Protective effect of mesoporous silica particles on encapsulated folates

Mesoporous silica particles (MSPs) are considered suitable supports to design gated materials for the encapsulation of bioactive molecules. Folates are essential micronutrients which are sensitive to external agents that provoke nutritional deficiencies. Folates encapsulation in MSPs to prevent degradation and to allow their controlled delivery is a promising strategy. Nevertheless, no information exists about the protective effect of MSPs encapsulation to prevent their degradation. In this work, 5-formyltetrahydrofolate (FO) and folic acid (FA) were entrapped in MSPs functionalized with polyamines, which acted as pH-dependent molecular gates. The stability of free and entrapped vitamins after acidic pH, high temperature and light exposure was studied. The results showed the degradation of FO after high temperature and acidic pH, whereas entrapped FO displayed enhanced stability. Free FA was degraded by light, but MSPs stabilized the vitamin. The obtained results point toward the potential use of MSPs as candidates to enhance stability and to improve the bioavailability of functional biomolecules.Authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (Projects AGL2012-39597-C02-01, AGL2012-39597-C02-02 and MAT2012-38429-C04-01), FEDER founding and the Generalitat Valenciana (Project PROMETEOII/2014/047). M.R.R. and E.P.E. are grateful to the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion for their Grants (AP2010-4369 and AP2008-0620).Ruiz Rico, M.; Daubenschüz, H.; Pérez Esteve, E.; Marcos Martínez, MD.; Amorós, P.; Martínez Mañez, R.; Barat Baviera, JM. (2016). Protective effect of mesoporous silica particles on encapsulated folates. European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics. 105:9-17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpb.2016.05.016S91710

Transitions at CpG Dinucleotides, Geographic Clustering of TP53 Mutations and Food Availability Patterns in Colorectal Cancer

Colorectal cancer is mainly attributed to diet, but the role exerted by foods remains unclear because involved factors are extremely complex. Geography substantially impacts on foods. Correlations between international variation in colorectal cancer-associated mutation patterns and food availabilities could highlight the influence of foods on colorectal mutagenesis. mutations from 12 countries/geographic areas. For food availabilities, we relied on data extracted from the Food Balance Sheets of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Dendrograms for mutation sites, mutation types and food patterns were constructed through Ward's hierarchical clustering algorithm and their stability was assessed evaluating silhouette values. Feature selection used entropy-based measures for similarity between clusterings, combined with principal component analysis by exhaustive and heuristic approaches. hotspots. Pearson's correlation scores, computed between the principal components of the datamatrices for mutation types, food availability and mutation sites, demonstrated statistically significant correlations between transitions at CpGs and both mutation sites and availabilities of meat, milk, sweeteners and animal fats, the energy-dense foods at the basis of “Western” diets. This is best explainable by differential exposure to nitrosative DNA damage due to foods that promote metabolic stress and chronic inflammation

Folate content in strawberries (Fragina x ananassa): Effects of cultivar, ripeness, year of harvest, storage, and commercial processing.

Folate concentrations in strawberries and folate retention during storage and commercial processing of strawberries were investigated. No previous study has focused on the effects of cultivar, ripeness, and year of harvest of strawberries with respect to the folate content. This study showed the folate concentration in strawberries to significantly depend on all of these different factors. Total folate was quantified using a modified and validated radioprotein-binding assay with external calibration (5-CH3-H4folate). Folate content in 13 different strawberry cultivars varied from 335 g/100 g of dry matter (DM) for cv. Senga Sengana to 644 g/100 g of DM for cv. Elsanta. Swedish harvests from 1999 and 2001 yielded higher folate concentrations than did the harvest from 2000, and the grade of ripeness affected the folate content in strawberries. This study indicated high folate retention in intact berries during storage until 3 or 9 days at 4 C (71-99%) and also in most tested commercial products (79-103%). On the basis of these data fresh strawberries as well as processed strawberry products are recommended to be good folate sources. For instance, 250 g (fresh weight) of strawberries (~125 g of folate) supplies ~50% of the recommended daily folate intake in various European countries (200-300 g/day) or 30% of the U.S. recommendation (400 g/day)