Journal of Food Science最新文献

2′-Fucosyllactose (2′-FL), a predominant human milk oligosaccharide, is widely employed as a commercial infant prebiotic. Nevertheless, the benefits of 2′-FL on complex gut microbiota need further exploration. The modulation of 2′-FL on adult gut microbiota composition and metabolome, particularly short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) and tryptophan metabolism, was investigated via colonic fermentation, single bacterial strains cultivation, and prebiotic activity scoring evaluation. The 2′-FL fermentation in a complex microbial community indicated promising effects, including an increase in Bifidobacterium levels and changes in metabolic levels of tryptophan, SCFAs, and vitamins. Correlation analysis of microbiota and metabolome highlighted a positive correlation between Bifidobacterium and metabolites derived from SCFAs and indole. Scoring formulas for bacterial growth and substrate utilization were introduced to compare the overall response of 15 bacterial strains from key genera that were identified by 16S rRNA profiling to several prebiotics. In the cultivation of single bacterial strains, 2′-FL was selectively used by Bifidobacteria infantis and Enterococcus faecalis and was not degraded by potential pathogenic strains. This selective promotion of probiotics by 2′-FL was observed according to the scoring results, as 2′-FL showed higher scores for bacterial growth and substrate utilization when compared to galacto-oligosaccharides and fucose. This study demonstrated beneficial bifidogenic effect of 2′-FL in an adult complex microbial community and the potential of scoring evaluation as a quantitative tool for measuring the prebiotic effects of different oligosaccharides.

Cadmium (Cd) is a widely distributed environmental heavy metal pollutant. It is extremely toxic to the kidney. This study investigated the potential mechanisms of action of lentinan (LNT), a fungal polysaccharide, on protecting against Cd-induced kidney injury in mice. Male Kunming mice were administered with CdCl₂ (2.5 mg/kg/b.w.) by intragastric gavage and LNT in drinking water (1 mg/mL) for 10 weeks. Histological examination revealed that LNT reduced the glomerular atrophy, lymphocyte infiltration, tubular congestion, and collagen accumulation caused by Cd exposure. However, oral administration of LNT decreased Cd levels in kidney by promoting the excretion of Cd in feces and increasing the production of metallothionein (MT) in the kidney. In addition, LNT treatment alleviated Cd-induced kidney excessive mitophagy by upregulating silencing information regulator1 (SIRT1) and prevented subsequent oxidative stress and inflammatory responses by upregulating nuclear factor erythroid 2–related factor 2 (Nrf2) and downregulating nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-κB) signaling pathways. Further, the protein expression levels of profibrotic factors, including Tgf-β1, alpha smooth muscle actin, and collagen type I alpha 1 chain, and the progression of fibrosis, were significantly reduced in the kidneys of mice treated with LNT. Collectively, our findings suggest that LNT can relieve the nephrotoxicity of Cd by decreasing its accumulation via promoting Cd excretion and MT synthesis and regulating the SIRT1/Nrf2/NF-κB signaling pathway.

Date fruits are a primary agricultural product that comes in a variety of textures, colors, and tastes; hence, the correct classification is crucial for quality control, automatic sorting, and commercial applications. Deep learning has surely shown critically improved image classification duties. In this research, the classification of nine different date fruit types by means of four well-known convolutional neural networks (CNNs), that is, DenseNet121, MobileNetV2, ResNet18, and VGG16 as well as an ensemble learning approach was objected. It is evaluated the proposed Dirichlet Ensemble which entails the predictions from the individual CNN models and the baseline architecture across multiple epochs. Toward the assessment, the accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score were used. The results of the experiments revealed that the Dirichlet Ensemble is better than any single model out there with an accuracy of 98.61%, precision of 98.71%, recall of 98.61%, and an F1-score of 98.62%. DenseNet121 and MobileNetV2 were the standalone models with the highest accuracy of 96.92% and 95.83%, respectively, which is why they are very useful for a limited computing system. ResNet18 was by far the best model with a final accuracy of 92.35% and even outperformed VGG16 by 16%. VGG16's unsatisfactory performance with an accuracy of 73.24% clearly indicates its inability to handle complex classification tasks. The present work also showed the effectiveness of ensemble learning in enhancing the accuracy and robustness of classification. Future research could be investigating more advanced ensemble strategies and fine-tuning techniques to improve the generalization of modeling in food classification applications.

