Hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic activities of Grifola frondosa polysaccharides and their relationships with the modulation of intestinal microflora in diabetic mice induced by high-fat diet and streptozotocin.

This study aimed to investigate the hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic activities of polysaccharides from Grifola frondosa (GFP) in diabetic mice induced by high-fat diet (HFD) and streptozotocin (STZ). Results showed that oral administration of GFP markedly reduced the serum levels of fasting blood glucose (FBG), oral glucose tolerance (OGT), cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and significantly decreased the hepatic levels of TC, TG and free fatty acids (FFA). Meanwhile, high-dose of GFP supplementation (900 mg/kg day) also showed powerful effects on moderating the composition of intestinal microflora in diabetic mice, especially altering the functionally relevant intestinal microbial phylotypes. Spearman's correlation network analysis revealed that key microbial phylotypes responding to GFP intervention were strongly correlated with the glucose and lipid metabolic disorders associated parameters. Moreover, GFP treatment regulated mRNA expression levels of the genes responsible for hepatic glucose and lipid metabolism. It is noteworthy that GFP treatment markedly increased mRNA expression of cholesterol 7α-hydroxylase (CYP7A1) and bile salt export pump (BSEP), suggesting an enhancement of bile acids (BAs) synthesis and excretion in liver. These findings demonstrated that GFP could prevent hyperglycemia and hyperlipidemia in diabetic mice by altering gut microbiota and regulating hepatic glycolipid metabolism related genes, and therefore could be used as potential functional food ingredients for the prevention or treatment of hyperglycemia and hyperlipidemia.

Effects of Tai Chi on balance and gait in stroke survivors: A systematic meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of tai chi on balance and gait in stroke survivors. METHODS: A systematic meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials on the effects of tai chi on balance and gait in stroke survivors. RESULTS: Five randomized controlled trials, with a total of 346 patients, were included in the meta-analysis. All of these studies had a high bias based on the Cochrane Collaboration recommendation, and a relatively small sample size. In the pooled analysis, the tai chi group exhibited a significantly better gait ability than the control group, as evaluated with the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test and Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) (-0.26 [-0.50 to -0.03], p = 0.027; I2=0%, p = 0.682), but no significant difference in dynamic standing balance scores was found between tai chi and control groups (0.154 [-0.269 to 0.578], p = 0.475; I2=26.6%, p = 0.256). CONCLUSION: Tai chi may be beneficial for stroke survivors with respect to gait ability in the short term, but further large, long-term randomized controlled trials with standard evaluation indicators are needed to confirm this conclusion.

Development of an indirect ELISA for the determination of ethyl carbamate in Chinese rice wine.

The widespread occurrence of ethyl carbamate (EC, 89.09 Da), a group 2A carcinogen, in fermented foods and alcoholic beverages has raised worldwide public health concern. Immunoassay for EC is unavailable due to the simple and small structure of EC. In this work, an initial attempt to produce antibody specific for EC, by using 4-((ethoxycarbonyl)amino)butanoic acid as hapten, was made but failed. However, since EC can easily react with 9-xanthydrol to form xanthyl ethyl carbamate (XEC), two haptens based on XEC structure were designed and synthesized. Polyclonal antibody against XEC, instead of EC was obtained and then used to develop a competitive indirect ELISA for EC via a pre-analysis derivatization. After optimization, the ciELISA was applied in analyzing Chinese rice wine with detection limit of 166 µg/L, and negligible cross-reactivity with EC analogs. Recoveries of EC in fortified samples were from 84.4% to 100.9%, with coefficients of variation below 10%. Results for analysis of real samples by the ci-ELISA correlated well with that by reference method GC-MS, suggesting the good accuracy and reproducibility of the proposed method. This is the first report of an immunoassay capable of detecting EC, which is suitable for monitoring EC in a large amount of samples.

Immunoassay for cadmium detection and quantification.

OBJECTIVE: To detect cadmium in environmental and food samples by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectroscopy (GFAAS) and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICPAES). METHODS: An indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (IC-ELISA) was developed based on a cadmium-specific monoclonal antibody. IC-ELISA for cadmium in environmental and food samples was evaluated. RESULTS: IC-ELISA showed an IC50 of 45.6 microg/L with a detection limit of 1.95 microg/L for cadmium, and showed a mean recovery ranging 97.67%-107.08%. The coefficient of variations for intra- and interassay was 3.41%-6.61% and 4.70%-9.21%, respectively. The correlation coefficient between IC-ELISA and GFAAS was 0.998. CONCLUSION: IC-ELISA can detect and quantify cadmium residue in environmental or food samples.

[Advances in heavy metal ions immunoassay].

Heavy metal leftover on farm and stock products has become a big threat to human. It is necessary to develop some fast and efficient detection methods. Heavy metal immunoassays are new methods for detection of heavy metal ions. Compared to the traditional chemical methods, immunoassays are not only fast, cheap, simple, but also reasonably portable, highly sensitive and selective. It can be used as preliminary screening for rapid determination of heavy metal ions. Except chemical chelators, phytochelatin and metallothionein can also be used for preparing immunogen, both of them can chelate heavy metal ions to carrier protein. There are two prototype assays: polyclonal antibody immunoassay and monoclonal antibody immunoassay. The former includes fluorescence polarization immunoassay; the latter includes indirectly competitive ELISA, one-step competitive immunoassay and KinExA immunoassay. Among these assays, indirectly competitive ELISA which was used for determining heavy metal ions in the early days was easy to be interfered and showed false positive. Fluorescence polarization immunoassay which used polyclonal antibody for determining heavy metal ions was simple and cheap. KinExA instrument could be functioned as an immunosensor for environmental samples. One-step immunoassay which avoided to the addition of second antibody and chromogenic substrate was simple and sensitive. Colloidal gold enhanced immunochromatography assay is a semi-quantitation for determining heavy metal ions. As an adjunctive way for chemical methods, it has the potential application in rapid determination of heavy metal ions.