Solid-in-Oil-in-Water Emulsions for Delivery of Lactase To Control <i>in Vitro</i> Hydrolysis of Lactose in Milk

There is an established need to deliver lactase in milk to retain activity during storage and hydrolyze lactose after ingestion. In this work, spray-dried lactase powder was encapsulated in solid-in-oil-in-water (S/O/W) emulsions to fabricate delivery systems. The adoption of Span 80 in milk fat and lecithin in protein solution enabled the encapsulation of ∼76% lactase and <400 nm droplets. Additional cross-linking of proteins on droplets by transglutaminase and addition of sodium caseinate effectively reduced the amount of free lactase after spray drying emulsions. Compared to the data for free lactase, encapsulation significantly improved the thermal stability of lactase, reduced the level of lactose hydrolysis during a 14 day refrigeration (from ∼70 to <20%), enabled the gradual release of lactose during the simulated gastric and intestinal digestions, and resulted in the hydrolysis of most lactose during the simulated digestions. Therefore, the studied S/O/W emulsions have the potential to deliver lactase in milk for lactose-intolerant consumers

Table_1_Global patterns of plant and microbial biomass in response to CO2 fumigation.XLS

IntroductionThe stimulation of plant and microbial growth has been widely observed as a result of elevated CO2 concentrations (eCO2), however, this stimulation could be influenced by various factors and their relative importance remains unclear.MethodsA global meta-analysis was performed using 884 lines of observations collected from published papers, which analyzed the eCO2 impact on plant and microbial biomass.ResultsA significant positive impact of eCO2 was observed on various biomass measures, including aboveground biomass (20.5%), belowground biomass (42.6%), soil microbial biomass (10.4%), fungal biomass (11.0%), and bacterial biomass (9.2%). It was found that eCO2 levels above 200 ppm had a greater impact on plant biomass compared to concentrations at or below 200 ppm. On the other hand, studies showed that positive effects on microbial biomass were more prominent at lower eCO2 levels (≤200 ppm) than at higher levels (>200 ppm), which could be explained by soil nitrogen limitations. Importantly, our results indicated that aboveground biomass was controlled more by climatic and experimental conditions, while soil properties strongly impacted the stimulation of belowground and microbial biomass.DiscussionOur results provided evidence of the eCO2 fertilization effect across various ecosystem types, experimental methods, and climates, and provided a quantitative estimate of plant and soil microbial biomass sensitivity to eCO2. The results obtained in this study suggest that ecosystem models should consider climatic and edaphic factors to more accurately predict the effects of global climate change and their impact on ecosystem functions.</p

Spruce distribution and climate data

Spruce distribution and climate data (LAN, latitude; LON, longitude; AL, altitude) and climatic variables for the 10 spruce taxa. MAT, mean annual air temperature; TCM, mean temperature of the coldest month; TWM, mean temperature of the warmest month; GDD5, growing degree days on a 5˚ C basis; GDD0, growing degree days on a 0˚ C basis; MAP, mean annual precipitation; AET, actual evapotranspiration; PET, potential evapotranspiration; α (AET/PET), aridity index

Sequences used for 10 spruce species in China

Source information and GenBank accession numbers all sequences used for 10 spruce species in China

Extremely Abundant Antimicrobial Peptides Existed in the Skins of Nine Kinds of Chinese Odorous Frogs

Peptide agents are regarded as hopeful candidates to solve life-threatening resistance of pathogenic microorganisms to classic antibiotics due to their unique action mechanisms. Peptidomic and genomic investigation of natural antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) from amphibian skin secretions can provide a large amount of structure–functional information to design peptide antibiotics with therapeutic potential. In the present study, we identified a large number of AMPs from the skins of nine kinds of Chinese odorous frogs. Eighty AMPs were purified from three different odorous frogs and confirmed by peptidomic analysis. Our results indicated that post-translational modification of AMPs rarely happened in odorous frogs. cDNAs encoding precursors of 728 AMPs, including all the precursors of the confirmed 80 native peptides, were cloned from the constructed AMP cDNA libraries of nine Chinese odorous frogs. On the basis of the sequence similarity of deduced mature peptides, these 728 AMPs were grouped into 97 different families in which 71 novel families were identified. Out of these 728 AMPs, 662 AMPs were novel and 28 AMPs were reported previously in other frog species. Our results revealed that identical AMPs were widely distributed in odorous frogs; 49 presently identified AMPs could find their identical molecules in different amphibian species. Purified peptides showed strong antimicrobial activities against 4 tested microbe strains. Twenty-three deduced peptides were synthesized and their bioactivities, including antimicrobial, antioxidant, hemolytic, immunomodulatory and insulin-releasing activities, were evaluated. Our findings demonstrate the extreme diversity of AMPs in amphibian skins and provide plenty of templates to develop novel peptide antibiotics

Crystal Nucleation and Crystal Growth and Mass Transfer in Internally Mixed Sucrose/NaNO₃ Particles

