The traditional recipe for Chinese chicken soup creates a popular taste of particular umami and aroma. The present study investigated the effects of stewing time (1, 2, and 3 h) on the principal ...taste‐active and volatile compounds and the overall flavor profile of traditional Chinese chicken soup by measuring the contents of free amino acids (FAAs), 5′‐nucleotides, minerals and volatile compounds and by evaluating the taste and aroma profiles using an electronic nose, an electronic tongue and a human panel. Results showed that the major umami‐related compounds in the chicken soup were inosine 5′‐monophosphate (IMP) and chloride, both of which increased significantly (P < 0.05) during stewing. The taste active values (TAVs) of the equivalent umami concentration (EUC) increased from 4.08 to 9.93 (P < 0.05) after stewing for 3 h. Although the FAA and mineral contents increased significantly (P < 0.05), their TAVs were less than 1. The volatile compounds were mainly hexanal, heptanal, octanal, nonanal, (E)‐2‐nonanal, (E)‐2‐decenal, (E,E)‐2,4‐decadienal, 1‐hexanol, and 2‐pentyl furan. With the prolonged stewing time, the aldehydes first increased and then decreased significantly (P < 0.05), while 1‐hexanol and 2‐pentyl furan increased steadily (P < 0.05). The aroma scores of the chicken soup reached the maximum after stewing for 3 h. The discrepancy in overall flavor characteristics tended to stabilize after 2 h of stewing. In general, stewing time has a positive effect on improving the flavor profiles of chicken soup, especially within the first 2 h.
Practical Application
The information obtained not only provides insight into the changes in odor and taste of chicken soup during cooking but also provides guidelines that can be followed to improve the stewing process.
5‐Bis(2‐fluorophenyl)methylene‐4‐piperidinone (EF‐24) is a curcumin analog, which was identified for its physiochemical stability and diverse pharmacological functions. In the present study, EF‐24 ...was added to the breast cancer cell line MCF‐7 and its cellular effects were characterized. The results indicated that EF‐24 possessed antiproliferative and antimigratory activities on MCF‐7 cells as determined by MTT assay, wound healing, and transwell assay, respectively. In addition, the autophagosomal vesicles could be detected by acridine orange staining and electron microscope analysis in EF‐24‐treated cells. Conversion of LC3‐I to LC3‐II was also investigated following EF‐24 treatment of the cells. However, the expression analysis of p62 and LC3 revealed that EF‐24 could inhibit autophagic flux in MCF‐7 cells. Confocal microscopy suggested that EF‐24 could inhibit the degradation of autophagic vesicles by blocking the fusion of autophagosomes with lysosomes. EF‐24 could also induce apoptosis of MCF‐7 cells as determined by Hoechst 33342 staining, flow cytometry analysis, and western blot analysis. Moreover, treatment of the cells with the autophagy inhibitor 3‐MA enhanced the PARP1 cleavage of EF‐24‐treated MCF‐7 cells, which indicated the crosstalk between autophagy and apoptosis in breast cancer cells. Additional investigation of EF‐24 should be performed in future studies to assess its antiproliferation and antimigratory effects on MCF‐7 cells. However, the current results provide a solid foundation for the potential in vivo anticancer activity of this compound.
Whether tobacco carcinogens enable exposed cells immune escape resulting in carcinogenesis, and why patients who smoke respond better to immunotherapies than non-smokers, remains poorly understood. ...Here we report that cigarette smoke and the carcinogen benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) induce PD-L1 expression on lung epithelial cells in vitro and in vivo, which is mediated by aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR). Anti-PD-L1 antibody or deficiency in AhR significantly suppresses BaP-induced lung cancer. In 37 patients treated with anti-PD-1 antibody pembrolizumab, 13/16 (81.3%) patients who achieve partial response or stable disease express high levels of AhR, whereas 12/16 (75%) patients with progression disease exhibit low levels of AhR in tumor tissues. AhR inhibitors exert significant antitumor activity and synergize with anti-PD-L1 antibody in lung cancer mouse models. These results demonstrate that tobacco smoke enables lung epithelial cells to escape from adaptive immunity to promote tumorigenesis, and AhR predicts the response to immunotherapy and represents an attractive therapeutic target.
Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in women worldwide. EF‐24, an analog of curcumin, has been shown to possess promising anticancer effects. However, the underlying mechanism remains ...elusive. In the present study, the inhibitory effect of EF‐24 against one breast cancer cell line, MDA‐MB‐231, and its anti‐migration ability were assessed by MTT, wound healing, and Transwell assay. Furthermore, we found that EF‐24 could induce initiation of autophagy as evidenced by fluorescence and electron microscope observation. EF‐24 also induced mitochondrial apoptosis in MDA‐MB‐231 cells as detected by Hoechst 33342 staining, flow cytometry analysis, and western blot analysis. In addition, the early autophagy inhibitor 3‐MA could reduce the cleavage of PARP protein and protect cells from EF‐24‐induced apoptosis, while the autophagy inducer (rapamycin) could enhance the anticancer effect of EF‐24 in MDA‐MB‐231 cells, which suggest that EF‐24 induces crosstalk between autophagy and apoptosis, which herein participate in the antiproliferative effect of EF‐24 in breast cancer cells. Moreover, removal of EF‐24‐activated ROS with NAC significantly reversed migration ability of MDA‐MB‐231 cells, indicating that EF‐24 exerted an inhibitory effect through a ROS‐mediating pathway. These results will help to elucidate the antitumor mechanism of curcumin analogs and to explore future potential clinical applications.
EF‐24 induces crosstalk of autophagy and apoptosis, which participate in the antiproliferative effect of EF‐24 in MDA‐MB‐231 breast cancer cells.
Microplastics have become a major concern in recent years as they can be recognized as the transport vectors for pollutants in environment. In this study, the sorption behavior of two phthalate ...esters (PAEs), including diethyl phthalate (DEP) and dibutyl phthalate (DBP), onto three types of microplastics (PVC: polyvinyl chloride, PE: polyethylene, and PS: polystyrene) was investigated. The sorption isotherms of both DEP and DBP on microplastics were highly linear, suggesting that the partition was the main sorption mechanism. The Kd values of DBP were much higher than those of DEP, demonstrating that hydrophobic interaction governed the partition mechanism. Sorption of the two PAEs on the three microplastics followed the order of PS > PE > PVC, indicating that chemical properties of microplastics played an important roles in their sorption behaviors. Solution pH and natural organic matter had no significant impact on PAEs sorption by microplastics. However, the presence of NaCl and CaCl2 enhanced the sorption of both DEP and DBP because of the salting-out effect. The findings of the present study may have significant implications for the fate and transport assessment of both PAEs and microplastics.
•Sorption of PAEs on the three microplastics followed the order of PS > PE > PVC.•The highly linear sorption isotherms were governed by the partition mechanism.•The presence of NaCl and CaCl2 enhanced the sorption of PAEs on microplastics.•Solution pH and natural organic matter had no significant impact on PAEs sorption.
Toxicity of single microplastics on organisms has been reported widely, however, their joint toxicity with other contaminants on phytoplankton is rarely investigated. Here, we studied the toxicity of ...triclosan (TCS) with four kinds of microplastics namely polyethylene (PE, 74 μm), polystyrene (PS, 74 μm), polyvinyl chloride (PVC, 74 μm), and PVC800 (1 μm) on microalgae Skeletonema costatum. Both growth inhibition and oxidative stress including superoxide dismutase (SOD) and malondialdehyde (MDA) were determined. We found that TCS had obvious inhibition effect on microalgae growth within the test concentrations, and single microplastics also had significant inhibition effect which followed the order of PVC800 > PVC > PS > PE. However, the joint toxicity of PVC and PVC800 in combination with TCS decreased more than that of PE and PS. The higher adsorption capacity of TCS on PVC and PVC800 was one possible reason for the greater reduction of their toxicity. The joint toxicity of PVC800 was still most significant (PE < PVC < PS < PVC800) because of the minimum particle size. According to the independent action model, the joint toxicity systems were all antagonism. Moreover, the reduction of SOD was higher than MDA which revealed that the physical damage was more serious than intracellular damage. SEM images revealed that the aggregation of microplastics and physical damage on algae was obvious. Collectively, the present research provides evidences that the existence of organic pollutants is capable of influencing the effects of microplastics, and the further research on the joint toxicity of microplastics with different pollutants is urgent.
Display omitted
•Joint toxicity of microplastics and triclosan on microalgae was investigated.•Antagonistic effects increased with the higher adsorption capacity of triclosan.•The particles size is more important than category for the toxicity in some degree.•The toxicity of microplastics on microalgae mainly resulted from physical damage.
Joint toxicity effect of microplastics and triclosan on microalgae was antagonism.
•Thirty-seven antibiotics were systematically investigated in typical marine aquaculture farms.•Enrofloxacin was widely detected in the feed samples (16.6–31.8ng/g).•ETM-H2O in the adult shrimp ...samples may pose a potential risk to human safety.•TMP was bioaccumulative in fish muscles.•Antibiotics were weakly bioaccumulated in mollusks.
