Search

The human gut microflora contains 1000 of dynamic microbial ecosystem to maintain balance between immune boosting and harmful bacteria. The good bacteria reside in healthy human gut and responsible for increasing energy production, inhibiting pathogenic growth. In unhealthy gut microbiota initiates the development of disorders in human body include metabolic disorder, chronic diarrhea, obesity. The article deals with the study of emerging trends in probiotics and developing industrial probiotics products for human body. At present there are many probiotics foodstuff isolated by industries from natural foods includes vegetables, grain, cereals to use in the form of nutrient supplements. Human Gut can be enriched with natural, low cost Probiotic supplements to improve lifestyle.

Heavy metal pollution in wastewater has always been a serious environmental problem because heavy metals are not biodegradable and can be accumulated in living tissues. Copper is widely used in various important industrial applications. The increasing level of heavy metals in the aquatic system due to incomplete treatment of industrial wastewater by existing conventional methods is of environmental concern. Therefore, there has been an increasing interest in the possibility of using biological treatments. It is important to evaluate the performance of biomass with actual industrial effluent to ensure its field applicability. Hence the experiments were conducted with actual industrial effluents collected from Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) and tannery industry.

The mucilaginous polysaccharide from Abroma augusta stem was examined for its physicochemical, thermal, and functional behavior and explored as a carrier for probiotic bacteria. Composed of glucose, galactose, rhamnose, galactouronic acid and fucose, Abroma augusta mucilage (AAM) exhibited shear thinning behavior (following power law equation) and gel like characteristic (showing higher G' value than G″ value). AAM promoted the growth of probiotic strains with positive prebiotic scores of 0.5 ± 0.06 and 0.51 ± 0.05 for Lactobacillus acidophilus and Lactobacillus casei, respectively. Further, probiotic strains were embedded in the AAM matrix followed by freeze-drying with embedding efficiency of95%. Viscoelastic properties were retained substantially in the rehydrated probiotic-embedded matrix. AAM could protect probiotic bacteria in simulated gastrointestinal conditions, at elevated (80 °C, 20 min) and at low (4 °C, 4 months) temperatures ensuring higher viabilities of embedded probiotic cells. Our findings established potential carrier capabilities of AAM polysaccharides for probiotic bacteria with thickening and prebiotic activity.

Micronutrient fortification of rice by extrusion is an effective strategy to enhance micronutrient levels within rice-consuming individuals. The success of extrusion-based fortification is associated with micronutrient retention, enhanced bioavailability, low postprocessing losses, prolonged storage stability, and minimal sensory changes. The success of an optimally fortified product is primarily reliant upon the compositional considerations, but many attributes of extrudates can be indebted to the processing parameters too. Hence, an exhaustive investigation of this technology has been taken-up here, emphasizing on the compositional parameters in association with process parameters, which influence the final quality attributes like nutrient stability, bioavailability, and sensory properties. Based on these attributes of the end product, a collected data have been presented here to bring out the optimal compositional requirements. These together with cooking processes, extrusion process parameters, and storage conditions will enable formulate a product with enhanced sensory acceptance, better retention during cooking and storage, improved texture, and acceptable color. This review will thus help to optimize a need-based product, its quality, and enhance benefits of fortified extruded rice products.

In developing and underdeveloped countries, anemia exists in terms of food insecurity, where meeting overall energy needs and dietary diversity continues to be the major challenge. In India, women of reproductive age are undernourished which results in the premature birth of child, miscarriages, and even later in life changes of increasing risk of diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. Iron deficiency among the males also imparts a socio-economic burden of the country. Millions in India depends on rice and wheat to fill their stomachs, but those staple foods lack important vitamins and minerals. India is the latest country to enter the realm of biofortification. Therefore, there has been a need to explore the strategies to ensure the biofortification management to finally prove a boon for the food security. The study was carried out to provide some of the information needed for an effective & sustainable program to control anemia in women.

Leaf senescence is an intricate process that requires time-dependent transitions of cellular physiology and metabolism. It is a coordinated process that includes interaction between cells and organs. It requires the combined functions of hundreds of genes, enzymes, and signaling pathways that desegregate various endogenous and exogenous signals, controlled by many layers of regulation. The timing of senescence is affected by developmental and environmental signals throughout the leaf life span. In plants, the process involves morphological, biochemical, and molecular changes that permit the remobilization of nutrients in a well-synchronized way from senescence-affected leaves toward the growing leaves, developing fruits, seeds, and buds. Significant research has been done to understand leaf senescence by means of genetic and molecular studies. Recently developed omics techniques help in the identification, isolation, and characterization of senescence-associated genes (SAGs) and functions of relative proteins in the last few years. The functioning of SAGs is regulated genetically and epigenetically by plant hormones, nutrients, protein degradation, and nitrogen mobilization. Hormonal regulation and sugar signaling play a central role in leaf senescence, which can influence the plant growth, stress responses and timing of leaf senescence. All known phytohormones to date affect leaf senescence by some means, but the functions of ethylene and cytokinin in the process still need to be explored. It has been hard to study the role of various hormones in regulating the initiation and development of leaf senescence. Some studies have proved that phytohormones play an important role in delaying and accelerating leaf senescence by declining or increasing their levels and site of action. This chapter includes information about the potential biochemical and molecular events that take place during developmental senescence and the prominent roles of hormones that involve developmental aging, initiation, and progression of senescence.

Foliar extracts of Annona squamosa (Family: Annonaceae) were screened for antimicrobial and insecticidal activity against the common microbial infestants of pulses and the stored grain pest pulse beetle, Callosobruchus chinensis (Coleoptera: Bruchidae). Flavonoids isolated from aqueous extracts of A squamosa showed antimicrobial activity against all the common microbial contaminants of pulses and 80% insecticidal activity against C chinensis at a concentration of 0.07 mg ml-1. Various physico-chemical tests, chromatographic and spectroscopic studies with partially purified aqueous extract indicated the presence of flavonol type flavonoids. This may provide a useful beginning for the development of botanical pesticides for post-harvest safeguard of pulses.