In this work the possibility of producing vanillin through microbial bioconversion from ferulic acid obtained from the enzymatic hydrolysis of wheat bran has been explored. The biocatalyst employed was Escherichia coli JM109/pBB1, a recombinant strain containing the genes from Pseudomonas fluorescens BF13 for the transformation of ferulic acid into vanillin. The substrate of the bioconversion, ...

Numerous studies have focused on the influence of the social environment and the interactions between individuals on the collective decision-making of groups. They showed, for example, that attraction between individuals is at the origin of an amplification of individual preferences. These preferences may concern various environmental cues such as biomolecules that convey information about the ...

Identification of missing genes or proteins participating in the metabolic pathways as enzymes are of great interest. One such class of pathway is involved in the eugenol to vanillin bioconversion. Our goal is to develop an integral approach for identifying the topology of a reference or known pathway in other organism. We successfully identify the missing enzymes and then reconstruct the vanil...

Wild fruiting bodies of medicinal mushroom Antrodia camphorata are only found on the endemic species bull camphor tree, Cinnamomum kanehirae, in Taiwan. Despite the evident importance of the host components in promoting the growth of A. camphorata, insights into the underlying mechanisms are still lacking. Here, we first evaluated effects of the compounds from C. kanehirai, C. camphora, and A. ...

This paper introduces a new plug-in for the OptFlux Metabolic Engineering platform, aimed at finding suitable sets of reactions to add to the genomes of microbes (wild type strain), as well as finding complementary sets of deletions, so that the mutant becomes able to overproduce compounds with industrial interest, while preserving their viability. The optimization methods used are Evolutionary...

The electrochemical detection of interactions between aptamers and low-molecular-weight targets often lacks sensitivity. Signal amplification improves the detection of the aptamer-analyte complex; Bsm DNA polymerase was used to amplify the signal from the interaction of vanillin and its aptamer named Van_74 on an ion-sensitive field-effect transistor (ISFET)-based biosensor. The aptamer was imm...

It may be possible to exploit olfactory attachments shown by chickens, Gallus gallus domesticus, to improve their welfare. In the present study, chicks were housed in groups of 15 in wooden boxes from 1 day of age. Experiment 1 compared fear responses in pairs of 8–10-day-old chicks with no previous experience of vanillin when they were exposed to an unfamiliar open field containing a dish of f...

Phytophenols such as para-substituted 2-methoxyphenols exhibit antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities, however, their biological activities are concentration-dependent, possibly due to their dual property of being both antioxidant and prooxidant. Eugenol (2-allyl-2-methoxyphenol) and isoeugenol (4-propenyl-2-methoxyphenol) did not reveal cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2)-inhibiting activity in mac...

Volatile oils extracted by steam distillation from four plant species turmeric (Curcuma longa), kaffir lime (Citrus hystrix), citronella grass (Cymbopogon winterianus) and hairy basil (Ocimum americanum)), were evaluated in mosquito cages and in a large room for their repellency effects against three mosquito vectors, Aedes aegypti, Anopheles dirus and Culex quinquefasciatus. The oils from turm...

Standardization is an important step for the establishment of a consistent biological activity, a consistent chemical profile, or simply a quality assurance program for production and manufacturing of herbal drugs preparation of any herbal formulation identification, evaluation and standardization is rudimentary identification involves the morphology, microscopy parameter of plants, evaluation ...