Food safety problems pose a great threat to the health of consumers with the greatest burden in developing countries. Street-vended foods play a key role in providing many urban dwellers with cheap, nutritious, and accessible food, but when prepared in an unhygienic and unregulated environment, they could contribute to increased food safety burden. The study investigated the microbiological recovery of work surfaces and chicken sold in Korogocho and Kariobangi North slums in Nairobi County as well as evaluating vendors’ hygiene and food safety practices. This is a cross-sectional study on an exhaustive sample size of 15 vendors, and swabs of the equipment and work surfaces and chicken were taken for microbial analysis. An exhaustive sample size of 15 vendors was selected for the study. The results showed that most vendors operate under unhygienic conditions. Microbial results revealed that raw portions of chicken had the highest contamination with all the four tested microorganisms (p<0.05). The level of E. coli ranged from 6.42±1.64 to 2.22±1.88; Salmonella spp., 6.42±1.64 to 2.22±1.88; Staphylococcus aureus, 6.92±1.32 to 2.86±1.61; and Campylobacter jejuni, 8.95±0.94 to 4.66±2.67 log CFU/g in raw and cooked chicken samples, respectively. The predictors of E. coli contamination were the presence of pests and flies, unclean vending place, vending environment littered with waste, washing of hands by the vendor, and lack of appropriate clothing among the vendors at R2 of 0.33. The vendor practices and environmental hygiene of the vending place would not significantly (p>0.05) predict contamination with Campylobacter and Staphylococcus. Consequently, there is a need to regulate the informal food processing and marketing channels, besides trainings, infrastructural development, and code of practice and inspections which are recommended in order to enhance the quality and safety standards of street-vended chicken products.

The effect of ultrasound factors (time, power, and duty cycle) on sweet potato pectin molecular weight, neutral sugar composition, pectin structure, and antioxidant activity was investigated. Sweet potato pectin dispersions (0.0025, 0.005 and 0.01g/mL) in deionized water were sonolyzed for 5, 10 and 20min to assess effect of sonication time and pectin concentration on sonolysis. For further experiments 0.0025g/mL was sonicated under varying ultrasonic power and duty cycle levels, subsequently the molecular weight, galacturonic acid content, degree of methoxylation and antioxidant activity of sonicated pectin products were investigated. Results showed that ultrasound treatment reduced pectin molecular weight, while polydispersity did not show clear trend which characterized random pectin scission, increasing duty cycle from 20% to 80% resulted in approximately threefold reduction in pectin molecular weight, increased sonication power from 100W to 400W led to significant increase in galacturonic acid content from 72.0±1.2% in native pectin to between 85.0±3.2% and 92.0±2.7%, the degree of methoxylation significantly reduced from 12.0±3.0% to between 5.25% and 6.28%, sonication led to increase in galactose and decrease in rhamnose consistent with debranching of pectin. Moreover, sonication lead to increased antioxidant capacity, both 200W and 400W sonicated pectin having higher ORAC and FRAP values, with highest pectin concentration 4mg/mL in ORAC and 0.8mg/ml in FRAP giving substantially high antioxidant activity than native and 100W treated pectin. The ORAC value of 400W sonicated pectin increased five hold above the native pectin, while it's FRAP value was almost three fold higher than native pectin. However, ultrasound did not alter pectin primary structure as showed by FTIR and HPAEC results. The results indicated that ultrasound offers effective and green process for pectin transformation and creation of antioxidant potent pectin products.

This review is a survey on ultrasonic application in selected carbohydrate polymers based upon available research reports. It covers a brief discussion on the fundamentals of ultrasound technology, before delving on the effects of ultrasound on specific polymers; pectin, chitin, starch, carrageenan and guar gum, their modification products and possible applications in food, pharmaceutical, biomedical and packaging sectors. Sonication generally leads to depolymerization and side chain break within molecules resulting into oligosugars. Oligosugars are widely used as prebiotics and specific delivery systems; moreover, nano sized products of sonication can be applied in diverse fields. Presently, ultrasonic is finding application in wider sectors therefore better understanding of the complex physico-chemical changes and mechanism of the action of high-intensity ultrasound and its effect on techno-functional properties of compounds would immensely fortify the application of ultrasonic technology.

