BACKGROUND L-arabinose isomerase (AI) is a crucial catalyst for the biotransformation of D-galactose to D-tagatose. In previous reports, AIs from thermophilic bacterial strains had been wildly researched, but the browning reaction and by-products formed at high temperatures restricted their applications. By contrast, AIs from mesophilic Bacillus strains have some different features including lo...

Bacterial contamination of gelatin is of great concern. Indeed, this animal colloid has many industrial applications, mainly in food and pharmaceutical products. In a previous study (E. De Clerck and P. De Vos, Syst. Appl. Microbiol. 25:611-618), contamination of a gelatin production process with a variety of gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria was demonstrated. In this study, bacterial co...

A frequently used fermentation manner in lactic acid (LA) production, batch fermentation by pure cultures, has a limited practicability: low volumetric productivity and high energy consumption. In this study, continuous LA fermentation was performed in a completely stirred tank reactor at 12h HRT, inoculated with anaerobic digester sludge. Glucose (25 g COD/L) was used as a feedstock and temper...

BACKGROUND Functional constipation is one of the most prevalent childhood gastrointestinal disorders. We evaluated effects of adding a probiotic to mineral oil in the treatment of functional constipation in children. MATERIALS AND METHODS This controlled trial was conducted on 60 children (2 to 14 years old) with functional constipation (Rome III criteria). Children were allocated to receive ...

The heat resistance of the spores of six species of bacteria varied with water activity (a,) at which the spores were heated, although the magnitude of the changes differed greatly between species. At all a, values there was an approximately linear relation between the logarithm of the number of viable spores and the time of heating. The slopes of these straight lines were used to describe the ...