Evaluating Enterococcus faecium9 N-2 as a probiotic candidate from traditional village white cheese.

In this study, various functional and probiotic attributes of the Enterococcus faecium 9 N-2 strain isolated from village-style white cheese were characterized, while also assessing its safety. To achieve this, we conducted an in vitro analysis of several key probiotic properties exhibited by the 9 N-2 strain. Notably, this strain demonstrated robust resilience to low pH, high bile salt concentrations, lysozyme, pepsin, pancreatin, and phenol. Furthermore, this strain displayed exceptional auto-aggregation capabilities and moderate co-aggregation tendencies when interacting with Escherichia coli. The cell-free supernatant derived from strain 9 N-2 exhibited significant antimicrobial activity against the tested pathogens. The strain exhibited resistance to gentamicin, meropenem, and bacitracin, while remaining susceptible to vancomycin and various other antibiotics. Furthermore, it was found that E. faecium 9 N-2 possessed the capacity to produce the phytase enzyme. When all the results of this study are evaluated, it is thought that 9 N-2 strain has superior probiotic properties, and therefore it can be used as probiotic in food, medicine, and animal feed in the future. In addition, further in vivo tests should be performed to fully understand its effects and mechanisms of action and to confirm its safety and probiotic effects. Further research and clinical trials are also needed to identify new strains with potential probiotic properties.

Bias and illumination-dependent room temperature negative differential conductance in Ni-doped ZnO/p-Si Schottky photodiodes for quantum optics applications.

In this article, evidence for the existence of illumination and bias-dependent negative differential conductance (NDC) in Ni-doped Al/ZnO/p-Si Schottky diodes, and the possible mechanism for its origin, are presented. The atomic percentages of Ni doping were 0%, 3%, 5%, and 10%. NDC is observed between -1.5 V to -0.5 V in reverse bias under illumination, but only at certain doping levels and specific forward bias. Furthermore, the devices show excellent optoelectronic characteristics in the photoconductive and photovoltaic modes, with device open circuit voltages ranging from 0.03 V to 0.6 V under illumination.