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Background: Among Cactaceae, the genus Opuntia is widely known for the use of its biomass as cattle fodder and in human nutrition (e.g. species such as Opuntia ficus indica and Opuntia streptacantha). In particular, O. streptacantha (OS) produces abundant mucilage and, hence, the characterization of its properties and nutritional value is important. Accordingly, determination of the dietary fiber content of the OS mucilage and the fermentability of its hydrolysis products (oligosaccharides, OLI) is important for developing new uses of the crop as a functional food., Results: The values for insoluble dietary fiber and soluble dietary fiber in the mucilage were 204.6 and 371.6 g kg -1 , respectively. After hydrolysis of OS mucilage with α-amylase, three purified fractions of OLI were evaluated (OLI-A, OLI-B and OLI-C). OLI (1% w/v) stimulated the growth of the commercial probiotic strains (Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus casei and Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis) in vitro, showing behaviors similar to those of commercial inulin. The production of short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) in the fermentation broth was also determined. The final pH of the fermentation broth as well as the identification and concentrations of SCFA depended on the type of OLI and probiotic used., Conclusion: The OS mucilage is an unconventional fiber source and can be used to produce non-digestible OLI as functional compounds. This knowledge will be useful for proposing new sustainable ways of processing cacti crops for food and industrial purposes. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry., (© 2018 Society of Chemical Industry.)

Cheese is a live food whose preparation involves procedures and microbial communities playing an important role for the final product. We characterized the bacterial and fungal diversity of seventeen different Mexican cheeses by high-throughput DNA sequencing of 16S/18S rDNA libraries. We propose the existence of bacterial and fungal core communities, where at genera level, bacteria include Streptococcus spp., Lactococcus spp., Lactobacillus spp., Aerococcus spp., and Weisella spp. while at species level, the fungal community includes Galactomyces reessii, Scheffersomyces stipitis, Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker's yeast), and S. cerevisiae_rm11-1a. In addition to the bacterial and fungal core communities, we found members of the cheese microbiota that could be associated to other factors of the cheese manufacturing process. Co-occurrence analysis made in this work, indicates that bacterial and fungal communities maintain positive and negative interactions which are important to shape the resident microbial communities in cheeses. This work is a contribution to the description of the microbial diversity found in some Mexican cheeses., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This study aimed at determining the composition and rheology changes during the ripening (60days) of Manchego-type cheeses prepared with Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis and Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris in the free status and microencapsulated in gellan gum. The composition indicated that microencapsulation had a greater influence than the period of ripening since discrepancies were statistically significant (p<0.05) regarding the levels of protein, moisture, total solids and pH between the two cheeses both at the beginning and end of the ripening. Both cheeses presented predominantly elastic characteristics (G'>G″). The moduli and the viscosity significantly increased with the presence of microcapsules and, ripening time. Conversely, the recovery percentages on the creep curve decreased in both cheeses with an increase in ripening as a result of the degradation of proteins. The retarded time ranged between 2.32×10 -2 and 2.38×10 -2 s and the J o values were 29 times higher than the J i values in the studied cheeses, indicating the loss of elasticity of the cheeses as they ripen., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Agave (Agave tequilana Weber var. Azul) is an industrially important crop in México since it is the only raw material appropriate to produce tequila, an alcoholic beverage. Nowadays, however, these plants have also a nutritional interest as a source of functional food ingredients, owing to the prebiotic potential of agave fructans. In this study, a Box-Behnken design was employed to determine the influence of temperature, liquid:solid ratio and time in a maceration process for agave fructan extraction and optimization., Results: The developed regression model indicates that the selected study variables were statistical determinants for the extraction yield, and the optimal conditions for maximum extraction were a temperature of 60 °C, a liquid:solid ratio of 10:1 (v/w) and a time of 26.7 min, corresponding to a predicted extraction yield of 37.84%. Through selective separation via precipitation with ethanol, fructans with a degree of polymerization of 29.1 were obtained., Conclusion: Box-Behnken designs are useful statistical methods for optimizing the extraction process of agave fructans. A mixture of carbohydrates was obtained from agave powder. This optimized method can be used to obtain fructans for use as prebiotics or as raw material for obtaining functional oligosaccharides. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry., (© 2015 Society of Chemical Industry.)

Sodium alginate (SA) at 2% (w/v) and low acylated gellan gum (LAG) at 0.2% (w/v) were used to microencapsulate Lactobacillus helveticus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii spp lactis by employing the internal ionic gelation technique through water-oil emulsions at three different stirring rates: 480, 800 and 1200 rpm. The flow behavior of the biopolymer dispersions, the activation energy of the emulsion, the microencapsulation efficiency, the size distribution, the microcapsules morphology and the effect of the stirring rate on the culture viability were analyzed. All of the dispersions exhibited a non-Newtonian shear-thinning flow behavior because the apparent viscosity decreased in value when the shear rate was increased. The activation energy was calculated using the Arrhenius-like equation; the value obtained for the emulsion was 32.59 kJ/mol. It was observed that at 400 rpm, the microencapsulation efficiency was 92.83%, whereas at 800 and 1200 rpm, the stirring rates reduced the efficiency to 15.83% and 4.56%, respectively, evidencing the sensitivity of the microorganisms to the shear rate (13.36 and 20.05 s(-1)). Both optical and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed spherical microcapsules with irregular topography due to the presence of holes on its surface. The obtained size distribution range was modified when the stirring rate was increased. At 400 rpm, bimodal behavior was observed in the range of 20-420 μm; at 800 and 1200 rpm, the behavior became unimodal and the range was from 20 to 200 μm and 20 to 160 μm, respectively., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)