Secondary organic aerosols (SOA) can exist in a glassy or semisolid state under low relative humidity (RH) conditions, in which the particles show nonequilibrium kinetic characteristics with changing ambient RH. Here, we selected internally mixed sucrose/NaNO₃ droplets with organic to inorganic molar ratios (OIRs) of 1:8, 1:4, 1:2, and 1:1 as a proxy for multicomponent ambient aerosols to study crystal nucleation and growth processes and water transport under a highly viscous state with the combination of an RH-controlling system and a vacuum Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer. The initial efflorescence RH (ERH) of NaNO₃ decreased from ∼45% for pure NaNO₃ droplets to ∼38.6 and ∼37.9% for the 1:8 and 1:4 sucrose/NaNO₃ droplets, respectively, while no crystallization of NaNO₃ occurred for the 1:2 and 1:1 droplets in the whole RH range. Thus, the addition of sucrose delayed the ERH and even completely inhibited nucleation of NaNO₃ in the mixed droplets. In addition, the crystal growth of NaNO₃ was suppressed in the 1:4 and 1:8 droplets most likely due to the slow diffusion of Na⁺ and NO₃^‑ ions at low RH. Water uptake/release of sucrose/NaNO₃ particles quickly arrived at equilibrium at high RH, while the hygroscopic process was kinetically controlled under low RH. The half-time ratio between the liquid water content and the RH was used to describe the mass transfer behavior. For the 1:1 droplets, no mass limitation was observed with the ratio approaching to 1 when the RH was higher than 53%. The ratio increased 1 order of magnitude under an ultraviscous state with RH ranging from 53 to 15% and increased a further 1 order of magnitude at RH < 15% under a glassy state

Extremely Abundant Antimicrobial Peptides Existed in the Skins of Nine Kinds of Chinese Odorous Frogs

Peptide agents are regarded as hopeful candidates to solve life-threatening resistance of pathogenic microorganisms to classic antibiotics due to their unique action mechanisms. Peptidomic and genomic investigation of natural antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) from amphibian skin secretions can provide a large amount of structure–functional information to design peptide antibiotics with therapeutic potential. In the present study, we identified a large number of AMPs from the skins of nine kinds of Chinese odorous frogs. Eighty AMPs were purified from three different odorous frogs and confirmed by peptidomic analysis. Our results indicated that post-translational modification of AMPs rarely happened in odorous frogs. cDNAs encoding precursors of 728 AMPs, including all the precursors of the confirmed 80 native peptides, were cloned from the constructed AMP cDNA libraries of nine Chinese odorous frogs. On the basis of the sequence similarity of deduced mature peptides, these 728 AMPs were grouped into 97 different families in which 71 novel families were identified. Out of these 728 AMPs, 662 AMPs were novel and 28 AMPs were reported previously in other frog species. Our results revealed that identical AMPs were widely distributed in odorous frogs; 49 presently identified AMPs could find their identical molecules in different amphibian species. Purified peptides showed strong antimicrobial activities against 4 tested microbe strains. Twenty-three deduced peptides were synthesized and their bioactivities, including antimicrobial, antioxidant, hemolytic, immunomodulatory and insulin-releasing activities, were evaluated. Our findings demonstrate the extreme diversity of AMPs in amphibian skins and provide plenty of templates to develop novel peptide antibiotics

Extremely Abundant Antimicrobial Peptides Existed in the Skins of Nine Kinds of Chinese Odorous Frogs

Peptide agents are regarded as hopeful candidates to solve life-threatening resistance of pathogenic microorganisms to classic antibiotics due to their unique action mechanisms. Peptidomic and genomic investigation of natural antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) from amphibian skin secretions can provide a large amount of structure–functional information to design peptide antibiotics with therapeutic potential. In the present study, we identified a large number of AMPs from the skins of nine kinds of Chinese odorous frogs. Eighty AMPs were purified from three different odorous frogs and confirmed by peptidomic analysis. Our results indicated that post-translational modification of AMPs rarely happened in odorous frogs. cDNAs encoding precursors of 728 AMPs, including all the precursors of the confirmed 80 native peptides, were cloned from the constructed AMP cDNA libraries of nine Chinese odorous frogs. On the basis of the sequence similarity of deduced mature peptides, these 728 AMPs were grouped into 97 different families in which 71 novel families were identified. Out of these 728 AMPs, 662 AMPs were novel and 28 AMPs were reported previously in other frog species. Our results revealed that identical AMPs were widely distributed in odorous frogs; 49 presently identified AMPs could find their identical molecules in different amphibian species. Purified peptides showed strong antimicrobial activities against 4 tested microbe strains. Twenty-three deduced peptides were synthesized and their bioactivities, including antimicrobial, antioxidant, hemolytic, immunomodulatory and insulin-releasing activities, were evaluated. Our findings demonstrate the extreme diversity of AMPs in amphibian skins and provide plenty of templates to develop novel peptide antibiotics

Paper Spray Ionization of Noncovalent Protein Complexes

Paper spray (PS) ionization, an ambient ionization method, has previously been explored as a direct and fast method for mass spectrometric analysis of complex mixtures. It has been applied to the analysis of a wide variety of compounds, mostly small molecules. The work reported here extends the application of PS ionization to noncovalent protein complexes on an ion mobility tandem mass spectrometer. Similar mass spectra for protein complexes were obtained by PS ionization and nanoflow electrospray ionization (nESI), indicating that intact protein complexes can be preserved in PS ionization. In addition, collisional cross sections measured by ion mobility provide evidence that the protein assemblies may remain compact by PS ionization. With PS, it is possible to detect hemoglobin tetramer from a blood sample with minimal sample preparation. This is the first report to show that PS ionization is a promising ionization method for nonconvalent protein complexes

The numerical verification of (21), the expectation of in Theorem 1.

<p>The number of samples is chose as . In the vertically up direction, is decreasing following respectively; whereas corresponds to a increasing trend in the horizontally right direction, following respectively. It shows a good agreement between the simulation result (circles) and the theoretical computation (solid lines) in each subplot. As a reference, the contamination-free version (49) is also posted together (see dashed curves).</p