Due to the concern on the availability of recoverable fossil fuel reserves and the environmental problems caused by the use those fossil fuels, considerable attention has been given to biodiesel production as an alternative to petrodiesel. However, as the biodiesel is produced from vegetable oils and animal fats, there are concerns that biodiesel feedstock may compete with food supply in the lo...

A major concern in the use of class IIa bacteriocins as food preservatives is the well-documented resistance development in target Listeria strains. We studied the relationship between leucocin A, a class IIa bacteriocin, and the composition of the major phospholipid, phosphatidylglycerol (PG), in membranes of both sensitive and resistant L. monocytogenes strains. Two wild-type strains, L. mono...

Metabolic fingerprinting provides valuable information on the physiopathological states of cells and tissues. Traditional imaging mass spectrometry and magnetic resonance imaging are unable to probe the spatial-temporal dynamics of metabolites at the subcellular level due to either lack of spatial resolution or inability to perform live cell imaging. Here we report a complementary metabolic ima...

It is estimated there are over 100,000 moth species (Lepidoptera) that produce sex pheromones comprising communication channels used in specific-mate-recognition systems (SMRS) involved in pre-zygotic mating isolation and speciation. About 1572 moth species have been found to use 377 pheromone components, the majority being alcohols, aldehydes or acetate esters of olefinic chains of 10-22 carbo...

Caffeic acid (CA) is distributed widely in nature and possesses strong antioxidant activity. However, CA has lower solubility in non-polar media, which limits its application in fat-soluble food. To increase the lipophilicity of natural antioxidant CA, a series of alkyl caffeates were synthesized and their antioxidant and antitumor activities were investigated. The antioxidant parameters, inclu...

cis-Unsaturated fatty acids stimulate release of superoxide (O-2) by human neutrophils (Badwey, J. A., Curnutte, J. T., Robinson, J. M., Berde, C. B., Karnovsky, M. J., and Karnovsky, M. L. (1984) J. Biol. Chem. 259, 7870-7877). The rate of O-2 release due to arachidonate (105 +/- 24 S.D., nmol of O-2/min/10(7) cells) was comparable to optimal values obtained with other stimuli. Antagonists of ...

A highly substrate-general synthesis of all-carbon-substituted E- and Z-stereodefined olefins is performed. The method comprises two sets of parallel and stereocomplementary preparations of (E)- and (Z)-α,β-unsaturated esters involving two robust and distinctive reactions: 1) stereocomplementary enol tosylations using readily available TsCl/diamine/(LiCl) base reagents, and 2) stereoretentive N...

Although branched-chain saturated fatty acids have been found in the lipids of certain bacteria as well as in wool wax, they have not hitherto been reported as existing in natural glycerides, with the solitary exception of i8ovaleric acid found by Chevreul in 1817 (cf. Hilditch, 1947) in the head and jaw oil of the dolphin. Recently, Hansen & Shorland (1950) observed that the methyl ester conce...

An analysis of the phospholipid ester-linked and the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) fatty acids and hydroxy fatty acids of six lactate-utilizing Desulfovibrio-type sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) has been performed using capillary gas-liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (GLC-MS). The concentrations of normal fatty acids were essentially similar, with the possible exception of a high content of no...

Long chain fatty acids have been found to exhibit both inhibitory and stimulatory effects on the growth of tubercle bacilli and of a certain unidentified micrococcus culture. The toxicity of the fatty acids was much reduced or abolished by (a) esterification, even when the resulting product was a water-soluble ester, and (b) addition of crystalline serum albumin to the culture medium; other pro...