Proper preservation and storage of fruits can prevent the wastage of these products and increase their availability outside the production season. With controlled and proper drying, nutrients and their color can be preserved. Cantaloupe slices were dried in a laboratory-scale infrared (IR) dryer with ultrasound (US) pretreatment. The influence of the US power and duration and different powers of IR dryers was analyzed. The drying processes were evaluated in terms of kinetic aspects (moisture ratio, time, and effective moisture diffusion (D_eff)), specific energy consumption (SEC), quality of the product (water activity (a_w), color variation, rehydration ratio (RR)), bioactive properties (antioxidant activity, total phenol, and total flavonoid content), and vitamin C. The mathematical models were also fitted with the experimental data to assess the kinetics of cantaloupe dying. The results indicated that US pretreatment could facilitate the moisture release due to the cavitation phenomenon, hence declining the drying time (from 13.3% to 63.4%) and SEC (13.2%–67.4%) while raising the D_eff (2.83 × 10⁻⁹ to 1.99 × 10⁻⁸ m²/s). The Midilli et al. model was selected to model the drying process due to its minimum error. After US drying, cantaloupe samples with higher color variation, RR, TPC, and vitamin C were determined. Considering more desirable results, the higher the US power, the better the AA, TFC, and a_w. At higher IR powers and longer US treatment, the quality of the samples showed a decline. The AA, TPC, TFC, and vitamin C showed an ascending trend followed by a decrease, raising the US time and IR power. The highest values were achieved for 30 min of US treatment and 500 W.

Norovirus is one of the leading causes of infectious diarrhea, occurring in about 18% of diarrhea cases worldwide. Norovirus is characterized by a low infectious dose, rapid onset, and strong transmission capacity. Given the lack of specific drugs and vaccines, developing efficient and accurate detection technologies is of great significance to prevent and control the spread of diseases. This study combined the reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) technology with the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) technology to develop a sensitive and rapid detection method, which can reduce the reliance on temperature control and expensive real-time fluorescent polymerase chain reaction (PCR) devices. The RT-LAMP/CRISPR Cas12a method demonstrated good specificity and sensitivity, testing food samples of three different substrates with 100% positive qualitative accuracy. The detection sensitivity is 32.8 copies/reaction for Norovirus GI and 22.8 copies/reaction for Norovirus GII. This method helps to effectively identify food products contaminated with Norovirus, thereby preventing human infections and economic losses due to disease outbreaks.

Persimmons are highly valued for their rich nutritional profile and health benefits; however, their perishability leads to significant post-harvest losses and limits market potential. This study addresses these challenges by investigating the processing of persimmons into chips, focusing on three widely cultivated Chinese cultivars: Fuyu, Youhou, and Gongchengyueshi. Among them, Gongchengyueshi chips demonstrated superior sensory attributes (88.14 out of 100 points), excellent rehydration capacity (4.03 ± 0.19), favorable texture properties (rupture time: 0.44 ± 0.09 s; rupture energy: 1374.91 ± 317.66 g·s), and phenolic content (60.46 ± 1.90 mg/g), highlighting their potential as functional snacks. Additionally, the ripening stage significantly impacted the physicochemical and texture properties of persimmon chips, with mature fruits yielding softer yet more nutrient-dense products. Medium maturity Gongchengyueshi persimmons were identified as the optimal raw material, striking a balance between nutritional benefits and desirable sensory attributes. In conclusion, this study provides new insights into cultivar selection and maturity stage optimization for persimmon chip production, offering a viable strategy to enhance the commercial value of persimmons while reducing post-harvest losses.

A multifunctional crop, garlic (Allium sativum L.) belongs to Amaryllidaceae family. It is of high medicinal, nutraceutical, and culinary importance. Its products, including essential oil, aged garlic extract, aged black garlic, and garlic powder, are a potential storehouse of organosulfur compounds, flavonoids, and saponins with diverse biological properties, which include antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and cardio-protective properties. These developments recently drew in significant therapeutic powers through a better control mechanism in chronic diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular, neurodegenerative conditions, and hypertension. The processing of garlic byproducts usually increases their efficacy through the improvement of bioavailability and reducibility of undesirable characteristics such as odor. More so, supercritical fluid extraction and ultrasound-assisted methods have improved isolation yields of bioactive compounds with stronger stability. This review puts emphasis on the biochemical composition and biological properties of garlic byproducts, underlining their use as sustainable and effective natural medicine sources. The findings have placed an emphasis on the use of garlic byproducts in functional foods and pharmaceutical preparations to deal with global health challenges. Future research should be aimed at eliciting information on pharmacokinetics, safety, and long-term efficacy of these byproducts from garlic in order to fully appraise them in the clinical field.