Wild mushroom extracts potentiate the action of standard antibiotics against multi-resistant bacteria

The indiscriminate use of antibiotics and chemotherapeutic agents and the genetic ability of bacteria to transmit and acquire resistance resulted in the development of resistant species. In the last few years, several studies have been conducted in different countries to demonstrate the efficacy of natural products, not only studying their direct antimicrobial activity but also their capacity as resistance-modifying agents. The main objective of the present work was to evaluate the capacity of five wild mushroom extracts to potentiate the action of standard antibiotics, through synergisms that allow a decrease in their therapeutic doses and ultimately contribute to the reduction of resistances.The authors are grateful to Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and COMPETE/QREN/EU for the financial support through the research project PTDC/AGR-ALI/110062/2009, and to CHTMAD – Hospital Center of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro and Siemens for all the supportinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Effect of Dietary Laminaria digitata with Carbohydrases on Broiler Production Performance and Meat Quality, Lipid Profile, and Mineral Composition

Research Areas: Agriculture; Veterinary Sciences; ZoologyABSTRACT - We hypothesized that dietary inclusion of 15% Laminaria digitata, supplemented or not with carbohydrases, could improve the nutritional value of poultry meat without impairing animal growth performance. A total of 120 22-day old broilers were fed the following dietary treatments (n = 10) for 14 days: cereal-based diet (control); control diet with 15% L. digitata (LA); LA diet with 0.005% Rovabio® Excel AP (LAR); LA diet with 0.01% alginate lyase (LAE). Final body weight was lower and feed conversion ratio higher with LA diet than with the control. The ileal viscosity increased with LA and LAR diets relative to control but without differences between LAE and control. The pH of thigh meat was higher, and the redness value of breast was lower with LA diet than with control. Meat overall acceptability was positively scored for all treatments. The γ-tocopherol decreased, whereas total chlorophylls and carotenoids increased in meat with alga diets relative to control. The percentage of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and accumulation of bromine and iodine in meat increased with alga diets compared with control. Feeding 15% of L. digitata to broilers impaired growth performance but enhanced meat quality by increasing antioxidant pigments, with beneficial effects on n-3 PUFA and iodineinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Production of copper loaded lipid microparticles by PGSS® (particles from gas saturated solutions) process

Production of lipid particles loaded with metal nanoparticles by supercritical fluids based processes has been barely studied. In this work, copper nanoparticles were loaded into glyceryl palmitostearate microparticles by PGSS® (Particles from Gas Saturated Solutions). The effect of different variables, temperature (60-80 ºC), copper load (0.2-5%w/w) and water addition (0 – 40%w/w), in particle size and encapsulation efficiency has been studied. The dispersion of metal nanoparticles in the lipid has been determined by SEM-FIB coupled with EDS mapping. In all cases, mean particle size values lower than 70 μm have been obtained, and encapsulation efficiencies around 60% have been achieved. The addition of water has no negative effect in encapsulation efficiency nor in nanoparticles dispersion within the lipid microparticle, being important since nanoparticles are commonly synthetized in aqueous medium.2020-01-102020-01-10Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and the University of Valladolid (JCI-2012-14992)Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) (Grant PEst-OE/EQB/LA0004/2011: SFRH/BD/77350/2011)Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) and FEDER 2014-2020 iNOVA4Health – UID/Multi/04462/2013 and UID/Multi/04551/2013 (GreenIT