Joash Ban Lee Tan

Nanoclays, nanocomposite hydrogel microcapsules, and encapsulated bacteria can be considered as cement replacements for artificial coral reef development.

The prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in Southeast Asia is a significant concern, yet there is limited research on the gut resistome and its correlation with lifestyle and environmental factors in the region. This study aimed to profile the gut resistome of 200 individuals in Malaysia using shotgun metagenomic sequencing and investigate its association with questionnaire data comprising demographic and lifestyle variables. A total of 1038 antibiotic resistance genes from 26 classes were detected with a mean carriage rate of 1.74 ± 1.18 gene copies per cell per person. Correlation analysis identified 14 environmental factors, including hygiene habits, health parameters, and intestinal colonization, that were significantly associated with the resistome (adjusted multivariate PERMANOVA, p < 0.05). Notably, individuals with positive yeast cultures exhibited a reduced copy number of 15 antibiotic resistance genes. Network analysis highlighted Escherichia coli as a major resistome network hub, with a positive correlation to 36 antibiotic-resistance genes. Our findings suggest that E. coli may play a pivotal role in shaping the resistome dynamics in Segamat, Malaysia, and its abundance is strongly associated with the community’s health and lifestyle habits. Furthermore, the presence of yeast appears to be associated with the suppression of antibiotic-resistance genes.

Food processing treatments including drying operations could change the properties of food but also alter their bioactive properties (Chan et al., 2019). It is widely believed that drying and processing, especially with treatment that involves heat, would degrade bioactive compounds and reduce the value of functional foods. However, this is not always the case as the heat applied is often not enough to degrade compounds. For instance, pyrolysis of sugars only starts at temperatures above 160°C.

Geraniin, an ellagitannin, has shown a potent blood pressure-lowering effect in vivo. Therefore, this study aims to further characterize the ability of geraniin to attenuate hypertensive vascular dysfunction, a key feature of cardiovascular disease (CVD) development. Hypertension was induced in male Sprague-Dawley rats through feeding a high-fat diet (HFD) for eight weeks, followed by oral administration of 25 mg/kg/day geraniin for four weeks. The parameters of vascular dysfunction such as the structure and function of blood vessels as well as the vascular oxidative stress and inflammation were evaluated. The outcomes of geraniin-treated rats were compared with those of untreated rats on either a normal diet (ND) or HFD and with HFD-fed rats treated with captopril (40 mg/kg/day). We found that geraniin supplementation effectively ameliorated HFD-induced hypertension and abnormal remodelling of the thoracic aorta by suppressing excessive vascular superoxide (O₂⁻) radical generation and overexpression of pro-inflammatory mediators in the circulating leukocytes. Furthermore, compared to the ND-fed rats, geraniin also independently promoted the significant enlargement of the thoracic aortic lumen for blood pressure reduction. Notably, the vascular benefits of geraniin were comparable to that of captopril. Collectively, these data suggest that geraniin can mitigate hypertensive vascular remodelling caused by overnutrition, which potentially abrogates the further development of CVDs.

The 3D-printed iChip version made from thermoplastics or photopolymers can isolate microbial populations of a peat swamp in situ with a population profile different from that isolated via the standard in vitro Petri dish cultivation method.

In the past decade, researchers have focused on the emergence of drug resistance in fungal pathogens such as Candida albicans, also considered as pathobionts that occur harmlessly in the human body but could potentially be triggered to cause diseases. The increasing rate of antifungal resistance in commensal gut fungi is alarming and should be further investigated. Here, we report seven novel MLST (Multi Locus Sequence Typing) genotypes of multi-drug resistant C. albicans isolates obtained from participants of a community study in Segamat, a district in the state of Johor, Malaysia. A total of eight C. albicans were isolated from four individuals, which were found to express high resistance against fluconazole, itraconazole, voriconazole and 5-fluorocytosine antifungals. MLST was performed to assess the clonal relatedness of these drug resistant isolates among themselves and against other strains isolated from other geographical regions. The novel MLST C. albicans sequence types suggest significant genetic changes compared to previous genotypes.

Although several studies have already been carried out in investigating the general profile of the gut mycobiome across several countries, there has yet to