Honey is usually subjected to filtration and heating for bottling before commercialization. However, there is no standard procedure available for thermal treatment on honey. Honey is thermally heated at various temperature and duration based on individual experience to prolong the shelf life of honey in the market. The heating methods might decrease the biochemical components such as nutrients, enzymatic activities and vitamins to certain extent. In addition to water reduction, thermal treatment on sugar rich honey usually accompanied by the formation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). In the present study, the biochemical components in three commonly consumed honey in Malaysia, namely tualang, gelam and acacia honey were investigated before and after thermal treatment at 90oC for 30 min. The short period of heating time was found to degrade nutrients, enzymatic activities and water soluble vitamins in honey. The degradation of protein and enzyme via proteolytic digestion had attributed to the increase of free amino acids in honey. Based on the multivariate analysis, the most thermally affected biochemical components are crude fat, panthotenic acid (Vitamin B5) and diastase activity which explain for 86.4% of the total variance. The kinetic studies on the HMF formation revealed that the honey samples followed zero order kinetic model for the first 60 min of heating at 90oC. The findings indicate that the temperature and duration of heating during honey processing is essential to be investigated according to the honey origin. The initial biochemical composition of honey would affect the kinetic profile of HMF formation.
Biomolecules, specifically proteins, polysaccharides, and secondary metabolites are potential lead compounds due to their remarkable pharmacological properties. However, the complex molecular structure of the biomolecules makes their separation processes of great challenges. The conventional downstream processes require multistep protocols that are less efficient, high solvent consumption, expensive, time-consuming, and laborious. Hence, aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) is a reliable technique for the extraction and purification of biomolecules from a complex mixture. ATPS is an environmentally friendly, simple, cost effective, and easily scalable process. It requires a short processing time to separate biomolecules of industrial values simultaneously in a single process. Modifications have also been performed by introducing deep eutectic solvents, ionic liquids, carbohydrates, amino acids or copolymers to enhance the process efficiency with an increased yield, purity and bioactivity of recovered biomolecules. This review attempts to review the recent developed ATPSs and their efficiency to extract, isolate, and purify biomolecules such as proteins, polysaccharides, secondary metabolites and other biological substances. The review provides insights into the feasibility and reliability of ATPS for biomolecule recovery.
Malaysia is a megadiverse country and listed as one of the world's biodiversity hotspots. Land use changes and deforestation have led to the threat of, and extinction of plant species. In order to mitigate loss in population numbers, and to prevent species extinction events, Important Plant Areas (IPA) for Malaysia shall be identified. The identification of IPA is important to ensure that key natural areas are adequately protected and managed to preserve the species and its habitats. Currently, there are 1771 IPA identified globally and only seven tropical countries are actively involved excluding Malaysia. Inventory and biodiversity research are actively conducted in Malaysia, however, the initiative to identify IPA is still in its infancy. The first attempt for IPA identification was in the state of Terengganu by using herbarium database through scoring technique. In this paper, we discussed methods and criteria used in IPA identification globally. We also deliberated current IPA development in Terengganu and challenges such as collections biases and the need for a robust scoring technique to reduce judgement uncertainty. We suggested GIS based multi-criteria decision making, analytical hierarchy process and species distribution for Malaysian IPA. These strategies were considered to be effective tools in providing decision support for spatial planning aimed at plant conservation in Malaysia.