Sonication led up to seven-fold decrease in molecular weight. The degree of methoxylation (DM) decreased more than two-fold. Moreover, the galacturonic acid (GalA) content increased up to 92%, arabinose and galactose content increased. The SSPP inhibited cell proliferation with the IC values 0.5 mg/ml and 0.75 mg/ml for 400 W and 200 W SSPP, respectively. Moreover, 14.41 ± 1.64% cell cytotoxicity was elicited by 400 W SSPP and 6.83 ± 0.80% by 200 W SSPP. Both SSPPs induced apoptosis with 400 W SSPP eliciting 19.42% and 42.21% apoptosis at 0.1 and 0.5 mg/ml, while 200 W SSPP induced 13.79% and 39.50% apoptosis at 0.1 and 0.5 mg/ml, respectively. SSPP activity increased with both increased concentration and sonication intensity.

The present pharmacotherapy for eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) fundamentally depend on inhaled corticosteroids. Despite the fact that oral intake of topical steroids can be successful in restricting EoE-related inflammation, there are concerns with respect to the long term utilization of steroids, especially in kids. In the current research, we assess the effect of quail egg, which is reportedly a known serine protease inhibitor, on symptomatology and immune responses in a peanut-sensitized mouse model of food allergy induced EoE. Daily oral treatment with quail egg attenuated mice symptomatology and immune response. Treatment with quail egg inhibited antigen-prompted increments in mouse tryptase and eosinophil cationic protein (ECP) in serum and eosinophil in inflamed tissues like oesophagus, lung, and digestive system. Quail egg treatment resulted in decreased antibody specific IgE and IgG1 and a variety of inflammatory genes that were abnormally expressed in EoE. Other effects included increased IL-10, decreased PAR-2 activation and NF-kB p65 in inflamed tissues. Our results suggest that quail egg treatment may have therapeutic potential in attenuating the symptoms of food allergy induced EoE like disease through regulating PAR-2 downstream pathway by blocking the activation of the transcription factor NF-kB p65 activity.

BackgroundQuail egg (QE) has been reported to possess an anti-allergic and anti-inflammatory activity. We have demonstrated that whole QE was able to attenuate the allergic symptoms in food allergy–induced EoE murine model, but whether QE albumen or QE yolk plays a more important role still remains unclear.ObjectiveIn this current study, we investigated the suppressive role of QE in mast cell degranulation and cytokine production of the effect phase response.MethodA passive cutaneous anaphylaxis (PCA) mouse model was used to confirm the anti-allergic effect of QE. Besides, HMC-1 cell model was used to study its suppressive role in more detail. In this in vitro study, we divided QE into three groups: whole QE, QE albumen, and QE yolk. The effect of QE treatment on mast cell degranulation and intracellular calcium influx was investigated. Moreover, the effect of QE allergy– related mediators, genes, and proteins were also assessed by ELISA, RT-PCR, and western blotting.Results and discussionOur data showed that the extent of mast cell degranulation–mediated ear vascular permeability in IgE-mediated PCA mice treated with whole QE (17 mg/kg) was decreased significantly up to 43.31 ± 0.42% reduction. HMC-1 cell–based immunological assay in vitro indicated that QE, particularly its albumen, acted as a ‘mast cell stabilizer’. Under the concentration of 70 μg/mL, QE albumen effectively suppressed the releases of β-hexosaminidase, histamine, and tryptase, as well as Th2 and pro-inflammatory cytokine production; reached 30 up to 50% reduction. Besides, QE albumen was also able to significantly modulate the upregulation of IL-10 up to 58.30 ± 5.9%. Interestingly, our data indicated that QE yolk still had a significant inhibitory effect on modulating Th2 cytokines in its highest concentration (100 μg/mL), while QE albumen showed no inhibitory effect. Western blot analysis showed QE albumen effectively down-regulated the expressions of calcium-related protein (TRPC1, Orai1, STIM1, PLC-γ and IP3R), facilitated the reduction of PAR-2 and induced the reduction of phosphorylation of JNK, IKKα, p50 and p65 protein expressions.ConclusionAs confirmed by PCA and HMC-1 cell-based immunology assay, QE albumen and QE yolk may work together through exerting anti-allergy activity and can be used as a potential anti-allergic nutrient in the future.

