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Ischemia brain injury is closely associated with the gut microbiota. Polysaccharides, as a typical prebiotic, have been extensively employed in stroke treatment. In our previous study, Pueraria lobata polysaccharide (PLP-3) with antioxidant activity was prepared via water extraction and alcohol precipitation combined with ultrasonic degradation. In this study, the effects of PLP-3 on ischemia brain injury and its regulatory effects on the gut microbiota were further investigated. The results demonstrated that PLP-3 effectively reduced the infarct area, improves neurological function, and alleviates neuronal damage of cerebral ischemia injury. Mechanistically, PLP-3 significantly reduces serum LPS levels in MCAO mice, inhibiting TLR-4 activation in brain tissue and thereby reducing IL-1β and TNF-α levels. Meanwhile, PLP-3 significantly repaired the intestinal barrier injury by increasing the expression of tight junction proteins (ZO-1 and Occludin) and increasing the number of goblet cells. Additionally, the structure and composition of gut microbiota in MCAO mice after PLP-3 intervention, were also significantly changed, especially the enrichment of Lactobacillus and the reduction of Corynebacterium and Staphylococcus. At the same time, short chain fatty acid, metabolites of gut microbiota, were also significantly increased and significantly correlated with the abundance of Lactobacillus. Moreover, LC-MS untargeted metabolomics revealed that PLP-3 significantly improves the intestinal metabolic profile after cerebral ischemia injury, upregulating the amino acid biosynthesis pathway and enriching amino acids such as glutamine and arginine, as well as neuroprotective flavonoids such as fisetin and liquiritigenin. These results suggested that PLP-3 could protect mice from cerebral ischemia–reperfusion injury by regulating gut microbiota and repairing gut barrier, inhibiting brain LPS/TLR4/MyD88 inflammatory pathway, therefore we provide a theoretical basis for PLP-3 as a functional food to prevent ischemic brain injury.

Starch films have attracted increasing attention due to their biodegradability, edibility, and potential use as animal feed from post-products. Applications of starch-based films include food packaging, coating, and medicine capsules. However, a major drawback of starch-based films is their brittleness, particularly under dry conditions, caused by starch retrogradation and the instability of plasticizers. To address this challenge, various strategies and methodologies have been developed, including plasticization, chemical modification, and physical reinforcement. This review covers fundamental aspects, such as the microstructures, phase transitions, and compatibility of starch, as well as application-oriented techniques, including processing methods, plasticizer selection, and chemical modifications. Plasticizers play a crucial role in developing starch-based materials, as they mitigate brittleness and improve processability. Given the abundance of hydroxyl groups in starch, the plasticizers used must also contain hydroxyl or polar groups for compatibility. Chemical modification, such as esterification and etherification, effectively prevents starch recrystallization. Reinforcements, particularly with nanocellulose, significantly improved the mechanical properties of starch film. Drawing upon both the literature and our expertise, this review not only summarizes the advancements in this field but also identifies the limitations of current technologies and outlines promising research directions for future development.

In this study, the structural characters, antioxidant activities and bile acid-binding ability of sea buckthorn polysaccharides (HRPs) obtained by the commonly used hot water (HRP-W), pressurized hot water (HRP-H), ultrasonic (HRP-U), acid (HRP-C) and alkali (HRP-A) assisted extraction methods were investigated. The results demonstrated that extraction methods had significant effects on extraction yield, monosaccharide composition, molecular weight, particle size, triple-helical structure, and surface morphology of HRPs except for the major linkage bands. Thermogravimetric analysis showed that HRP-U with filamentous reticular microstructure exhibited better thermal stability. The HRP-A with the lowest molecular weight and highest arabinose content possessed the best antioxidant activities. Moreover, the rheological analysis indicated that HRPs with higher galacturonic acid content and molecular weight showed higher viscosity and stronger crosslinking network (HRP-C, HRP-W and HRP-U), which exhibited stronger bile acid binding capacity. The present findings provide scientific evidence in the preparation technology of sea buckthorn polysaccharides with good antioxidant and bile acid binding capacity which are related to the structure affected by the extraction methods.

Over the past two decades, the development and commercialization of slow-release fertilizers (SRFs) have significantly advanced, with the primary aim of mitigating environmental issues associated with excessive fertilizer use. A range of methodologies, including chemical and physical reactions, incorporation into carriers with porous and layered structures, and coating techniques, have been explored and refined. On the other hand, global challenges such as drought and desertification further underscore the need for SRFs that not only control nutrient release but also improve soil moisture retention. This paper reviews the development and application of eco-friendly starch hydrogels as fertilizer carriers and water retention for SRFs, particularly starch-based superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) produced through grafting copolymerization with acrylamide. This review explores both scientific issues, such as the microstructures and releasing mechanisms of SAPs, and technical development, involving copolymerization technologies, multi-initialization processes, methods of loading fertilizer into hydrogel, etc. Starch, as both a biodegradable and renewable carbohydrate polymer, offers distinct advantages due to its excellent chemical stability and high reactivity. The fabrication techniques of SAPs have been developed from traditional batch polymerization in aqueous solutions to more efficient, solvent-free reactive extrusion. The benefits of SRFs based on SAPs encompass enhanced soil aeration, the prevention of soil deterioration, the minimization of water evaporation, environmental pollution control, reduction in plant mortality, and prolonged nutrient retention within soil. In this review, we summarize the current progress, identify limitations in existing technologies, and propose future research directions to further enhance the performance of starch-based SRFs.

