The intestine is considered to be a vital digestive organ to absorb nutrients and is the largest immune organ, while numerous microorganisms coexist with the host. It is well known that the complex interactions between the gut microbiota and the host’s immune system inevitably affect the function of other organs, creating an “axis” between them. During the past few years, a new technique based mainly on microfluidics and cell biology has been developed to emulate the structure, function, and microenvironment of the human gut, called the “gut-on-chip”. This microfluidic chip provides insight into key aspects of gut function in health and disease, such as the gut–brain axis, gut–liver axis, gut–kidney axis, and gut–lung axis. In this review, we first describe the basic theory of the gut axis and the various composition and parameter monitoring of the gut microarray systems, as well as summarize the development and emerging advances in the gut–organ-on-chip, with a focus on the host-gut flora and nutrient metabolism, and highlight their role in pathophysiological studies. In addition, this paper discusses the challenges and prospects for the current development and further use of the gut–organ-on-chip platform.

Astragali Radix (AR) is one of the well-known traditional Chinese medicines with a long history of medical use and a wide range of clinical applications. AR contains a variety of chemical constituents which can be classified into the following categories: polysaccharides, saponins, flavonoids, amino acids, and trace elements. There are several techniques to extract these constituents, of which microwave-assisted, enzymatic, aqueous, ultrasonic and reflux extraction are the most used. Several methods such as spectroscopy, capillary electrophoresis and various chromatographic methods have been developed to identify and analyze AR. Meanwhile, this paper also summarizes the biological activities of AR, such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antitumor and antiviral activities. It is expected to provide theoretical support for the better development and utilization of AR.

China has a large variety of edible mushrooms and ranks first in the world in terms of production and variety. Nevertheless, due to their high moisture content and rapid respiration rate, they experience constant quality deterioration, browning of color, loss of moisture, changes in texture, increases in microbial populations, and loss of nutrition and flavor during postharvest storage. Therefore, this paper reviews the effects of essential oils and plant extracts on the preservation of edible mushrooms and summarizes their mechanisms of action to better understand their effects during the storage of mushrooms. The quality degradation process of edible mushrooms is complex and influenced by internal and external factors. Essential oils and plant extracts are considered environmentally friendly preservation methods for better postharvest quality. This review aims to provide a reference for the development of new green and safe preservation and provides research directions for the postharvest processing and product development of edible mushrooms.

The king oyster mushroom (Pleurotus eryngii) is a delicious edible mushroom that is highly prized for its unique flavor and excellent medicinal properties. Its enzymes, phenolic compounds and reactive oxygen species are the keys to its browning and aging and result in its loss of nutrition and flavor. However, there is a lack of reviews on the preservation of Pl. eryngii to summarize and compare different storage and preservation methods. This paper reviews postharvest preservation techniques, including physical and chemical methods, to better understand the mechanisms of browning and the storage effects of different preservation methods, extend the storage life of mushrooms and present future perspectives on technical aspects in the storage and preservation of Pl. eryngii. This will provide important research directions for the processing and product development of this mushroom.

Pleurotus eryngii (PE) is an edible mushroom with high nutritional value. Pleurotus eryngii polysaccharides (PEPs) are one of the main active ingredients and manifest a great variety of biological activities. This study mainly focused on the chemical characterization and biological activities of PEPs, which were separated into two fractions (named WPS and P-1). WPS is mainly dominated by β-glycosidic bonds and contains α-glycosidic bonds, and P-1 only contains α-glycosidic bonds. The molecular weights of WPS and P-1 were 4.5 × 10⁵ Da and 2.2 × 10⁴ Da. The result of GC indicated that two the fractions were composed of rhamnose, arabinose, xylose, mannose, glucose, and galactose, with a ratio of 0.35:0.24:0.45:0.24:28.78:1.10 for WPS and 0.95:0.64:0.66:1.84:60.69:0.67 for P-1. The advanced structure studies indicated that the two fractions had no triple-helical structure, where WPS had a dense structure and P-1 had a loose structure. In addition, the antioxidant activity of WPS surpassed P-1, and the two fractions also exhibited a high hypoglycemic activity via inhibiting α-glycosidase activities and promoting the expression of PI3K-AKT signaling pathway based on in vitro assay and cell experiments.