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There is an important demand for the development of new non-dairy probiotic beverages in the functional food market. This work aimed to develop new fermented beverages from maize and rice. Lactobacillus plantarum CCMA 0743, Torulaspora delbrueckii CCMA 0235, and the commercial probiotic Lactobacillus acidophilus LACA 4, were used as a mixed starter culture. Two prebiotic concentrations, 20 and 50g/L fructooligosaccharide (FOS) were tested. The growth of L. acidophilus LACA 4 was favored by 50g/L FOS and after refrigerated storage at 4°C for 28days, its population remained above 10 7 CFU/mL. Lactic and acetic acids were the main organic acids detected, at around 3.7 and 0.5g/L, respectively. Ethanol was present at <5g/L in non-alcoholic beverages. Fifty-five volatile compounds including acids, alcohols, aldehydes, esters, ketones, pyrazines and others, were detected. The sensorial analysis demonstrated that >50% of consumers liked slightly or liked extremely the beverages (scores from 6-9). Therefore, potential symbiotic cereal beverages were successfully obtained using a mix of lactic acid bacteria and yeast as a starter culture. This is an important step in the commercial production of alternative beverages from common food substrates for consumers., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Trace analysis of chemical analogues was always a hot topic and attracted the researchers' attentions. In this study, a database/multi-step filtering strategy was developed by using HPLC-Chip-MS system for comprehensive characterization of monacolin analogues in monascus-fermented rice product (MFRP). This strategy mainly included three steps, including chemical profile of MFRP by HPLC-Chip-MS, establishment of monacolin analogue database, multi-step filtering of monacolins based on modified mass defect filtering. All target compounds showed the symmetrical peak shapes and high MS response by using nanoflow HPLC-Chip-MS. According to the previous literature and experimental MS data, a database including 720 monacolin analogues was established. The original 522 ions in MFRP were automatically extracted by molecular feature extraction function. And then, through rectangular mass defect filtering and analogues distribution area filtering, 298 ions were further excluded. Finally, a total of 84 monacolins including 16 new compounds were unambiguously identified or tentatively characterized based on MS/MS information. In comparison with conventional mass defect filtering method, the proposed method was accurately able to exclude false positive results. The 438 false positive results were excluded in our study, while only 250 ones would be filtered out by using conventional method. This study provided a sensitive and powerful method for rapidly characterization of trace chemicals in complex matrix., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

High-salt samples present a challenge to mass spectrometry (MS) analysis, particularly when electrospray ionization (ESI) is used, requiring extensive sample preparation steps such as desalting, extraction, and purification. In this study, infrared matrix-assisted laser desorption electrospray ionization (IR-MALDESI) coupled to a Q Exactive Plus mass spectrometer was used to directly analyze 50-μm thick slices of cucumber fermented and stored in 1 M sodium chloride brine. From the several hundred unique substances observed, three triterpenoid lipids produced by cucumbers, β-sitosterol, stigmasterol, and lupeol, were putatively identified based on exact mass and selected for structural analysis. The spatial distribution of the lipids were imaged, and the putative assignments were confirmed by tandem mass spectrometry performed directly on the same cucumber, demonstrating the capacity of the technique to deliver confident identifications from highly complex samples in molar concentrations of salt without the need for sample preparation. Graphical Abstract ᅟ.

Fermented puerh tea, having undergone a long period of secondary oxidization and fermentation, has become more and more popular in recent years. In the present paper, a safety evaluation of aqueous extracts from fermented puerh tea (EFPT) was performed, including an oral acute toxicity study in rats and mice, mutation tests, a mouse micronucleus test, mouse sperm abnormality test and a 30 day feeding study in rats. Meanwhile, the antihyperlipidemia effect of EFPT was investigated as well. It was found that the oral maximum tolerated dose of EFPT was more than 10.0 g per kg body weight both in rats and mice. And it had no mutagenicity as judged by negative experimental results of the mutation test. No abnormal symptoms, clinical signs or deaths have been found in rats in each group throughout the experiments. In addition, EFPT in this study showed certain effects on hyperlipidemia.