Isolation and identification of the spoilage microorganisms in Sichuan homemade Paocai and their impact on quality and safety.

The spoilage microbiology in Paocai (fermented vegetables) affects not only the quality of this popular traditional Chinese food but also its safety. This study aimed to isolate and identify the microorganisms commonly leading to spoilage in homemade Paocai from the Sichuan region and, further, to scientifically assess the impact of these microorganisms on product quality and safety. Seven putrid Paocai samples were collected from 7 families in different Sichuan cities.

A rapid evaluation of acute hydrogen sulfide poisoning in blood based on DNA-Cu/Ag nanocluster fluorescence probe.

Hydrogen sulfide (HS) is a highly toxic gas as a cause of inhalational death. Accurate detection of HS poisoning concentration is valuable and vital for forensic workers to estimate the cause of death. But so far, it is no uniform and reliable standard method to measure sulfide concentrations in HS poisoning blood for forensic identification.

Evaluation of Intestinal Function in Children With Autism and Gastrointestinal Symptoms.

Objective: Alterations in intestinal function, often characterized as a "leaky gut," have been attributed to children who are on the autism spectrum. Disaccharidase activity, intestinal inflammation, and permeability were analyzed in 61 children with autism and 50 nonautistic individuals with gastrointestinal symptoms.

Methods: All patients had duodenal biopsies assayed for lactase, sucrase, maltase, and palatinase activity.

Utilization of major fucosylated and sialylated human milk oligosaccharides by isolated human gut microbes.

Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOS) are not digested in the proximal intestine. In distal intestine, HMOS collectively modify the microbiota, but the response of individual bacteria to individual components of the HMOS is not well defined. Here, each of 25 major isolates of the human intestinal microbiota was fed individual major fucosylated and sialylated HMOS in anaerobic culture.

Quantification of neutral human milk oligosaccharides by graphitic carbon high-performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry.

Defining the biological roles of human milk oligosaccharides (HMOS) requires an efficient, simple, reliable, and robust analytical method for simultaneous quantification of oligosaccharide profiles from multiple samples. The HMOS fraction of milk is a complex mixture of polar, highly branched, isomeric structures that contain no intrinsic facile chromophore, making their resolution and quantification challenging. A liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) method was devised to resolve and quantify 11 major neutral oligosaccharides of human milk simultaneously.

The principal fucosylated oligosaccharides of human milk exhibit prebiotic properties on cultured infant microbiota.

Breast-fed infant microbiota is typically rich in bifidobacteria. Herein, major human milk oligosaccharides (HMOS) are assessed for their ability to promote the growth of bifidobacteria and to acidify their environment, key features of prebiotics. During in vitro anaerobic fermentation of infant microbiota, supplementation by HMOS significantly decreased the pH even greater than supplementation by fructooligosaccharide (FOS), a prebiotic positive control.

Human milk mucin 1 and mucin 4 inhibit Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium invasion of human intestinal epithelial cells in vitro.

Many human milk glycans inhibit pathogen binding to host receptors and their consumption by infants is associated with reduced risk of disease. Salmonella infection is more frequent among infants than among the general population, but the incidence is lower in breast-fed babies, suggesting that human milk could contain components that inhibit Salmonella. This study aimed to test whether human milk per se inhibits Salmonella invasion of human intestinal epithelial cells in vitro and, if so, to identify the milk components responsible for inhibition.

Site-selective, cleavable linkers: quality control and the characterization of small molecules on microelectrode arrays.

A "safety-catch" linker strategy has been used to release a portion of the products of a Diels-Alder reaction conducted on a microelectrode array for characterization of stereochemistry. The attachment and cleavage of organic compounds from the surface of selected electrodes in the array can be accomplished by site-selective generation of base or acid at the electrode. It was found that the surface of the array had a minor influence on the stereochemistry of the Diels-Alder reaction, leading to slightly more of the exo-product relative to a similar solution-phase reaction.

Effects of recombinant human prolactin on breast milk composition.

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the impact of recombinant human prolactin (r-hPRL) on the nutritional and immunologic composition of breast milk.

Methods: We conducted 2 trials of r-hPRL treatment. In the first study, mothers with documented prolactin deficiency were given r-hPRL every 12 hours in a 28-day, open-label trial.

Building addressable libraries: The use of a mass spectrometry cleavable linker for monitoring reactions on a microelectrode array.

Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF SIMS) has been used in conjunction with a mass spectrometry cleavable linker to determine the percent conversion of reactions that were conducted site-selectively on an addressable microelectrode array. When combined with fluorescence techniques for analysis of the reactions, the TOF SIMS experiment provides a means for optimization of both reaction confinement and reaction efficiency on the microelectrode arrays.