A Box-Behnken Design for Optimal Green Extraction of Compounds from Olive Leaves That Potentially Activate the AMPK Pathway

The author B.M.-G. is grateful to the National Youth Guarantee System for the grant for young research personnel. Also, the authors are grateful to the University of Granada for a “Contrato Puente” postdoctoral contract (S.P.-M.).Olive leaves contain bioactive compounds that have been shown to activate AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), which decreases intracellular lipid accumulation. Microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) is a green extraction technique that is frequently used in the recovery of phenolic compounds from plants. Thus, in this study, a Box-Behnken design was used to optimize MAE conditions such as temperature, percentage of ethanol and extraction time to obtain the maximum content of total compounds and compounds that activate AMPK. To this end, all extracts were characterized by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Coupled to Electrospray Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-TOF-MS). The optimum conditions to obtain the highest content of total compounds were 123 ◦C, 100% of ethanol/water (v/v) and 23 min, whereas the optimum conditions for the highest amount of compounds that activate AMPK were 111 ◦C, 42% of ethanol/water (v/v) and 23 min. Thus, a multi-analysis by desirability was carried out to establish MAE optimal conditions for both responses. The optimum conditions were 111 ◦C, 100% EtOH and 23 min with a desirability of 0.97, which means that the responses are close to their individual optimal values. As a result, the olive leaf extract obtained at these optimal MAE conditions has great potential to be effective in the treatment of obesity.Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) AGL2015-67995-C3-2Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities RTI2018-096724-B-C22Ministry of Economy, Knowledge, Business and University of the Junta de Andalucia B-AGR-466-UGR1

Holistic Approach to the Restoration of a Vandalized Monument: The Cross of the Inquisition, Seville City Hall, Spain

The Cross of the Inquisition, sculpted in 1903 and raised on a column with a fluted shaft and ornamented with vegetable garlands, is located in a corner of the Plateresque façade of the Seville City Hall. The Cross was vandalized in September 2019 and the restoration concluded in September 2021. A geological and microbiological study was carried out in a few small fragments. The data are consistent with the exposure of the Cross of the Inquisition to an urban environment for more than 100 years. During that time, a lichen community colonized the Cross and the nearby City Hall façades. The lichens, bryophytes and fungi colonizing the limestone surface composed an urban community, regenerated from the remains of the original communities, after superficial cleaning of the limestone between 2008 and 2010. This biological activity was detrimental to the integrity of the limestone, as showed by the pitting and channels, which evidence the lytic activity of organisms on the stone surface. Stone consolidation was achieved with Estel 1000. Preventol RI80, a biocide able to penetrate the porous limestone and active against bacteria, fungi, lichens, and bryophytes, was applied in the restoration.The research was funded by Atelier Samthiago and the restoration of the Cross of the Inquisition was supported by the Seville City Hall

Pleiotropic Biological Effects of Dietary Phenolic Compounds and their Metabolites on Energy Metabolism, Inflammation and Aging

The authors would like to thank to the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (RTI2018-096724-B-C22). The author M.d.C.V.-A. is grateful acknowledges to the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, University of Granada and AGR274 group for the contract (5450). Also, the authors are grateful to the University of Granada for a “Contrato Puente” postdoctoral contracts (Á.F.-O. and S.P.-M.) and a “Perfeccionamiento de Doctores” postdoctoral contract (M.d.l.L.C.-G.).Dietary phenolic compounds are considered as bioactive compounds that have effects in different chronic disorders related to oxidative stress, inflammation process, or aging. These compounds, coming from a wide range of natural sources, have shown a pleiotropic behavior on key proteins that act as regulators. In this sense, this review aims to compile information on the effect exerted by the phenolic compounds and their metabolites on the main metabolic pathways involved in energy metabolism, inflammatory response, aging and their relationship with the biological properties reported in high prevalence chronic diseases. Numerous in vitro and in vivo studies have demonstrated their pleiotropic molecular mechanisms of action and these findings raise the possibility that phenolic compounds have a wide variety of roles in different targets.Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (RTI2018-096724-B-C22)University of Granada and AGR274 group for the contract (5450

