Research Publications (Food Safety)

The clinical management of bacterial biofilm infections represents an enormous challenge in today’s healthcare setting. The NIH estimates that 65% of bacterial infections are biofilm-related, and therapeutic outcomes are positively correlated with early intervention. Currently, there is no reliable imaging technique to detect biofilm infections in vivo, and current clinical protocols for accurate and direct biofilm identification are nonexistent.

Biochars from Chinese medicine material residues and furfural residues at 300–600 °C (MBC300–MBC600 and FBC300–FBC600) were used as adsorbents for removing tetracycline (TC) from water. The influence of pH and co-existing of cations or low molecular weight organic acids (LMWOAs) was investigated on TC adsorption. Further, the bulk biochars were treated by ball milling into sub-micron particles, and their properties and adsorption performance toward TC were also characterized.

Establishing latent infection but retaining the capability to reactivate in certain circumstance is an ingenious tactic for retroviruses to persist in vivo while evading host immune surveillance. Many evidences indicate that Human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is not completely silent in vivo. However, signals that trigger HTLV-1 latency-reactivation switching remain poorly understood.

Author(s): Aoi Takama, Hiroko Matsubara, Seon Hwa Lee, Tomoyuki Oe

Author(s): Xuejing Wen, Yu Ding, Zilong Tan, Jingxin Wang, Daoyuan Zhang, Yucheng Wang

The results of the Multi-Purpose Geochemical Survey in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) show that the pollution is serious. In this study, the influence of geological genesis, soil-forming process, and human activities on soil quality in PRD is analyzed, and the influence factors, genesis and spatial distributional characteristics of cadmium (Cd) in different soil depths are studied by inverse distance weighted (IDW) and hot spot analysis.

Even though silver and silver nanoparticles at low concentrations are considered safe for human health, their steadily increasing use and associated release in nature is not without risk since it may result in the selection of silver-resistant microorganisms, thus impeding the utilization of silver as antimicrobial agent. Furthermore, increased resistance to metals may be accompanied by increased antibiotic resistance.

Toxic heavy metals and metalloids in agricultural ecosystems are crucial factors that limit global crop productivity and food safety. Industrial toxic heavy metals and metalloids such as cadmium, lead, and arsenic have contaminated large areas of arable land in the world and their accumulation in the edible parts of crops is causing serious health risks to humans and animals. Plants have co-evolved with various concentrations of these toxic metals and metalloids in soil and water.

Wheat productivity has been significantly improved worldwide through the incorporation of novel genes from various gene pools, not least from wild relatives of wheat, into the commonly cultivated bread and durum wheat. Here, we present and summarize results obtained from a diverse set of wheat-alien introgression lines with mainly introgressions of rye, but also of Leymus spp. and Thinopyrum junceiforme into bread-wheat (Triticum aestivum L.).

Marbofloxacin (MBF) is a key class of synthetic fluoroquinolone antibiotic that is commonly used as a veterinary drug. However, excess residue of MBF in animal-derived food samples, such as milk, is harmful to consumers. In this study, 4 mAb against MBF, namely, M4E3, M7A6, M3C7, and M5C6, were produced.

Author(s): Marziyeh Heidari, Kamal Ghanemi, Yadollah Nikpour

Author(s): Shuying Geng, Wei Cao, Jing Yuan, Yingying Wang, Yanqing Guo, Aizhong Ding, Yi Zhu, Junfeng Dou

Author(s): Fang Huang, Hong Zhou, Jiaofeng Gu, Canyang Liu, Wenjun Yang, Bohan Liao, Hang Zhou

Whey protein-based supplements are one of the most consumed products to improve performance, and they are, generally, recognized as being safe. However, recent studies indicated different types of adulterations in these products, including the presence of diuretics and stimulants, allowing the possibility of contamination by other substances with pharmacological activities, such as anabolic agents.

For plant growth, cadmium (Cd) is a toxic and easily accumulated element but silicon (Si) is beneficial. To explore the alleviating effect of Si on Cd toxicity to plants in Cd-contaminated calcareous soil, the effect of Si on Cd absorption was investigated for cucumber organs in pot experiments. The Cd concentration of cucumber organs using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer.

The concentrations of heavy metal (copper (Cu), mercury (Hg), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), and zinc (Zn)) were measured in Acer(A.) pseudoplatanus tree bark to evaluate its suitability as a bioindicator of air pollution in downtown Toronto, Canada.

Lead (Pb) is one of several environmental pollutants that adversely affect human health by producing toxicity at the tissue level. The aim of the study was to understand the effects of Pb on the metabolic profiles of liver and gastrocnemius muscle of mice in relation to carbohydrate and fat metabolisms. Swiss albino mice were chosen and divided into two groups, control and Pb-treated.

by Jones A. Kapeleka, Elingarami Sauli, Omowunmi Sadik, Patrick A. Ndakidemi

Global pollution of mercury (Hg) threatens ecosystem and human health. We measured total Hg (THg) and monomethylmercury (MMHg) concentrations in filter-feeding blackfly (Simulium spp.) larvae in the inflows and the outflows of six boreal lakes with no Hg point source pollution. THg in the larvae ranged from 0.03 to 0.31 mg kg−1 dw and MMHg between 0.02 and 0.25 mg kg−1 dw.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are among the most persistent xenobiotic compounds, with high toxicity effects. Mycoremediation with halophilic Aspergillus sydowii was used for their removal from a hypersaline medium (1 M NaCl). A. sydowii used PAHs as sole carbon sources, resulting in the removal of up to 90% for both PAHs (benzo [a] pyrene (BaP) and phenanthrene (Phe)) after 10 days.

The relationship between urinary β2‐microglobulin (β2‐MG) and the risk of all‐cause mortality and cause‐specific mortality in a cadmium (Cd)‐polluted area was investigated in 3139 inhabitants (1404 men and 1735 women) of the Kakehashi River basin in Japan at 35‐year follow‐up. The subjects had been participants in the 1981–1982 health impact survey that assessed Cd‐induced renal dysfunction, as measured by the urinary β2‐MG concentration.

Although most point sources of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), are at lower latitudes, the Arctic region is contaminated. In particular, PAHs now dominate the POP body burden of the region’s marine biota at the lower trophic levels. Greenlandic Inuits have the most elevated levels of POPs in their blood compared to any other population, due to their consumption of seal meat and other marine mammals.

Biodegradation of phenol using bacteria is recognized as an efficient, environmentally friendly and cost-effective approach for reducing phenol pollutants compared to the current conventional physicochemical processes adopted. A potential phenol degrading bacterial strain Glutamicibacter nicotianae MSSRFPD35 was isolated and identified from Canna indica rhizosphere grown in distillery effluent contaminated sites.

Chronic stress has been widely proposed to increase systemic inflammation, a pathway that may link stress with a heightened risk for many diseases. The chronic stress–inflammation relationship has been challenging to study in humans, however, and family caregiving has been identified as one type of stressful situation that might lead...

Toxicants such as organochlorine insecticides, lead ammunition, and veterinary drugs have caused severe wildlife poisoning, pushing the populations of several apex species to the edge of extinction. These prime cases epitomize the serious threat that wildlife poisoning poses to biodiversity. Much of the evidence on population effects of wildlife poisoning...