Effects of polymannuronate on performance, antioxidant capacity, immune status, cecal microflora, and volatile fatty acids in broiler chickens.

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of purified polymannuronate (PM) obtained from marine brown algae on the performance, antioxidant capacity, immune status, and cecal fermentation profile of broiler chickens. In a 42 d experiment, 540 (average BW 43.77±1.29 g) 1-d-old Arbor Acres male broilers were randomly divided into 5 treatments with 6 replicates of 18 chicks and fed a corn and soybean meal (SBM)-based diet supplemented with 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 g/kg polymannuronate. Adding polymannuronate to the broiler chickens' diets resulted in a significantly increased ADG and improved feed conversion compared with the control treatment. From d 1 to 42, the ADG of broilers fed 1, 2, 3, or 4 g/kg of polymannuronate was increased by 2.58, 4.33, 4.20, and 3.47%, respectively. Furthermore, parameters related to immune status, antioxidant capacity, and composition of the cecal microflora in broiler chickens fed the polymannuronate-containing diets were altered compared with broiler chickens fed a diet without polymannuronate. Supplementation with polymannuronate significantly increased the concentrations of lactic acid and acetic acid in the cecum compared with the control group. The results indicate that polymannuronate has the potential to improve broiler chicken immune status, antioxidant capacity, and performance.

Asymmetric wettable polycaprolactone-chitosan/chitosan oligosaccharide nanofibrous membrane as antibacterial dressings.

Wound infection and inflammation hinder the process of wound healing and bother human beings chronically. As a naturally degradable macromolecule, chitosan (CS) has been widely used in antibacterial wound dressings. However, the antibacterial property of chitosan is inhibited by its water insolubility. In this study, we prepared a bilayered asymmetric nanofibrous membrane with the hydrophilic CS/chitosan oligosaccharide (COS) nanofibrous membrane as the bottom layer and the hydrophobic polycaprolactone (PCL) nanofibrous membrane as the top layer. Results showed that incorporating COS improved the CS membrane's wettability, and adding 0.5 % COS increased the inhibition zone diameter of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus by 23 % and 26 %, respectively. Moreover, the PCL layer could prevent the adhesion of water and bacteria. The PCL-CS/COS0.5% membrane showed relatively good mechanical properties, excellent water absorptivity (460 %), and appropriate cytocompatibility. This asymmetric wettable membrane has a massive potential to serve as a new antibacterial dressing for wound healing.

Fungal community analysis in seawater of the Mariana Trench as estimated by Illumina HiSeq.

This study assessed the diversity and distribution of fungal communities in thirteen marine seawater samples from four sites (L1, L3, L4 and L7) of the Mariana Trench, with a depth range of 1000-4000 meters, using Illumine Hiseq sequencing with fungal-specific primers targeting the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of the ribosomal rRNA gene. Sedimentary fungal communities showed high diversity with 209 880 reads belonging to 91 operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Of these OTUs, 45 belonged to the Ascomycota, 37 to Basidiomycota, 3 to Chytridiomycota, 1 to Glomeromycota, 1 to Cryptomycota, and 4 to unknown fungi. The major fungal orders included Saccharomycetales and Sporidiobolales. The commonly found fungal genera were Candida, Malassezia and Cryptococcus. These results suggest the existence of diverse fungal communities in the Mariana Trench marine seawater, which can be considered as a useful community model for further ecological and evolutionary study of fungi in the trench.