EFFECT OF ENTEROCOCCUS DURANS BACTERIOCIN ON BACTERIAL WILT AGENT

Effect of a bacteriocin produced by Enterococcus durans A5-11 on growth of Ralstonia solanacearum strains and their ability to cause wilt in tomatoes was investigated. Among tested phytopathogenic strains, 33% were sensitive and inhibited as it was shown after spotting bacteriocin on Ralstonia lawns. Minimal inhibitory concentrations and sizes of lysis or inhibition zones varied depending on the strain used for study. The same differences were evidenced for the effect of the bacteriocin on Ralstonia in a liquid medium and when inoculating Lycopersicon esculentum Mill test plants. Treatment of plant roots with the bacteriocin of E. durans A5-11 simultaneously with inoculation with bacteria of a highly susceptible strain R. solanacearum 6189 resulted in diminished number of wilted tomatoes

Enhanced Syllable Discrimination Thresholds in Musicians

Speech processing inherently relies on the perception of specific, rapidly changing spectral and temporal acoustic features. Advanced acoustic perception is also integral to musical expertise, and accordingly several studies have demonstrated a significant relationship between musical training and superior processing of various aspects of speech. Speech and music appear to overlap in spectral and temporal features; however, it remains unclear which of these acoustic features, crucial for speech processing, are most closely associated with musical training. The present study examined the perceptual acuity of musicians to the acoustic components of speech necessary for intra-phonemic discrimination of synthetic syllables. We compared musicians and non-musicians on discrimination thresholds of three synthetic speech syllable continua that varied in their spectral and temporal discrimination demands, specifically voice onset time (VOT) and amplitude envelope cues in the temporal domain. Musicians demonstrated superior discrimination only for syllables that required resolution of temporal cues. Furthermore, performance on the temporal syllable continua positively correlated with the length and intensity of musical training. These findings support one potential mechanism by which musical training may selectively enhance speech perception, namely by reinforcing temporal acuity and/or perception of amplitude rise time, and implications for the translation of musical training to long-term linguistic abilities.Grammy FoundationWilliam F. Milton Fun

Faster maturation of selective attention in musically trained children and adolescents : Converging behavioral and event-related potential evidence

Previous work suggests that musical training in childhood is associated with enhanced executive functions. However, it is unknown whether this advantage extends to selective attention-another central aspect of executive control. We recorded a well-established event-related potential (ERP) marker of distraction, the P3a, during an audio-visual task to investigate the maturation of selective attention in musically trained children and adolescents aged 10-17 years and a control group of untrained peers. The task required categorization of visual stimuli, while a sequence of standard sounds and distracting novel sounds were presented in the background. The music group outperformed the control group in the categorization task and the younger children in the music group showed a smaller P3a to the distracting novel sounds than their peers in the control group. Also, a negative response elicited by the novel sounds in the N1/MMN time range (similar to 150-200 ms) was smaller in the music group. These results indicate that the music group was less easily distracted by the task-irrelevant sound stimulation and gated the neural processing of the novel sounds more efficiently than the control group. Furthermore, we replicated our previous finding that, relative to the control group, the musically trained children and adolescents performed faster in standardized tests for inhibition and set shifting. These results provide novel converging behavioral and electrophysiological evidence from a cross-modal paradigm for accelerated maturation of selective attention in musically trained children and adolescents and corroborate the association between musical training and enhanced inhibition and set shifting.Peer reviewe

Novel possibilities of processing of beta-casein with engineered trypsin

International audienc

Interfacial properties of glycated ß-lactoglobulin

International audienc

Interfacial properties of glycated ß-lactoglobulin

International audienc

Functional properties of enterococcus faecalis isolated from colostrum drawn from thai mothers

International audienceColostrum from Thai mothers who went through vaginal delivery is an abundant source of antibacterial lactic acid bacteria (LAB). Twenty-two strains were isolated and selected according to the antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus TISTR 1466, Escherichia coli TISTR 780, Escherichia coli O157:H7 DMST 12743, Shigella sonnei, Shigella flexneri and Salmonella Typhimurium SA2093. Among the isolates, Enterococcus faecalis was a dominant species. It also exhibited essential probiotic characteristics such as excellent adhesion to mucin and high survival under gut stresses. In addition, the functional characteristic in terms of protein digestibility of colostrum-isolated E faecalis M125 was observed through the hydrolysis of the major allergenic bovine milk proteins. This strain was susceptible to all tested antibiotics, and had no enterococcal virulence factor encoding genes. These results supported that colostrum is a crucial source of beneficial bacteria for infant. E. faecalis M125 poses to be useful as a potential probiotic candidate for the development of functional infant formula

Functional properties of enterococcus faecalis isolated from colostrum drawn from thai mothers

International audienceColostrum from Thai mothers who went through vaginal delivery is an abundant source of antibacterial lactic acid bacteria (LAB). Twenty-two strains were isolated and selected according to the antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus TISTR 1466, Escherichia coli TISTR 780, Escherichia coli O157:H7 DMST 12743, Shigella sonnei, Shigella flexneri and Salmonella Typhimurium SA2093. Among the isolates, Enterococcus faecalis was a dominant species. It also exhibited essential probiotic characteristics such as excellent adhesion to mucin and high survival under gut stresses. In addition, the functional characteristic in terms of protein digestibility of colostrum-isolated E faecalis M125 was observed through the hydrolysis of the major allergenic bovine milk proteins. This strain was susceptible to all tested antibiotics, and had no enterococcal virulence factor encoding genes. These results supported that colostrum is a crucial source of beneficial bacteria for infant. E. faecalis M125 poses to be useful as a potential probiotic candidate for the development of functional infant formula