Biological Characterization of Pseudomonas fluorescens Phage Pf17397_F_PD1 and Its Application in Food Preservation

In order to explore the application prospects of phages for controlling bacterial contamination, a lytic phage Pf17397_F_PD1 (Later abbreviated as PD1) was isolated from fish guts using Pseudomonas fluorescens ATCC 17397 as the host bacterium. The phage displayed short latency (18 min), long lysis period (212 min), and high lysis volume (1.47 × 102 PFU/each cell). It displayed wide temperature (30–70°C) and pH (4–11) tolerance. Genomic comparison revealed a maximum sequence identity of 48.65% between phage PD1 and other identified phages, indicating that PD1 was a new phage. The phage PD1 significantly inhibited the growth of P. fluorescens in milk and grass carp at 4°C and 25°C. Compared to the negative control, bacterial levels in milk stored at 25°C for 48 h were reduced by 2.71 log CFU/mL and 2.84 log CFU/mL at the multiplicity of infection (MOI) of 100 and 1,000, respectively. In contrast, when grass carp were stored at 25°C for 24 h, the bacterial load was reduced by 1.28 log CFU/g and 2.64 log CFU/g compared to the control (MOI of 100 and 1,000). When the phage was applied for preservation of grass carp blocks, total volatile salt nitrogen (TVB-N) values of phage-treated samples increased by 6.8 mg/100 g and 7.5 mg/100 g at MOI of 100 and 1,000, respectively, after 7 days of storage, which was significantly lower than that of the control group (15.83 mg/100 g). This study showed that phage PD1 was a good natural biological antimicrobial agent against P. fluorescens ATCC 17397

Polynomial Smooth Twin Support Vector Machines

Smoothing functions can transform the unsmooth twin support vector machines (TWSVM) into smooth ones, and thus better classification results can be obtained. It has been one of the key problems to seek a better smoothing function in this field for a long time. In this paper, a novel version for smooth TWSVM, termed polynomial smooth twin support vector machines (PSTWSVM), is proposed. In PSTWSVM, using the series expansion, a new class of polynomial smoothing is proposed, and then their important properties are discussed. It is shown that the approximation accuracy and smoothness rank of polynomial functions can be as high as required. Subsequently, the polynomial functions are adopted to convert the original constrained quadratic programming problems of TWSVM into unconstrained minimization problems, and then are solved by the well-known Newton-Armijo algorithm. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated via experiments on synthetic and real-word benchmark datasets

Fisetin Protects DNA Against Oxidative Damage and Its Possible Mechanism

Purpose: The paper tries to assess the protective effect of fisetin against •OH-induced DNAdamage, then to investigate the possible mechanism.Methods: The protective effect was evaluated based on the content of malondialdehyde(MDA). The possible mechanism was analyzed using various antioxidant methods in vitro,including •OH scavenging (deoxyribose degradation), •O2- scavenging (pyrogallolautoxidation), DPPH• scavenging, ABTS•+ scavenging, and Cu2+-reducing power assays.Results: Fisetin increased dose-dependently its protective percentages against •OH-inducedDNA damage (IC50 value =1535.00±29.60 μM). It also increased its radical-scavengingpercentages in a dose-dependent manner in various antioxidants assays. Its IC50 values in•OH scavenging, •O2- scavenging, DPPH• scavenging, ABTS•+ scavenging, and Cu2+-reducing power assays, were 47.41±4.50 μM, 34.05±0.87 μM, 9.69±0.53 μM, 2.43±0.14μM, and 1.49±0.16 μM, respectively.Conclusion: Fisetin can effectively protect DNA against •OH-induced oxidative damagepossibly via reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging approach, which is assumed to behydrogen atom (H•) and/or single electron (e) donation (HAT/SET) pathways. In the HATpathway, the 3’,4’-dihydroxyl moiety in B ring of fisetin is thought to play an importantrole, because it can be ultimately oxidized to a stable ortho-benzoquinone form

Biological Characteristics, Genome-wide Characteristics of A Bacteriophage of Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Its Application in Food

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the biological characteristics, whole genome, and antibacterial effect of V. parahaemolyticus phage 474x1 in food. Methods: The phage 474x1 was isolated from shrimp purchased from seafood market with V. parahaemolyticus strain 474 as host strain. The morphology of phage 474x1 was observed by transmission electron microscopy. One-step growth curve was determined, and its sensitivity to temperature and pH was assessed. The whole genome sequence of 474x1 was analyzed, and a phylogenetic tree was constructed based on the sequence of large subunit of phage terminase. The inhibitory effect of the phage on V. parahaemolyticus in shrimp meat was evaluated using the total colony count method. Results: A lytic phage against V. parahaemolyticus was isolated which named 474x1, and it could lyse 19 out of 23 strains of V. parahaemolyticus (82.61%). The phage had typical characteristics of a tailed bacteriophage in Myoviridae. The optimal multiplicity of infection (MOI) was 0.01, and the one-step growth curve showed that the latent period of 474x1 was 10 min, and the burst size was 115 PFU/cell. The phage was active over a wide range of temperature (30~60 ℃) and pH (4~11). The whole genome of 474x1 was 47830 bp long, and 69 open reading frames were predicted and annotated, including 14 genes with specific functions. Comparative genomics analysis showed that 474x1 had high homology with Vibrio phage Vp41s3, and phylogenetic analysis also indicated that 474x1 was most closely related to the phage Vp41s3. In the application experiment, the number of bacteria in the experimental group with MOI=1000 at 4 ℃ decreased by 0.39 lgCFU/mL compared to the control group at 3 h, while the experimental group with MOI=10000 at 4 ℃ decreased by 0.92 lgCFU/mL compared to the control group at 12 h. At 25 ℃, the number of bacteria in the MOI=1000 and MOI=10000 groups decreased by 1.04 lgCFU/mL and 1.82 lgCFU/mL at 6 h, respectively. The results indicated that phage 474x1 could significantly inhibit the growth of host bacteria in shrimp meat. Conclusion: A new V. parahaemolyticus phage was isolated from shrimp, which had large burst size, short latent period, and showed good stability below 60 ℃ and tolerated a wide range of pH. In addition, the phage had good bacteriostatic effect in food, laying a foundation for the prevention and control of pathogenic strains of V. parahaemolyticus

