Foodomics: The necessary route to boost quality, safety and bioactivity of foods

Editorial.Peer Reviewe

Food proteins and peptides

The qualitative and quantitative determination of proteins and peptides in raw or processed food is experiencing a growing interest and importance from both scientific and economic point of view. Proteomics and peptidomics are relatively new entries in the field of food security, safety and authenticity, and themselves can contribute to the emergence of new branches of the science of food, such as foodomics and the just born nutriomics, digestomics, and gut metagenomics/metaproteomics. Mass spectrometry, in combination with a wide variety of separation methods and bioinformatic tools, is the principal methodology for proteomics. Both the so-called "in-gel" and "gel-free shotgun" bottom-up approaches are widely used.Among the arguments described in this chapter there are: stress effects on gene expression, postharvest (plant) and postmortem (livestock) protein modification, food safety, quality and authentication, food processing and quality control, frauds discovery, food peptidomics and digestomics. © 2015 Elsevier B.V

In vitro metabolomic approaches to investigating the potential biological effects of phenolic compounds: an update

Dietary phenolic compounds (PCs) have been receiving interest for their presumed roles in disease prevention. However, there is a lack of studies on the underlying molecular mechanisms. In this regard, in vitro metabolomic approaches are suitable for the investigation of the molecular changes in response to PC exposure. Up to date, the biological effects of PCs have only been examined for PCs from rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), olive oil, and resveratrol using cell-based metabolomic approach, although transcriptomic and/or proteomic studies have also been conducted in the same in vitro cell experiment in some cases. Our integral analysis of the reviewed studies suggest that PCs may be involved not only in basic cellular processes or macro- and micro-nutrient metabolism, but also in specific metabolic pathways that have been thoroughly investigated. These modulated pathways could have a clinical impact on neurodegenerative diseases, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases. In conclusion, the in vitro metabolomic approaches provide additional information of the molecular mechanisms involved in disease risk reduction of dietary PCs. In order to elucidate the mechanisms of action of PCs, more metabolomic cell-based studies are needed and testing the physiological conjugated forms of PCs in these cell systems could be of special interest.This work was partially supported by grants (Grant Nos. AGL2009-13517-C03-03 and AGL2012-40144-C03-02) from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Spain), a Sara Borrell post-doctoral grant (CD14/00275; Spain), a Pla estratègic de recerca i innovació en salut (PERIS) post-doctoral grant (SLT002/16/00239; Catalunya, Spain). We also thank the support of Institut d’Investigació Sanitària Pere Virgili (IISPV) and Centre Tecnològic de Nutrició i Salut (CTNS), Reus, Spain. NFOC-Salut group is a consolidated research group of Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain (2014 SGR 873

Development of personalised functional foods needs metabolic profiling

Purpose of review There is growing interest in applying metabolic profiling technologies to food science as this approach is now embedded into the foodomics toolbox. This review aims at exploring how metabolic profiling can be applied to the development of functional foods. Recent findings One of the biggest challenges of modern nutrition is to propose a healthy diet to populations worldwide that must suit high inter-individual variability driven by complex gene-nutrient-environment interactions. Although a number of functional foods are now proposed in support of a healthy diet, a one-size-fits-all approach to nutrition is inappropriate and new personalised functional foods are necessary. Metabolic profiling technologies can assist at various levels of the development of functional foods, from screening for food composition to identification of new biomarkers of food intake to support diet intervention and epidemiological studies. Summary Modern ‘omics’ technologies, including metabolic profiling, will support the development of new personalised functional foods of high relevance to twenty-first-century medical challenges such as controlling the worldwide spread of metabolic disorders and ensuring healthy ageing

CE-TOFMS data from a urine sample - mzML files with scans in profile or centroid spectrum format

Those datasets are characteristics of urine samples separated by capillary electrophoresis hyphenated with high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). The mzML format has been developed by the Human Proteome Organisation (HUPO) and allow to convert proprietary instrument files to an open format that can be used with the various numerical computing environment. Those datasets have been used in the development of the Finnee Matlab toolbox. The original Bruker file that was used to create the mzML files has been graciously donated by Alejandro Cifuentes from the Laboratory of Foodomics (CIAL, CSIC, Madrid, Spain)

UHPLC-QTOFMS data from a urine sample - mzML files with scans in profile or centroid spectrum format

Description of this dataThose datasets are characteristics of urine samples separated by UHPLC - QTOF MS. The mzML format has been developed by the Human Proteome Organisation (HUPO) and allows to convert proprietary instrument files to an open format that can be used with the various numerical computing environment. Those datasets have been used in the development of the Finnee Matlab toolbox.The original Bruker file that was used to create the mzML files has been graciously donated by Alejandro Cifuentes from the Laboratory of Foodomics (CIAL, CSIC, Madrid, Spain)