Plant roots are essential for water and nutrient absorption, anchoring, mechanical support, metabolite storage and interaction with the surrounding soil environment. A comprehensive understanding of root traits provides an opportunity to build ideal roots architectural system that provides improved stability and yield advantage in adverse target environments caused by soil quality degradation, climate change, etc. However, we hypothesize that quantitative indicators characterizing root system are still need to be supplemented. Features describing root growth and distribution, until now, belong mostly to 2D indicators or reflect changes in the root system with a depth of soil layers but are rarely considered in a spatial region along the circumferential direction. We proposed five new indicators to quantify the dynamics of the root system architecture (RSA) along its eight-part circumferential orientations with visualization technology which consists of in-situ field root samplings, RSA digitization, and reconstruction according to previous research based on field experiments that conducted on paddy-wheat cultivation land with three fertilization rates. The experimental results showed that the growth space of paddy-wheat root is mainly restricted to a cylinder with a diameter of 180 mm and height of 200 mm at the seedlings stage. There were slow fluctuating trends in growth by the mean values of five new indicators within a single volume of soil. The fluctuation of five new indicators was indicated in each sampling time, which decreased gradually with time. Furthermore, treatment of N70 and N130 could similarly impact root spatial heterogeneity. Therefore, we concluded that the five new indicators could quantify the spatial dynamics of the root system of paddy-wheat at the seedling stage of cultivation. It is of great significance to the comprehensive quantification of crop roots in targeted breeding programs and the methods innovation of field crop root research.

This paper reviews the recent development of starch-based materials, including both fundamental and application researches. In order to overcome the weakness of pure starch-based materials, such as lower mechanical properties found in natural polymers and moisture sensitivity, various blends and composites have been developed in the last two decades. In practical, incorporation of any additives is sensitive in developing fully biodegradable starch-based materials. Furthermore, safety issues will be considered as priority regarding any additives for food packaging applications. Based on these concerns, various natural filler and edible reinforce agents, such as natural fibers, starch or cellulous crystals, and laver, have been used in starch-based materials. So-called self-reinforced techniques, reinforcing starch matrix by modified starch particles, have also been used in developing starch-based composites. During developing starch-based foams the unique function of water, acts as both plasticizer and blow agent for starch-based foam, has been systematically studied. So far, various conventional processing techniques such as extrusion, injection, compression molding, casting and foaming, as well as some new techniques such as reactive extrusion, have been adapted for processing starch-based polymeric materials. Various starch-based products have been developed and commercialized. Keywords: Starch, Biodegradable, Edible, Processing, Phase transitions, Foam

This study investigates the morphological and rheological properties of blended gelatin (GA; a cooling-induced gel (cool-gel)) and hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC; a heating-induced gel (thermo-gel)) systems using a fluorescence microscope, small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), and a rheometer. The results clearly indicate that the two biopolymers are immiscible and have low compatibility. Moreover, the rheological behavior and morphology of the GA/HPMC blends significantly depend on the blending ratio and concentration. Higher polysaccharide contents decrease the gelling temperature and improve the gel viscoelasticity character of GA/HPMC blended gels. The SAXS results reveal that the correlation length (ξ) of the blended gels decreases from 5.16 to 1.89 nm as the HPMC concentration increases from 1 to 6%, which suggests that much denser networks are formed in blended gels with higher HPMC concentrations. Overall, the data reported herein indicate that the gel properties of gelatin can be enhanced by blending with a heating-induced gel.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are persistent environmental pollutants and the development of systems that transform or eliminate PAHs would be of great interest for both the human health and environmental protection. In this study, photoelectrocatalytic composite electrodes were successfully prepared for phenanthrene (PHE) degradation under low current density conditions. The electrodes were made of titanium dioxide (TiO2) and phosphomolybdic acid (PMo12) assembled through layer-by-layer to yield PMo12/CNTs/TiO2/Ti composites. The as-obtained electrodes were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and Raman spectroscopy. Electrochemistry showed PMo12/CNTs/TiO2/Ti electrodes to possess high photoelectrochemical activities due to broadened absorption spectra and solar light utilization efficiencies. The photoelectrocatalytic degradation of PHE was evaluated at different light sources at current density of 50 µA cm-2. Under sunlight, PHE at concentrations around 1.5 mg L-1 were completely degraded within 60 min. The constant of zero-order kinetics for PHE degradation was estimated to 0.0227 mg L-1 min-1, and the reaction was identified as surface-controlled catalysis. A mechanism of charge separation was also proposed. Overall, these findings look promising for future catalysis associated with environmental remediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]