The population’s antibody response is a key factor in comprehending SARS-CoV-2 epidemiology. This is especially important in African settings where COVID-19 impact, and vaccination rates are relatively low. This study aimed at characterizing the Immunoglobulin G (IgG) and Immunoglobulin M (IgM) in both SARS-CoV-2 asymptomatic and symptomatic individuals in Kisumu and Siaya counties in western Kenya using enzyme linked immunosorbent assays. The IgG and IgM overall seroprevalence in 98 symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals in western Kenya between December 2021-March 2022 was 76.5% (95% CI = 66.9–84.5) and 29.6% (95% CI = 20.8–39.7) respectively. In terms of gender, males had slightly higher IgG positivity 87.5% (35/40) than females 68.9% (40/58). Amidst the ongoing vaccination roll-out during the study period, over half of the study participants (55.1%, 95% CI = 44.7–65.2) had not received any vaccine. About one third, (31.6%, 95% CI = 22.6–41.8) of the study participants had been fully vaccinated, with close to a quarter (13.3% 95% CI = 7.26–21.6) partially vaccinated. When considering the vaccination status and seroprevalence, out of the 31 fully vaccinated individuals, IgG seropositivity was 81.1% (95% CI = 70.2–96.3) and IgM seropositivity was 35.5% (95% CI = 19.22–54.6). Out of the participants that had not been vaccinated at all, IgG seroprevalence was 70.4% (95% CI 56.4–82.0) with 20.4% (95% CI 10.6–33.5) seropositivity for IgM antibodies. On PCR testing, 33.7% were positive, with 66.3% negative. The 32 positive individuals included 12(37.5%) fully vaccinated, 8(25%) partially vaccinated and 12(37.5%) unvaccinated. SARs-CoV-2 PCR positivity did not significantly predict IgG (p = 0.469 [95% CI 0.514–4.230]) and IgM (p = 0.964 [95% CI 0.380–2.516]) positivity. These data indicate a high seroprevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in western Kenya. This suggests that a larger fraction of the population was infected with SARS-CoV-2 within the defined period than what PCR testing could cover.

Lignocellulosic biomass is the earth’s most abundant and renewable resource, and, lignin is its strongest component. The lignocellulosic biomass has a potential to produce bioethanol for both domestic and industrial use. The presence of lignin in the biomass, however, hinders the processing and production of bioethanol from the biomass. Hence, to enhance the chances of bioethanol production from the lignocellulosic biomass, lignin has to be pre-treated. The pre-treatment process efficiently separates the interlinked complex components. During the pre-treatment process, the strong lignin component that is highly resistant and a major barrier to solubilization is broken down by hydrolysis of cellulose and hemicellulose. Pre-treatment of lignocellulosic biomass is therefore, necessary to make it more susceptible to microorganisms, enzymes, and pathogens. The initial pre-treatment approaches include physical, physicochemical, and biological methods. The major drawback of this pre-treatment process is its cost implications, as it’s very costly. Studies suggest that even though it’s a costly affair, the pre-treatment methods, however, have a significant impact on the efficient production of ethanol from biomass. Situation Analysis: Bioethanol production from lignocellulosic biomass has mostly been undertaken in Brazil, USA, China, and India. In Kenya, however, little research on bioethanol production from lignocellulosic biomass has been done and adopted. The present review paper seeks to outlay the benefits of bioethanol production from lignocellulosic biomass, the composition of lignocellulosic biomass, its properties, different pre-treatment methods alongside advantages, and, disadvantages, and challenges encountered during bioethanol production. This review eventually will be of great assistance to researchers while developing bioethanol from different lignocellulosic biomass. Research, technology adaption/adaptation, and policy targeted at growing bioethanol industry, could enable Kenya to grow her bioethanol industry.