Research Publications (Food Safety)

Author(s): Xinrui Lv, Xiaokui Gu, Li Wang, Xiaoxin He, Chunai He, Jingfeng Zhang, Lichao Zhao

Tobacco readily accumulates cadmium (Cd), an unnecessary and poisonous element. A total of 107 soil and tobacco leaf samples were collected from South China, to clarify the quantitative relationship between soil properties and Cd content in tobacco leaves. The results showed that 86.9% of the total sampling points had soil cadmium in excess of standard value, and the ratio of active Cd content to total soil Cd content was 24.0%. The enrichment factor of tobacco Cd was 3.43.

One hundred and twenty samples of breast milk were collected from five northern governorates and districts in Jordan in 2019 and 2020 to monitor results for organochlorine pesticides as organic contaminants. The results showed that 36 samples (30%) of total 120 analyzed samples were contaminated as follows: 16 samples (13.3%) were contaminated with dieldrin, 4 samples (3.3%) with p,p′-DDE, 4 samples (3.3%) with p,p′-DDD, 8 samples (6.7%) with p,p′-DDT and 4 samples (3.3%) with o,p′-DDE.

We aimed to compare the percentage of explained variance given by the relationship of species and functional groups of metazoan parasites of the dusky flounder Syacium papillosum and environmental variables from water and sediments in the Yucatan shelf (YS). Parasite data were obtained from 127 S. papillosum specimens collected from 17 of 67 stations.

Abstract

The emergence of bacterial resistance to traditional small-molecule antibiotics is fueling the search for innovative strategies to treat infections. Inhibiting the expression of essential bacterial genes using antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs), particularly composed of nucleic acid mimics (NAMs), has emerged as a promising strategy. However, their efficiency depends on their association with vectors that can translocate the bacterial envelope.

Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in soil are considered to represent one of the largest environmental resistomes on our planet. As these genes can potentially be disseminated among microorganisms via horizontal gene transfer (HGT) and in some cases are acquired by clinical pathogens, knowledge about their diversity, mobility and encoded resistance spectra gained increasing public attention.

The genome characterization of the Lactiplantibacillus plantarum strain UTNGt2, isolated from wild copoazu or white cacao (Theobroma grandiflorum), is described. A total of 31 contigs is assembled with a total length of 3,264,448 bases, with all contigs matching the core genome of different groups in the database. The genome size is 3,540,752 bases with GC content of 44.53% and the genome repeat sequences constitute around 457,386 bases of the assembly.

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of A. baumannii antibiotic-resistant strains in Kazakhstan and to characterize genotypes related to epidemic “high-risk” clones. Two hundred and twenty four A. baumannii isolates from four cities of Kazakhstan in 2011–2019 were studied. Antibiotic susceptibility testing was performed by using broth microdilutions method according to EUCAST (v 11.0) recommendations.

Letters in Applied Microbiology, Accepted Article. Jogaejeot, seasoned Venerupis philippinarum, is a traditional Korean fermented food, and hepatitis A virus (HAV) can be transmitted through contaminated food, especially bivalve shellfish, causing acute gastroenteritis worldwide. Here, we carried out a phylogenetic analysis to identify and characterize HAV strains in jogaejeot samples associated with hepatitis A (HA) outbreaks in Seoul, South Korea, in 2019.

Journal of Applied Microbiology, Accepted Article. Aim
The aim of this study was to develop a saltatory rolling circle amplification (SRCA) assay for rapid, simple and visual detection of Salmonella in meat.

Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, EarlyView. Consumers’ preference to have a healthy eating pattern has led to an increasing demand for more nutrient‐dense and healthier plant‐based foods. Pulse proteins are exceptional quality ingredients with potential nutritional benefits, and might act as health‐promoting agents for addressing the new‐generation foods.

Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, EarlyView. Pulse crops have received growing attention from the agri‐food sector because they can provide advantageous health benefits and offer a promising source of starch and protein. Pea, lentil, and faba bean are the three leading pulse crops utilized for extracting protein concentrate/isolate in food industry, which simultaneously generates a rising volume of pulse starch as a co‐product.

International Journal of Food Science & Technology, Accepted Article. Millets of different types like Barnyard (Echinochloa utilis), Finger (Eleusine coracana), Foxtail (Setaria italic), Kodo (Paspalum setaceum) Little (Panicum sumatrense), Pearl (Pennisetum glaucum), Proso millets (Penicum miliaceum) are staple foods for Indian and African diets. The germination, fungal and microbial contamination leads to post harvest losses mainly due to poor warehouse storage in Asia and Africa.

Author(s): Cong Shen, Furong Ma, Suiyan Deng, Lan-Lan Zhong, Mohamed Abd El-Gawad El-Sayed Ahmed, Guili Zhang, Bin Yan, Min Dai, Fan Yang, Yong Xia, Guo-Bao Tian

Background
Previous studies reported the prevalence of mcr-1 among clinical infected Salmonella isolates in China. However, the transmission dynamics of mcr-1 in different ecological niches were not well investigated. Our objective is to exhibit the transmission dynamics of mcr-1 in Salmonella.

Author(s): Lin Li, Rui Li, Caili Qi, Haixia Gao, Qiling Wei, Lei Tan, Feifei Sun

Author(s): Vahideh Mahdavi, Arnavaz Keikavousi Behbahan, Gholamreza Golmohammadi, Behrouz Tajdar, Zahra Eslami, Amin Mousavi Khaneghah

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are ubiquitous pollutants having health hazards. PAH-utilizing bacterial strains were isolated from petroleum-contaminated soil from siding area, Bijwasan supply location of BPCL, Delhi, India. Bacterial strains with different morphology were isolated and acclimatized to a mixture of low molecular weight PAH compounds in the concentration range of 50–10,000 mg/L.

A bacterial strain ODT-83 is isolated from oysters, which is capable of adsorbing norovirus (NoV) via histo-blood group antigen-like (HBGA-like) substances. To better understand its genetic background associated with the production of HBGA-like substances, the genome of the ODT-83 was completely sequenced and analyzed. The ODT-83 only contains one circular chromosome, with a length of 5,384,159 bp.

Food allergy has become one of the food safety issues in the world. As a common source of food allergy, soybean poses a dietary risk to allergic individuals due to the presence of β-conglycinin, a main allergenic protein in soybean. Therefore, an efficient and sensitive detection method using highly specific antibody materials is necessary for the detection of allergens.

With the drying process, the water activity and moisture content of the foods are reduced, so the growth of microorganisms in the foods is largely prevented/postponed. But low-aw foods should not be considered sterile they can be contaminated by fungi and other contaminants during the drying process under unhygienic conditions.

Environmental health is a critical concern, continuously contaminated by physical and biological components (viz., anthropogenic activity), which adversely affect on biodiversity, ecosystems and human health. Nonetheless, environmental pollution has great impact on microbial communities, especially bacteria, which try to evolve in changing environment. For instance, during the course of adaptation, bacteria easily become resistance to antibiotics and heavy metals.

In this study, eighteen 3.30-m-long sediment profiles were sampled in Maozhou River. In order to investigate the sediment pollution status and potential sources of heavy metals, we performed heavy metal contents, grain size, organic matter concentration, moisture concentration and total phosphorus analysis, and assessed the ecological risk of heavy metal pollution in the study area using enrichment coefficient, geo-accumulation index and potential ecological risk index.

Author(s): Shang Wu, Yang Yang, Tingwei Wang, Jiadi Sun, Yinzhi Zhang, Jian Ji, Xiulan Sun

Author(s): Renpeng Li, Jing Wang, Lu Wang, Bin Hu, Zongdong Liu, Na Sun, Ying Yang, Song Miao, Xi Guo