Composition-structure-function correlation of Ca/Zn/AlOx catalysts for the ketonization of acetic acid

Ketonization can efficiently convert carboxylic acids into ketones, promising in bio-oil upgrading. For economic-sustainable bio-refining, Ca/Zn/AlOx (CZA) metal oxides with various Ca/Zn/Al ratios have been prepared by the low-cost and natural abundant metals and are applied in the process here. Mechanistic study on the ketonization of acetic acid revealed the reaction pathways strongly depends on “composition-structure-function” correlation of the Ca/Zn/AlOx catalysts. The reaction is mainly performed on strong base sites (e.g. CaO and ZnO) via thermal decomposition of carboxylates at high temperature (≥375 °C), but depends on acid-base pairs (e.g. amorphous calcium aluminates) significantly at low temperature (≤350 °C). CZA(331) (Ca/Zn/Al = 3/3/1) obtained the highest acetone yield of 97.1% at 425 °C hitherto and retained for over 100 h with simple regeneration process. Adding major bio-oil model compounds (e.g. phenol) into the reaction mixture has minor effect on the CZA catalysts. Therefore, current highly active and stable CZA catalysts are promising in boosting the efficiency and economy of bio-oil upgrading process in future

Acidity enhanced [Al]MCM-41 via ultrasonic irradiation for the Beckmann rearrangement of cyclohexanone oxime to ɛ-caprolactam

Using solid acid catalysts to replace liquid acids in the liquid-phase Beckmann rearrangement of cyclohexanone oxime (CHO) into ɛ-caprolactam (CPL) is crucial for the environmentally friendly production of synthetic fibers, such as Nylon-6. In this work, we prepared aluminum-containing MCM-41 catalysts under ultrasonic irradiation with various Si/Al ratios for this purpose. Quantitative 1H MAS NMR investigations show that ultrasonic irradiation significantly promotes the formation of active Brønsted acid sites (BAS) on the [Al]MCM-41 catalysts up to 8 times higher than those prepared at the same conditions without ultrasonic irradiation, and up to 12 times higher BAS density than those reported in the literatures. The catalytic performance of [Al]MCM-41 catalysts can be strongly improved with increasing the BAS density, particularly to the ratio of BAS/(weakly acidic SiOH groups). Moreover, [Al]MCM-41 catalysts dehydrated at 393 K obtained two time higher CHO conversion and CPL yield than that dehydrated at 473 K. Hydrogen-bonded water molecules retained at low dehydration temperature may block surface SiOH groups and promote the reaction process. With higher BAS density resulting from ultrasonic irradiation, [Al]MCM-41 catalyst (Si/Al = 10) in this work obtained the highest CPL yield among all [Al]MCM-41 materials reported for liquid-phase Beckmann rearrangement up to now. Finally, the reusability of [Al]MCM-41 catalyst was tested and no significant activity loss can be observed after five reaction cycles

The Aging Semantic Differential in Mandarin Chinese: Measuring Attitudes toward Older Adults in China

The Aging Semantic Differential (ASD) is the most widely used instrument to measure young people\u27s attitudes towards older adults. This study translated the ASD to Mandarin and examined its psychometric properties. The Mandarin-ASD contains three latent factors (Personality and Mental Health, Societal Participation, and Physical) that have high internal reliability and reasonable discriminate validity. Social work researchers, practitioners and allied professionals may utilize the ASD-Mandarin instrument to measure young people\u27s attitudes towards older adults in China. We issue a call for a universal-ASD that can be applied across different cultural contexts

Fabrication of Bis-Quaternary Ammonium Salt as an Efficient Bactericidal Weapon Against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus

Combating bacterial pathogens has become a global concern, especially the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria have made conventional antibiotics lose their efficiency. This grim situation suggests the necessity to explore novel antibacterial agents with favorable safety and strong antibacterial activity. Here, we took the advantage of quaternary ammonium compounds and synthesized a long-chain high-molecular organic bis-quaternary ammonium salt (BQAS) with a broad-spectrum bactericidal activity through a facile one-pot reaction. The bactericidal effect of BQAS was evaluated by two bacterial human pathogens: Escherichia coli (Gram-negative) and Staphylococcus aureus (Gram-positive), which are the major cause of diarrheal infections in children and adults. Our experimental results indicate that the bactericidal activity of BQAS is linked to the strong contact between the positively charged quaternary ammonium groups and the bacterial cells, thus leading to a temporary and locally high concentration of reactive oxygen species, which subsequently triggers oxidative stress and membrane damage in the bacteria. This mechanism was further confirmed by several assays, such as the membrane permeabilization assay, fluorescent-based cell live/dead test, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, together with the lactate dehydrogenase release assay, which all indicated that BQAS induced damage to the cytoplasmic membrane and the leakage of intracellular fluid containing essential molecules. The excellent bactericidal activity of BQAS suggests its great application potential as a promising candidate against the rapid emergence of drug-resistant bacterial pathogens