Faba bean (Vicia faba L.), a nutritious leguminous cool tolerant crop, is widely cultivated throughout the world. China, Ethiopia, the United Kingdom, Australia, and France are the main producers of faba beans. In recent years, interest has been growing in health and nutritional benefits of faba beans and developments of different foods enriched with biomolecules with improved functionality, nutrition value, and health benefits. Faba beans are rich source of lysine rich proteins, carbohydrate, minerals, vitamins, and numerous bioactive compounds. It is also a good source of l‐3,4‐dihydroxyphenylalanine (L‐DOPA), which is a precursor of dopamine and can be potentially utilized for Parkinson's disease treatment. The seeds of faba beans can be consumed dry, roasted, soaked, cooked, frozen, or canned. However, a number of antinutritional factors such as phytic acid, trypsin inhibitors, saponins, vicin and convicine (favism‐inducing compounds), lectins, and condensed tannins negatively affect the biological value of faba beans resulting in its underutilization. For expanding the utilization of faba beans in human nutrition, the removal of these antinutrients is necessary. A number of methods including dehulling, soaking, germination, fermentation, and heat processing (cooking, boiling, extrusion, and autocalving) have been used individually or in combination to eliminate or destroy the antinutritional factors in faba beans. This comprehensive review covers global production, nutritional profile, and processing of faba beans and its utilization in various product developments.

The increase in resistance of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains to vancomycin has been perceived as a formidable threat in the therapeutic fields. The present study investigated the vancomycin resistance traits of MRSA isolates [vancomycin resistant S. aureus (VRSA)] collected from burn patients. Twenty-nine of 40 isolates of Staphylococcus spp. were identified as S. aureus which were further tested against 20 commercially available antibiotics to determine antibiotic susceptibility patterns. Imipenem was the most potential antibiotic resulting in 90% sensitivity, followed by netilmicin, clindamycin, and nitrofurantoin (80% sensitivity). All isolates were found to be resistant to penicillin. Approximately 75% of them were found to be resistant to methicillin, oxacillin, azithromycin, cipro-floxacin, and tetracycline. Approximately 45% isolates exhibited resistance to amikacin, chloramphenicol, gentamycin, and tobramycin. Twenty-one of the 29 strains of S. aureus were MRSA, of which 11 were resistant to vancomycin when employing the disc diffusion method. However, when the broth micro-dilution procedure was used to measure the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of vancomycin, eight isolates were resistant to vancomycin, six with an MIC of 32 μg/mL and two with an MIC of 64 μg/mL. A significant fraction of VRSA was found among MRSA strains in this study, revealing the necessity for new and effective drugs against MRSA.

An array of stress signals triggering the bacterial cellular stress response is well known in Escherichia coli and other bacteria. Heat stress is usually sensed through the misfolded outer membrane porin (OMP) precursors in the periplasm, resulting in the activation of σE (encoded by rpoE), which binds to RNA polymerase to start the transcription of genes required for responding against the heat stress signal. At the elevated temperatures, σE also serves as the transcription factor for σH (the main heat shock sigma factor, encoded by rpoH), which is involved in the expression of several genes whose products deal with the cytoplasmic unfolded proteins. Besides, oxidative stress in form of the reactive oxygen species (ROS) that accumulate due to heat stress, has been found to give rise to viable but non-culturable (VBNC) cells at the early stationary phase, which is in turn lysed by the σE-dependent process. Such lysis of the defective cells may generate nutrients for the remaining population to survive with the capacity of formation of colony forming units (CFUs). σH is also known to regulate the transcription of the major heat shock proteins (HSPs) required for heat shock response (HSR) resulting in cellular survival. Present review concentrated on the cellular survival against heat stress employing the harmonized impact of σE and σH regulons and the HSPs as well as their inter connectivity towards the maintenance of cellular survival.

Microbial quality of common salad vegetables (viz. carrot, cucumber, tomato and lettuce) collected from Dhaka metropolis was analysed to detect the presence of bacterial pathogens. The occurrence of huge numbers of fecal coliforms (1.0×104 - 4.09×106 cfu/g), Escherichia coli (1.0×104 - 5.0×108 cfu/g), Staphylococcus aureus (2.0×105 - 5.95×107 cfu/g), and Listeria spp. (1.5×106 - 6.5×107 cfu/g) were detected in all the tested samples. Interestingly, occurrence of viable but non-culturable (VBNC) bacteria was also noticed. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bjb.v41i2.13442 Bangladesh J. Bot. 41(2): 159-162, 2012 (December)