Exposure of reproductive-age women to toxic trace elements warrants attention because of their negative effects. This study aimed to investigate the levels of arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), mercury (Hg), chromium (Cr), and lead (Pb) in the blood of 837 Taiwanese childbearing-age women and establish the correlation between their dietary pattern and heavy metal concentration. The concentrations of Cd and Pb were significantly highe...

Hair is a noninvasive valuable biospecimen for the long-term assessment of endogenous metabolic disturbance. Whether the hair is suitable for identifying biomarkers of the Alzheimer’s disease (AD) process remains unknown. We aim to investigate the metabolism changes in hair after β-amyloid (Aβ 1-42 ) exposure in rats using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-high-resolution mass spectrometry–based untargeted and targe...

Oral-nasal mucosal immunity plays a crucial role in protecting the body against bacterial and viral invasion. Safe probiotic products have been used to enhance human immunity and oral health. In this study, we verified the beneficial effects of mixed viable probiotic tablets, consisting of Lactobacillus salivarius subsp. salicinius AP-32, Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis CP-9, and Lactobacillus paracasei ET-66, and heat-...

Doxorubicin (Dox) is a widely neoplasm chemotherapeutic drug with high incidences of cardiotoxicity. Prodigiosin (PG), a red bacterial pigment from Serratia marcescens , has been demonstrated to potentiate Dox’s cytotoxicity against oral squamous cell carcinoma cells through elevating Dox influx and identified as a Dox enhancer via PG-induced autophagy; however, toxicity of normal cell remains unclear. This study is conducted...

Summary Emerging azole resistance in Aspergillus fumigatus poses a serious threat to human health. This nationwide surveillance study investigated the prevalence and molecular characteristics of azole‐resistant A. fumigatus environmental isolates in Taiwan, an island country with increasing use of azole fungicides. Of the 2760 air and soil samples screened from 2014 to 2016, 451 A. fumigatus isolates were recovered from 266 sa...