Sacha inchi oil (Plukenetia volubilis) stabilized with antioxidants for addition in fresh cheese

Sacha Inchi (Plukenetia volubilis) is a nut that has been grown in the Amazon Rainforest and the high Andes Mountains of Peru for countless centuries. The oil of this nut, natural source of omega 3, 6 and 9, has been recognized by its high antioxidant capacity in humans. In this work, oil from Sacha Inchi was fortified with two commercial antioxidants (Ecoprol 2020 and tocopherol) in order to prepare a fresh cheese from cow's milk. The antioxidant capacities of Sacha Inchi and commercial antioxidants were used as preservatives with the purpose to increase the shelf-life of fresh cheese besides nutritional content. The factorial method was necessary to prepare seven formulations in order to find the optimal concentration of the antioxidants added to Sacha Inchi oil andthe addition of this oil to the fresh cheese. A sensory analysis was performed to choose the best formulation. The results showed that an oil formulation (F4) with tocopherol (150 mg/kg of oil) and Ecoprol 2020 (1000 mg/kg of oil) displayed the lowest peroxide values (PI: 2.6 ± 0.1 meq O2/kg of oil, p < 0.001) and it was able to reduce approximately 50% of fatty acid oxidation in Sacha Inchi oil in relation to the PI control. Then, F4 was used to elaborate further nine formulations (F’1 – F’9), enriched with Sacha Inchi oil (1 to 4%) to prepare the fresh cheese. Microbiological analysis for all formulations were performed (limits of mold, yeasts, coliforms, salmonella, and  bacteria) in order to meet the legal requirements of health and safety in Peru. The cheese taste acceptability was determined through the sensorial evaluation, which reached 7.2 according to the 9- hedonic scale for F'5. Thus, an optimum fresh cheese was obtained from the formulation (F’5) with 22.5g/L of salt and 2.5% of Sacha Inchi oil enriched with 150 mg/kg of tocopherol and 1000 mg/kg of Ecoprol 2020. The cheese shelf-life was also evaluated, increasing it up from 7 days to 16 days in refrigeration. Key words: cheese, antioxidant, Sacha Inchi, shelf-life, Ecoprol 2020, tocophero

Immune Profiling of Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells at Pancreas Acute Rejection Episodes in Kidney-Pancreas Transplant Recipients

Profiling of circulating immune cells provides valuable insight to the pathophysiology of acute rejection in organ transplantation. Herein we characterized the peripheral blood mononuclear cells in simultaneous kidney-pancreas transplant recipients. We conducted a retrospective analysis in a biopsy-matched cohort (n = 67) and compared patients with biopsy proven acute rejection (BPAR; 41%) to those without rejection (No-AR). We observed that CD3+ T cells, both CD8+ and CD4+, as well as CD19+ B cells were increased in patients with BPAR, particularly in biopsies performed in the early post-transplant period (<3 months). During this period immune subsets presented a good discriminative ability (CD4+ AUC 0.79; CD8+ AUC 0.80; B cells AUC 0.86; p < 0.05) and outperformed lipase (AUC 0.62; p = 0.12) for the diagnosis of acute rejection. We further evaluated whether this could be explained by differences in frequencies prior to transplantation. Patients presenting with early post-transplant rejection (<3 months) had a significant increase in T-cell frequencies pre-transplant, both CD4+ T cells and CD8+ T cells (p < 0.01), which were associated with a significant inferior rejection-free graft survival. T cell frequencies in peripheral blood correlated with pancreas acute rejection episodes, and variations prior to transplantation were associated with pancreas early acute rejection.Copyright © 2022 Rovira, Ramirez-Bajo, Bañón-Maneus, Hierro-Garcia, Lazo-Rodriguez, Piñeiro, Montagud-Marrahi, Cucchiari, Revuelta, Cuatrecasas, Campistol, Ricart, Diekmann, Garcia-Criado and Ventura-Aguiar

Non-structural carbohydrates mediate seasonal water stress across Amazon forests

Non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) are major substrates for plant metabolism and have been implicated in mediating drought-induced tree mortality. Despite their significance, NSC dynamics in tropical forests remain little studied. We present leaf and branch NSC data for 82 Amazon canopy tree species in six sites spanning a broad precipitation gradient. During the wet season, total NSC (NSCT) concentrations in both organs were remarkably similar across communities. However, NSCT and its soluble sugar (SS) and starch components varied much more across sites during the dry season. Notably, the proportion of leaf NSCT in the form of SS (SS:NSCT) increased greatly in the dry season in almost all species in the driest sites, implying an important role of SS in mediating water stress in these sites. This adjustment of leaf NSC balance was not observed in tree species less-adapted to water deficit, even under exceptionally dry conditions. Thus, leaf carbon metabolism may help to explain floristic sorting across water availability gradients in Amazonia and enable better prediction of forest responses to future climate change