Guía práctica: marcas de carne y productos cárnicos

La globalización ha dado lugar a un aumento de la competencia a la cual la producción de carne y de productos cárnicos no es ajena, requiriendo un aumento de la competitividad en la producción, transformación y comercialización. En España y Portugal, el camino iniciado ya hace algún tiempo por una apuesta del sector cárnico en sistemas de calidad diferenciada ha propiciado un incremento de marcas de calidad registradas por la Unión Europea (DOP, IGP y ETG). Pensamos que esta experiencia adquirida por los países ibéricos podría ser de gran utilidad para los países iberoamericanos, que buscan hoy formas de revalorizar sus sistemas de producción de carne, preservar sus productos y patrimonio cultural, así como conquistar nuevos mercados. En este sentido, fue creada la Red MARCARNE en el ámbito de las Red CYTED (Programa Iberoamericano de Ciencia y Tecnología para el Desarrollo) con la finalidad de definir estrategias para que los países involucrados desarrollen marcas de calidad de carne y productos cárnicos que puedan ser reconocidas internamente, dentro de cada país, y en todo el espacio iberoamericano, utilizando todos los instrumentos disponibles que permitan caracterizar la calidad, asegurar la autenticidad y definir las particularidades de cada producto. ¿Qué es MARCARNE? MARCARNE es el acrónimo de la red temática denominada “MARCAS DE CALIDAD DE CARNE Y PRODUCTOS CÁRNICOS IBEROAMERICANOS”, presentada dentro del área de Agroalimentación del Programa CYTED. MARCARNE es una red de 8 países (Argentina, Brasil, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, México, Uruguay, Portugal y España) integrada por 18 grupos de investigación y desarrollo (I+D) de entidades públicas y privadas, 5 empresas, 6 asociaciones empresariales y 2 organizaciones de cooperación al desarrollo. La red pretende el intercambio de conocimientos y la potenciación de la cooperación, con la finalidad de definir estrategias para que se desarrollen marcas de calidad de carne y productos cárnicos que puedan ser reconocidas en todo el espacio iberoamericano. ¿Una guía para qué? Entre los objetivos específicos de la Red, y respondiendo a la necesidad de la puesta a punto de la integración e intercambio del conocimiento científico y tecnológico como contribución para la capacitación de los grupos involucrados, se acordó producir una guía práctica, de elevada portabilidad en la forma de e-book, que sirva como manual y herramienta de trabajo para los elementos de la cadena productiva sobre los pasos a dar para la definición e inscripción de marcas de calidad. ¿Contenidos? La guía se estructura en 3 capítulos que aportan información sobre conceptos básicos y sobre la importancia y necesidad de la creación de marcas de calidad, recogen la principal terminología empleada sobre estos temas, y detallan los pasos necesarios para implementar una marca de calidad. Esperamos que esta guía sea una contribución efectiva y útil para todos los sectores implicados en la creación de una marca de calidad y muy especialmente para aquellos que se atrevan a dar el paso. La Red MARCARNE se divulga en las siguientes redes sociales en las cuales pueden dejar sus contribuciones, comentarios e inquietudes, así como contactar con los miembros de la misma: http://www.marcarne.org. https://www.facebook.com/alfredo.jorge.costa.teixeira/?ref=page_internal https://www.facebook.com/groups/1277114688975189/ https://twitter.com/RedMARCARN

Enhancing fish species identification using novel markers and emerging technologies

Establishing an efficient traceability framework for fish products is crucial for consumer protection and fisheries management and conservation. This is well reflected in the EU legislation. The EU general food law emphasizes strongly that European citizens must have access to safe and wholesome food of the highest standard. Consumer protection is supported by a stringent traceability concept as stipulated in Regulation (EC) 178/2002. This notion is also expressed in the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) basic regulation (EU) 1380/2013, according to which fishing and aquaculture must be environmentally, economically and socially sustainable while providing a source of healthy food for all EU citizens. Under the CFP the need for traceability is not exclusively raised in the context of consumer protection, but also as a necessary component for fisheries control and enforcement in Regulation (EU) 1224/2009 and in the context of the EU’s ambitious strategy to fight Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing under the remit of Regulation (EC) 1005/2008. Recent scientific advances, particularly in the fields of genetics and genomics, have led to the development of novel and improved technologies, and efforts are under way to harness their potential for the species identification of unknown fish samples or products. This report reviews these efforts, describing the technologies and the early results obtained for fish product traceability. Each of these technologies have the potential to fill some specific existing gaps, although they come with their own individual set of disadvantages. Understanding those and monitoring progress is thus crucial for their proper integration in existing traceability frameworks.JRC.F.7-Knowledge for Health and Consumer Safet