Microbial Activity in Subterranean Ecosystems: Recent Advances

Of the several critical challenges present in environmental microbiology today, one is the assessment of the contribution of microorganisms in the carbon cycle in the Earth-climate system. Karstic subterranean ecosystems have been overlooked until recently. Covering up to 25% of the land surface and acting as a rapid CH4 sink and alternately as a CO2 source or sink, karstic subterranean ecosystems play a decisive role in the carbon cycle in terms of their contribution to the global balance of greenhouse gases. Recent data indicate that microbiota must play a significant ecological role in the biogeochemical processes that control the composition of the subterranean atmosphere, as well as in the availability of nutrients for the ecosystem. Nevertheless, there are still essential gaps in our knowledge concerning the budgets of greenhouse gases at the ecosystem scale and the possible feedback mechanisms between environmental-microclimatic conditions and the rates and type of activity of microbial communities in subterranean ecosystems. Another challenge is searching for bioactive compounds (antibiotics) used for treating human diseases. At present, there is a global health emergency and a strong need for novel biomolecules. In recent decades, great research efforts have been made to extract antibiotics from marine organisms. More recently, caves have been receiving considerable attention in search of novel antibiotics. Cave methanotrophic and heterotrophic bacteria are producers of bioactive compounds and may be potential sources of metabolites with antibacterial, antifungal or anticancer activities of interest in pharmacological and medical research, as well as enzymes with a further biotechnological use. Here we also show that bacteria isolated from mines, a still unexplored niche for scientists in search of novel compounds, can be a source of novel secondary metabolites.Financial support was obtained through project 0483_PROBIOMA_5_E, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund within the framework of the Interreg V-A Spain-Portugal program (POCTEP) 2014–2020. This work was also supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through projects CGL2016-75590-P and PID2019-110603RB-I00, AEI/FEDER, UE

Crossiella, a Rare Actinomycetota Genus, Abundant in the Environment

The genus Crossiella contains two species, C. equi, causing nocardioform placentitis in horses, and C. cryophila, an environmental bacterium. Apart from C. equi, which is not discussed here, environmental Crossiella is rarely reported in the literature; thus, it has not been included among “rare actinobacteria”, whose isolation frequency is very low. After C. cryophila, only five reports cover the isolation of Crossiella strains. However, the frequency of published papers on environmental Crossiella has increased significantly in recent years due to the extensive use of next-generation sequencing (NGS) and a huge cascade of data that has improved our understanding of how bacteria occur in the environment. In the last five years, Crossiella has been found in different environments (caves, soils, plant rhizospheres, building stones, etc.). The high abundance of Crossiella in cave moonmilk indicates that this genus may have an active role in moonmilk formation, as evidenced by the precipitation of calcite, witherite, and struvite in different culture media. This review provides an overview of environmental Crossiella, particularly in caves, and discusses its role in biomineralization processes and bioactive compound production.This research was funded by the projects PID2020-114978GB-I00 and PID2019-110603RB-I00. The Malaga City Council financed data from the archaeological basement of the Thyssen Museum of Malaga through a conservation contract for this Roman site

LC-MS and Spectrophotometric Approaches for Evaluation of Bioactive Compounds from Peru Cocoa By-Products for Commercial Applications

Peru is one of the main areas where there are large cocoa crops with special relevance to the economy of this country. In fact, cocoa is a major, economically important, international crop which has been linked to several benefits, such as anti-allergenic, anti-atherogenic, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, anti-oxidant, anti-thrombotic, cardioprotective and vasodilatory properties, relating to its bioactive compound content. However, in cocoa industrial processing, several residues or wastes, which are commonly discarded generating a negative impact on the environment, are produced in large amounts. Some of the cocoa by-products, which go underutilized, could be a good source of bioactive compounds with high utility for the development of innovative products in nutraceutical, medical or pharmaceutical industries. For this reason, the aim of this study is to qualitatively determine the phytochemical composition of husk and bean extracts from different cocoa-growing areas and processes from Peru by high performance liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. Furthermore, we aim to evaluate their phenolic and flavan-3-ol contents and antioxidant capacities for the purpose of highlighting the potential of cocoa by-products from these cultivars as functional ingredients. In total, 49 chemical compounds were detected in the analyzed extracts. Comparing both husks and beans, bean extracts were characterized by high content in flavonoids whereas husk extracts had a higher content of phenolic acids. The presence of these compounds together with the bioactivity results suggest that these matrices may be further studied for their revaluation in the development of high added-value products in nutraceutical, medical, and pharmaceutical industries.Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities RTI2018-096724-B-C22Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) BES-2016-076618Ministry of Science, Innovation and UniversitiesAGR274 group 5450University of Granad

The role of high-resolution analytical techniques in the development of functional foods

The approaches based on high-resolution analytical techniques, such as nuclear magnetic resonance or mass spectrometry coupled to chromatographic techniques, have a determining role in several of the stages necessary for the development of functional foods. The analyses of botanical extracts rich in bioactive compounds is one of the fundamental steps in order to identify and quantify their phytochemical composition. However, the compounds characterized in the extracts are not always responsible for the bioactive properties because they generally undergo metabolic reactions before reaching the therapeutic targets. For this reason, analytical techniques are also applied to analyze biological samples to know the bioavailability, pharmacokinetics and/or metabolism of the compounds ingested by animal or human models in nutritional intervention studies. In addition, these studies have also been applied to determine changes of endogenous metabolites caused by prolonged intake of compounds with bioactive potential. This review aims to describe the main types and modes of application of high-resolution analytical techniques in all these steps for functional food development

