Structural characterization of oligosaccharide from Spirulina platensis and its effect on the faecal microbiota in vitro

In the present study,an oligosaccharide SPO-1 from Spirulina platensis was prepared by glycosidase from a marine bacterium.The prebiotic activity of SPO-1 on the growth of Lactobacillus paracasei and Bifidobacterium animalis,and its effect on human gut microbiota were examined in vitro.The molecular weight of the tetrasaccharide SPO-1 was 650.2 Da,and it was mainly composed of glucose with α-type glycosidic linkages.The prebiotic activity score of SPO-1 was the highest for the growth of probiotic strains L.paracasei and B.animalis.Furthermore,as fermentation proceeded,SPO-1 was gradually degraded and utilized by intestinal bacteria.The results showed that after treatment with SPO-1,carbohydrate consumption and short-chain fatty acids levels were increased,especially those of i-butyric and i-valeric acids.Moreover,SPO-1 significantly promoted the abundance,diversity and composition of gut microbiota,especially stimulating the growth of Bacteroides,Escherichia-Shigella and Megamonas.In addition,the change in intestinal microbiota function predicted by phylogenetic investigation of communities by reconstruction of unobserved states(PICRUSt)after treatment with SPO-1 is mainly related to the terms“carbohydrate metabolism”and“amino acid metabolism”.These results suggest that SPO-1 is a potential oligosaccharide in regulation of intestinal microbiota.

Trimethylamine Adsorption Mechanism on Activated Carbon and Removal in Water and Oyster Proteolytic Solution

In this study,seven coal-based activated carbons(ACs)were adopted to remove trimethylamine(TMA)in an aqueous solution as environmentally friendly and harmless adsorbents.The results showed that columnar AC(CAC)had a clear scale and honeycomb structures with few fragments and micropores,contributing to superior TMA removal capacity compared to granular AC(GAC)(71.67%for 6.0 mm CAC and 69.92%for 40–60 mesh GAC).In addition,the process of adsorption was accompanied by desorption,and the recommended absorbed time was 120–180 min.The short time to achieve equilibrium indicated that adsorption was kinetically controlled,and pseudo-second-order kinetics was more appropriate than pseudo-first-order kinetics in explaining the adsorption mechanism in both water and oyster enzymatic hydrolysate.The intraparticle diffusion model presented that the adsorption processes could be divided into three steps for GAC and two steps for CAC.The adsorption processes were consistent with the Freundlich model,indicating the existence of physisorption and chemisorption as multilayer adsorption.The results indicated that AC,especially CAC,has great potential for TMA elimination in aquatic product processing.