Food

  2010 JUN 3 - (VerticalNews.com) -- According to recent research from Shijiazhuang, People's Republic of China, "To develop a new method for producing aspartame (APM), a simple and efficient strategy for the isolation of certain microorganisms producing APM from soil samples was designed. A newly strain with secreting certain specific dipeptidase to directly synthesize APM from the substrates of l-aspartic acid (l-Asp) and l-phenylalanine methyl ester (l-PM) without protection for amino acid side chains was screened from soil samples. ...read more

  2010 JUN 3 - (VerticalNews.com) -- According to recent research from South Korea, "Salvianolic acid B (Sal B) is the most abundant representative compound in roots of dansham (Salvia miltiorrhiza) which is beneficial in treatment of cardiovascular disease. The present study was performed to establish a large scale isolation method of Sal B in high purity from dansham roots."

  "Water suspension of dansham roots' (100 g d.w.) methanol extract (13.16 g) was partitioned with chloroform, and the water layer was adjusted to pH 3.0 by triflouroacetic acid, because the Sal B partition coefficient in acidic condition was predominately higher than that in neutral condition, and then continuously extracted with ethyl acetate (EtOAc). The EtOAc-soluble acidic fraction was subjected to Sephadex LH-20 column chromatography. The fractions (Ve/Vt 1.75-2.71, 1.82 g) containing Sal B were finally purified by preparative high performance liquid chromatography using an octadecylsilane column," wrote H.J. Lee and colleagues, Chonnam National University ...read more

  2010 JUN 3 - (VerticalNews.com) -- "This study demonstrates the use of a new microwave-assisted approach for accelerating the enzymatic digestion of rapeseed meal. The effects of different microwave parameters, such as the time, temperature, and power level, on the degree of hydrolysis (DH) were investigated by using response surface methodology (RSM)," scientists writing in the journal Food Science and Biotechnology report ...read more