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Summary: Predominant antifungal lactic acid bacteria (LAB) isolated from fermented sprouted mung bean (FSM) was used as protective starter culture in controlled FSM to produce a clean‐label fortified wheat bread. Sequencing results of the PCR products led to the identification of Pediococcus pentosaceus as the selected LAB isolate. The rate of surface growth of Aspergillus niger on FSM‐added bread was significantly (P < 0.05) lower than the wheat bread containing mung bean, fermented mung bean and sprouted mung bean alone. The quantity of almost all of the amino acids (aspartic acid, histidine, serine, arginine, threonine, tyrosine, valine, phenylalanine and tryptophane) in the FSM‐added wheat bread was also higher than the control, according to the HPLC analysis. Furthermore, bread containing FSM had the highest mould‐free shelf‐life (4 days) and porosity (21.61%). Meanwhile, there was no significant (P > 0.05) difference in terms of crumb hardness, specific volume and overall acceptability among the produced samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the most important pathogens in both humans and animals, Salmonella is a significant health problem, especially in the developing countries. Outer membrane protein A (OmpA) is among the major outer membrane proteins of Salmonella with strong immunogenicity. Vaccination is an effective tool for the prevention of Salmonella infections. Lactic acid bacteria are the normal flora of gastrointestinal (GI) tract. In this research, lactobacilli from different parts of chicken GI tract were isolated and evaluated for bile salts and acidic pH tolerance. One strain isolated from the small intestine was identified as Lactobacillus salivarius by carbohydrate fermentation test and 16SrRNA partial sequencing. To address the need for safe oral vaccine to control Salmonella infection, we engineered this natural chicken isolate of L. salivarius to express OmpA under promotion of Lactate dehydrogenase (ldh) promoter. The surface displayed OmpA reacted with anti-OmpA in ELISA, Immunoblotting and flow cytometry assays, suggesting that the expressed protein adopted a native conformation. Strong agglutination reaction of the recombinant lactobacilli with sera of the naturally Salmonella infected chickens showed the multivalency and overexpression of the OmpA on the surface of L. salivarius. Experimental infection assay confirmed that the engineered commensal bacteria could be an attractive candidate as food-grade live vaccine against Salmonella infections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genetic mutations in premalignant breast lesions may have a role in malignancy progression or influence the behavior of subsequent disease. A point mutation in estrogen receptor-α (ER-α) as A908G (Lys303→Arg) was originally involved to hypersensitive to estrogen breast hyperplasia. We detected this mutation among Iranian women with invasive breast cancer. A population-based case-control study was conducted in 150 newly diagnosed invasive breast cancer and 147 healthy control individuals controls to screen for presence of the ER-α A908G mutation by using single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis and 33Pcycle DNA sequencing. We detected the 10.7% ER-α A908G mutation in the form of heterozygote genotype only among cancer patients (χ(2)=22.752, P=0.00). The allelic frequency of mutant allele AGG in codon 303 was significantly (χ(2)=29.709, P=0.001) higher in patients with the family history of breast cancer (28.9%) than those without the family history of breast cancer (1.9%). Our data suggest that ER-α codon 303 mutation is correlated with various aspects of breast cancer in Iran. ER-α genotype might represent a surrogate marker for predicting breast cancer developing later in life.

Evidence suggests that alterations in estrogen signaling pathways, including estrogen receptor α (ER-α) and estrogen receptor β (ER-β) occur during breast cancer development. ER-α and ER-β genes polymorphisms have been found to be associated with breast cancer and clinical features of the disease in the western countries. In the current study, we evaluated the hypothesis that certain sequence variants of the ER-α and ER-β genes are associated with an additively increased risk for breast cancer in Iranian women breast cancer patients. The genes were scanned in 150 Iranian patients with newly diagnosed invasive breast tumors and in healthy control individuals by PCR single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) method. Three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in codon10 (TCT→TCC), codon 352 (CCG→CCC) and codon 594 (ACG→ACA) in ER-α gene and one SNP codon 392 (CTC→CTG) in ER-β were revealed have additive effects in developing breast cancer and LN metastases. Also, SNP in codon 392 of estrogen receptor-β gene is more effective (threefold) than those SNPs in codons 10, 325, 594 of estrogen receptor-α gene in developing LN metastases in breast cancer patients. SNPs in estrogen receptor α and β have additive effects in increasing risk for developing breast cancer with LN metastases among Iranian women breast cancer patients.