The occurrence, bioaccumulation, and human dietary exposure via seafood consumption of 37 antibiotics in six typical marine aquaculture farms surrounding Hailing Island, South China were investigated in this study. Sulfamethoxazole, salinomycin and trimethoprim were widely detected in the water samples (0.4–36.9ng/L), while oxytetracycline was the predominant antibiotic in the water samples of shrimp larvae pond. Enrofloxacin was widely detected in the feed samples (16.6–31.8ng/g) and erythromycin–H2O was the most frequently detected antibiotic in the sediment samples (0.8–4.8ng/g). Erythromycin–H2O was the dominant antibiotic in the adult Fenneropenaeus penicillatus with concentrations ranging from 2498 to 15,090ng/g. In addition, trimethoprim was found to be bioaccumulative in young Lutjanus russelli with a median bioaccumulation factor of 6488L/kg. Based on daily intake estimation, the erythromycin–H2O in adult F. penicillatus presented a potential risk to human safety.
Magnetic and dielectric properties have been tuned simultaneously by external stimuli with rapid and sensitive response, which is crucial to monitor the magnetic state via capacitive measurement. ...Herein, positive charged FeII ions were linked via negative charged (Tp)FeIII(CN)3− (Tp=hydrotris(pyrazolyl)borate) units to form a neutral chain. The spin‐crossover (SCO) on FeII sites could be sensitively triggered via thermal treatment, light irradiation, and pressure. SCO switched the spin state of the FeII ions and antiferromagnetic interactions between FeIII and FeII ions, resulting in significant change in magnetization. Moreover, SCO induced rotation of negative charged (Tp)FeIII(CN)3− units, generating dielectric anomaly due to geometric change of charges distribution. This work provides a rational way to manipulate simultaneous variations in magnetic and dielectric properties utilizing SCO as an actuator to tune spin arrangement, magnetic coupling, and charge distribution.
Magnetic interactions: A spin‐crossover‐actuated magnetic and dielectric transition has been observed. The sensitive response to hydrostatic pressure and large dielectric anomaly could be attributed to a cooperative effect and rotation of the negative charged building block.
Conventional medical ultrasound systems utilizing focus-beam imaging generally acquire multichannel echoes at frequencies in tens of megahertz after each transmission, resulting in significant data ...volumes for digital beamforming. Furthermore, integrating state-of-the-art beamformers with transmission compounding substantially increases the beamforming complexity. Except for upgrading the hardware system for better computing performance, an alternative strategy for accelerating ultrasound data processing is the wavenumber beamforming algorithm, which has not been effectively extended to synthetic focus-beam transmission imaging. In this study, we propose a novel wavenumber beamforming algorithm to efficiently reduce the computational complexity of traditional focus-beam ultrasound imaging. We further integrate the wavenumber beamformer with a sub-Nyquist sampling framework, enabling ultrasonic systems to acquire echoes within the active bandwidth at significantly reduced rates. Simulation and experimental results indicate that the proposed beamformer offers image quality comparable to the state-of-the-art spatiotemporal beamformer while reducing the sampling rate and runtime by nearly ninefold and fourfold, respectively. The proposed approach would potentially help the development of low-power consumption and portable ultrasound systems.
Display omitted
•Freez-thaw cycles increase lipid and protein oxidation, reduce colour stability and pH of chicken breast meat.•SDS–PAGE and DSC profile shows that multiple freez-thaw cause ...structural changes in muscle protein.•Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxometery profile indicate the reduce myowater in chicken breast meat.
The objective of this study was to determine the effects of repeated freeze–thaw cycles (0–6) on any physico-chemical changes and lipid and protein oxidation in chicken breast. The results showed that meat colour, a∗ (redness) and b∗ (yellowness) values decreased while L∗ values (lightness) increased with increasing cycle numbers. Increasing freeze–thaw cycles resulted in a greater degree of lipid and protein oxidation, as evidenced by higher contents of malondialdehyde and carbonyl compounds, and lower contents of sulfhydryl groups. Differential scanning calorimetry profiles and SDS–PAGE banding patterns of myofibrillar proteins indicated slight denaturation of myosin and actin with repeated freeze–thaw cycles. The structural changes occurring in proteins caused by oxidation directly affected the ability of muscles to retain water, as confirmed by the nuclear magnetic resonance relaxometery profile. In conclusion, multiple freeze–thaw cycles increased lipid and protein oxidation and decreased water holding capacity and colour stability of broiler chicken breast.
PDF