Big impact of nanoparticles: analysis of the most cited nanopharmaceuticals and nanonutraceuticals research

Nanopharmaceuticals and nanonutraceuticals research has been lately receiving a lot of scientific attention. We aimed to identify the top 100 most cited original articles of the scientific area, analyze their research themes, major contributors regarding authors, institutions, countries and journals. The bibliometric data was extracted from the Web of Science electronic database. Data was further processed by a bibliometric software, VOSviewer, to generate bubble maps to visualize the results. Inter-institutional and international collaboration networks were constructed to further understand the cooperation between different study centers. Results revealed that over 60% of the articles were published in the 2000s. As of November 2019, the articles were cited 5763665 times, with 20.1261.8 citations per year. The majority of the most prolific institutions were based in the United States. Besides the United States, China, South Korea, Canada and Germany contributed heavily to the 100 articles. Some popular themes included drug delivery, tumor, toxicity / biocompatibility and biodistribution. Regarding composition materials, gold, silver and polymeric nanoparticles were the most commonly used.Atanas G. Atanasov acknowledges the support by the Polish KNOW (Leading National Research Centre) Scientific Consortium “Healthy Animal-Safe Food,” decision of Ministry of Science and Higher Education No. 05-1/KNOW2/2015. The support of the research project: Nutraceutica come supporto nutrizionale nel paziente oncologico, CUP: B83D18000140007, Italy is acknowledged.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Lipid-based nanostructures as a strategy to enhance curcumin bioaccessibility: behavior under digestion and cytotoxicity assessment

The aim of this study was to evaluate the behavior of different lipid-based nanostructures during in vitro digestion, in particular on curcumins bioaccessibility, and to access their potential toxicity. Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN), nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC) and nanoemulsions (NE) were submitted to harmonized static in vitro digestion and their cytotoxicity and cellular transport were evaluated using Caco-2 cell line. NE presented the highest curcumins bioaccessibility followed by NLC and SLN, 71.1%, 63.7% and 53.3%, respectively. Free fatty acids percentage increased in the following order: NLC ? NE < SLN. Non-digested nanostructures and excipients presented no cytotoxicity; however, digested NE and NLC presented cytotoxicity due to MCT oil, which presented cytotoxicity after digestion. The apparent permeability coefficient of NLC was higher than SLN and NE. These results showed that lipid-based nanostructures physical state and composition have a high influence on particles' behavior during digestion, and on their cytotoxicity/intestinal permeability, and highlights the importance of conducting cytotoxicity assessments after in vitro digestion. This work contributes to a better understanding of the behavior of lipid-based nanostructures under digestion/adsorption, and this knowledge will be useful in design of nanostructures that afford both safety and an increased bioactive compounds bioavailability.Acknowledgments Raquel F. S. Goncalves acknowledge the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for her fellowship (SFRH/BD/140182/2018) . This study was supported by Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of Project PTDC/AGRTEC/5215/2014, the strategic funding of UIDB/04469/2020 unit and BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020Programa Operacional Regional do Norte. Funding from INTERFACE Programme through the Innovation, Technology and Circular Economy Fund (FITEC) and iNova4Health, a program also financially supported by Fundacao para a Ciencia eTecnologia, is also gratefully acknowledged.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Microclimate, airborne particles, and microbiological monitoring protocol for conservation of rock-art caves: The case of the world-heritage site La Garma cave (Spain)

16 páginas.- 6 figuras.- 3 tablas.- referencias.- Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.119762.Cave heritage is often threatened by tourism or even scientific activities, which can lead to irreversible deterioration. We present a preventive conservation monitoring protocol to protect caves with rock art, focusing on La Garma Cave (Spain), a World Heritage Site with valuable archaeological materials and Palaeolithic paintings. This study assessed the suitability of the cave for tourist use through continuous microclimate and airborne particles monitoring, biofilm analysis, aerobiological monitoring and experimental visits. Our findings indicate several factors that make it inadvisable to adapt the cave for tourist use. Human presence and transit within the cave cause cumulative effects on the temperature of environmentally very stable and fragile sectors and significant resuspension of particles from the cave sediments. These environmental perturbations represent severe impacts as they affect the natural aerodynamic control of airborne particles and determine bacterial dispersal throughout the cave. This monitoring protocol provides part of the evidence to design strategies for sustainable cave management.This research was supported by the Consejeria de Universidades, Igualdad, Cultura y Deporte del Gobierno de Cantabria and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through projects PID2019-110603RB-I00 and PID2020-114978 GB-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. The authors acknowledge to CSIC Open Access Publication Support Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI), and CSIC Interdisciplinary Thematic Platform Open Heritage: Research and Society (PTI-PAIS) for the professional support.Peer reviewe