type/period of mixing.

Fosfomycin and nitrofurantoin are antibiotics of choice to orally treat non-complicated urinary tract infections (UTIs) of community origin because they remain active against bacteria resistant to other antibiotics. However, epidemiologic surveillance studies have detected a reduced susceptibility to these drugs.

Author(s): Jun Wu, Huaizheng Li, Jin Zhang, Yang Gu, Xinyu Zhou, Dong Zhang, Yan Ma, Shijing Wang, Xingyu Nian, Wei Jin, Ruifei Li, Zuxin Xu

Author(s): Eunice Konadu Asamoah, Francis Kofi Ewusie Nunoo, Samuel Addo, Josephine O. Nyarko, Grethe Hyldig

ABSTRACT

The uncontrolled use of pesticides on leafy vegetables has been frequently reported in recent years. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of pH, total acidity and various technological processes for the preparation of babenda on pesticide residues contained in leafy vegetable. The "babenda" is a Burkinabè dish consisting mainly of Hibiscus sabdariffa, Amaranthus hybridus and Cleome gynandra coarsely cut from steamed rice.

Author(s): Lijuan Sun, Xueying Cao, Changyin Tan, Yueqiang Deng, Runzhong Cai, Xi Peng, Jia Bai

Author(s): Jing-Fang Cai, Li Zhang, Yu Zhang, Ming-Xiang Zhang, Hong-Li Li, Hui-Juan Xia, Wei-Jing Kong, Fei-Hai Yu