Comparison of the interfacial properties of native and refolded myofibrillar proteins subjected to pH-shifting.

The emulsion abilities of pale, soft, exudative (PSE)-like chicken breast protein are unsatisfied, which are urgently needed to be ameliorated. This study evaluated the improvement of pH-shifting (11.0-, 11.5- and 12.0-7.0) on emulsion properties of the PSE-like chicken breast myofibrillar proteins (MPs) and the underlined structure-driven interfacial mechanism. It was found pH-shifting promoted the exposure of buried hydrophobic groups and free sulfhydryl groups, and changed secondary structures. Emulsions stabilized by refolded MPs exhibited more uniform and dispersed distributions with more adsorbed proteins at the interface. Electrophorogram showed both disulfide and non-disulfide covalent bonds were involved during interfacial protein-protein interaction. The results from circular dichroism and front-surface fluorescence spectroscopy revealed interfacial MPs were exposed to a more hydrophobic environment and increased ß-sheets enhanced their molecular interactions. In addition, interfacial proteins after pH-shifting was less likely to be replaced by Tween 20.

Comparative performances of lactoferrin-loaded liposomes under in vitro adult and infant digestion models.

There remain gaps in our understanding of the fate of liposomes in the infant gastrointestinal tract, especially regarding essential proteins such as lactoferrin. Models in vitro that mirrored digestion in the stomach and intestine of infants and adults were used to explore the behaviour of lactoferrin-loaded liposomes. The liposomes behaved differently in these environments, with less hydrolysis of encapsulated lactoferrin under infant model conditions. Compared to the adult model (1000 ±â€¯66 µM mL-1), fewer free fatty acids were released (500 ±â€¯43 µM mL-1) from liposomal bilayers and there was less alteration in functional groups of phospholipids membranes, based on pH and FTIR after infant model digestion. Particle tracking analysis and TEM supported the reduced damage of particle structure under infant model conditions. This work provides information on the stability of functional protein-loaded liposomes during digestion, and shows the potential of liposomes to be nutrient carriers in infant foods.

Physical-chemical stability and in vitro digestibility of hybrid nanoparticles based on the layer-by-layer assembly of lactoferrin and BSA on liposomes.

Hybrid nanoparticles were fabricated by the electrostatic deposition of positive bovine serum albumin (BSA) and negative lactoferrin (LF) onto the surface of anionic nanoliposomes (NLs). The resulting particles had a cumulative size of 156.27 ± 11.0 nm and decreased in negative charge. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed that the hybrid particles formed a smooth and spherical polyelectrolyte complex after globular protein deposition. Observations in size distribution and surface charge after heat treatment, pH alteration and long-term storage found that the particles coated with layers of polyelectrolytes, BSA and LF, had obviously better stability than the bare liposomes. In an in vitro gastrointestinal digestion study, monolayer coated NLs (LF-NLs) and double-layer coated NLs (BSA-LF-NLs) had similar changes in microstructure (TEM) and the release rate of model cargos (calcein), which were superior to the uncoated NLs. These results indicated that hybrid nanoparticles coated with the polyelectrolytes of BSA and LF on the surface of liposomes by electrostatic interaction may improve liposomal stability, and showed some implications for the fabrication of functional molecular delivery systems to control physical-chemical and digestion stability in food and nutrition areas.

Beta diversity determinants in Badagongshan, a subtropical forest in central China.

Niche and neutral theories emphasize different processes contributing to the maintenance of species diversity. In this study, we calculated the local contribution to beta diversity (LCBD) of every cell, using variation partitioning in combination with spatial distance and environmental variables of the 25-ha Badagongshan plot (BDGS), to determine the contribution of environmentally-related variation versus pure spatial variation. We used topography and soil characteristics as environmental variables, distance-based Moran's eigenvectors maps (dbMEM) to describe spatial relationships among cells and redundancy analysis (RDA) to apportion the variation in beta diversity into three components: pure environmental, spatially-structured environmental, and pure spatial. Results showed LCBD values were negatively related to number of common species and positively related to number of rare species. Environment and space jointly explained ~60% of the variation in species composition; soil variables alone explained 21.6%, slightly more than the topographic variables that explained 15.7%; topography and soil together explained 27%, slightly inferior to spatial variables that explained 34%. The BDGS forest was controlled both by the spatial and environmental variables, and the results were consistent across different life forms and life stages.

Species associations in a species-rich subtropical forest were not well-explained by stochastic geometry of biodiversity.

The stochastic dilution hypothesis has been proposed to explain species coexistence in species-rich communities. The relative importance of the stochastic dilution effects with respect to other effects such as competition and habitat filtering required to be tested. In this study, using data from a 25-ha species-rich subtropical forest plot with a strong topographic structure at Badagongshan in central China, we analyzed overall species associations and fine-scale species interactions between 2,550 species pairs. The result showed that: (1) the proportion of segregation in overall species association analysis at 2 m neighborhood in this plot followed the prediction of the stochastic dilution hypothesis that segregations should decrease with species richness but that at 10 m neighborhood was higher than the prediction. (2) The proportion of no association type was lower than the expectation of stochastic dilution hypothesis. (3) Fine-scale species interaction analyses using Heterogeneous Poisson processes as null models revealed a high proportion (47%) of significant species effects. However, the assumption of separation of scale of this method was not fully met in this plot with a strong fine-scale topographic structure. We also found that for species within the same families, fine-scale positive species interactions occurred more frequently and negative ones occurred less frequently than expected by chance. These results suggested effects of environmental filtering other than species interaction in this forest. (4) We also found that arbor species showed a much higher proportion of significant fine-scale species interactions (66%) than shrub species (18%). We concluded that the stochastic dilution hypothesis only be partly supported and environmental filtering left discernible spatial signals in the spatial associations between species in this species-rich subtropical forest with a strong topographic structure.