Publications by authors named "Jesmond Sammut"

Article Synopsis
  • Accurate food labeling is crucial for consumers with shellfish allergies, given the prevalence of shellfish ingredients in food products.
  • Most detection methods focus on the allergenic protein tropomyosin, but its effectiveness can vary based on the shrimp's origin.
  • This study found significant differences in allergen profiles of Black Tiger Shrimp from different Asia-Pacific locations, indicating that shrimp origin can influence the detection of allergens in commercial tests.
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Seafood elemental profiling (SEP) is the quantification of a range of elements in seafood products and may serve in addressing questions of seafood provenance and quality. Traditional methods for analyzing soft tissue present several limitations for the industry-level use of SEP. Portable handheld X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) analysis is a promising alternative to conventional methods; however, its application for biological analysis has not been fully established.

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As the demand for seafood increases, so does the incidence of seafood fraud. Confirming provenance of seafood is important to combat fraudulent labelling but requires a database that contains the isotopic and elemental "fingerprints" of authentic seafood samples. Local isotopic and elemental databases can be scaled up or combined with other databases to increase the spatial and species coverage to create a larger database.

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Choline plays a crucial role in lipid metabolism for fish, and its deficiency in aquafeed has been linked to compromised health and growth performance. A 56-d experiment was conducted to examine the effects of dietary choline on lipid composition, histology and plasma biochemistry of yellowtail kingfish (Seriola lalandi; YTK; 156 g initial body weight). The dietary choline content ranged from 0·59 to 6·22 g/kg diet.

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Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus is the third most commonly farmed finfish species in the world, accounting for nearly 5% of global aquaculture production. In the past few decades much of the success of this species has been attributed to the development and distribution of Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia (GIFT). Despite the increasing availability of GIFT, the productivity of small-scale farming remains highly variable, particularly in developing nations.

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Aquatic ecosystems are used for extensive rice-shrimp culture where the available water alternates seasonally between fresh and saline. Poor water quality has been implicated as a risk factor for shrimp survival; however, links between shrimp, water quality and their main food source, the natural aquatic biota inhabiting these ponds, are less well understood. We examined the aquatic biota and water quality of three ponds over an entire year in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, where the growing season for the marine shrimp Penaeus monodon has been extended into the wet season, when waters freshen.

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Determination of the elemental composition of soft biological tissue is a time-consuming and tedious process when using traditional analytical techniques. In this method, micro X-ray fluorescence (μXRF) via Itrax, a scanning instrument, was used to determine elemental abundance at a resolution of 200 μm. Itrax μXRF was initially designed for elemental profiling of geological cores, and the capability of this technique was extended to soft biological tissue samples.

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The discovery of dissolved arsenic in a coastal aquifer used extensively for human consumption has led to widespread concern for its potential occurrence in other sandy coastal environments in eastern Australia. The development of an aquifer specific geomorphic model (herein) suggests that arsenic is regionally derived from erosion of arsenic-rich stibnite (Sb(2)S(3)) mineralisation present in the hinterland. Fluvial processes have transported the eroded material over time to deposit an aquifer lithology elevated in arsenic.

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