Sponge is the simplest type of multicellular animal, but it has a huge family. Marine sponge is a low-pitched filter animal containing many microorganisms. Therefore, the enormous diversity and abundance of sponge associated bacteria envisages sponges as hot spots of microbial diversity and dynamics. Many researchers have extracted compounds and secondary metabolites with anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor and anti-fatigue activities from sponges. However, there are few reports on the mechanism of sponges and their symbionts. This paper focuses on the interactions between sponges and bacteria, cyanobacteria, fungi, mangroves and illustrates the mechanism of their interaction. The symbiotic relationship between sponge and bacteria/cyanobacteria was analyzed from the genetic level. Sponge has always been a hot issue and will be worthy of further research.

Biotoxins are a group of significant biogenicactive compounds that are usually present in trace amounts in a matrix, and they become the focus of attention in the fields of food safety and medicine research for their toxicities and bioactivities. The biotoxins in food are mainly mycotoxins and marine biotoxins. This review introduced mainly the source, structures and toxicities of aflatoxins (AFs), fumonisins (FBs), trichothecenes (TCTs), zearalenone (ZON), ochratoxin and patulin (PAT) of mycotoxins, which are highly toxic and common in foods. In addition, the classification of marine toxins has also been introduced. Moreover, the detection methods of biotoxins were also introduced including immunological methods, enzyme activity inhibition assay methods, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), mass spectrometry (MS), biosensor methods, and aptamer methods, which are intended to provide reference for the study of biotoxins in food. The detection of food biotoxins can prevent food poisoning and control food quality.

Oral tolerance can be defined as the specific inhibition of the humoral and cellular immune response of an antigen by administration of the same antigen via the oral route. Because of its lack of toxicity, ease of administration and antigen specificity, oral tolerance is a very attractive approach for the treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. A variety of mechanisms have been proposed to explain the immune hyporesponsiveness to feeding antigens. It has been reported that low doses of orally administered antigens are beneficial for the production of regulatory cells, while high doses favor anergy or clonal deletion. In this paper, we discuss the mechanisms of oral tolerance induction.

Chicken egg yolk immunoglobulin (IgY) extracted from chicken eggs by special pathogens stimulating chicken regularly is an effective antibody. IgY is similar to mammalian counterpart IgG, but it has its special structure, which influence its functional performance. Oral administration of specific antibodies is an effective approach against bacterial infection in humans and animals. Oral administration of IgY extracted from chicken eggs has many advantages compared with mammalian IgG including cost-effectiveness, convenience, high yield. Moreover, IgY has good stability in intestinal tract and it has safe profile. IgY is used as a novel mode of immunotherapy to confer passive immunity that has gained much attention as a non-antibiotic method to prevent and treat a wide variety of infectious diseases. This minireview presents an overview of the application of IgY for the treatment of dental caries, periodontitis, gastritis cancer and enteric infection. In addition, some limitations of IgY technology are also discussed.

Phenolic compounds are widely used in natural plant foods and have strong antioxidant properties, so they are widely used in food and medicine. The reaction between the phenolic compound and the protein can affect the functional properties of the protein, such as emulsifying properties, gel properties, solubility, thermal stability, and foaming properties. The mechanism of interaction between phenolic compounds and proteins are described from the aspects of non-covalent interaction and covalent interaction, and the characterization methods of the interaction mechanism between phenolic compounds and proteins are described. The indexes for characterizing the covalent bonding of phenolic compounds and proteins include the free amino group content, total sulfhydryl content, tryptophan content. Ninhydrin method, 2,4,6-trinitrobenzenesulfonic acid (TNBS) method, o-phthal- aldehyde (OPA) method and high-performance liquid phase chromatography were applied to o measure the free amino group content. Ellman’s method was applied to investigate total sulfhydryl content. Fluorescence measurements can be used for changes in tryptophan modification. The indexes for characterizing the con-covalent bonding of phenolic compounds and proteins include hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic interactions, disulfide bonds and hydrophobicity of protein surface. Hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic interactions and disulfide bonds can be investigated by Gómez-Guillén’s method. ANS fluorescent probe method was applied to measure the changes of hydrophobicity of protein surface.