High power ultrasounds: A powerful, non-thermal and green technique for improving the phenolic extraction from grapes to must during red wine vinification

Wine color is one of the main organoleptic characteristics influencing its quality. It is of especial interest in red vinifications due to the economic resources that wineries have to invest for the extraction of the phenolic compounds. To increase this extraction, some chemical (maceration enzymes) or physical technologies (thermovinification, criomaceration, flash-expansion) can be applied. In this work, the results of the application of high power ultrasounds to the crushed grapes to increase the extraction of phenolic compounds are presented. Crushed grapes (400 kg) from the 2017 harvest were treated with ultrasound, and three different lengths of skin maceration period (2, 3 or 7 days) and the results were compared with a control vinification, where grapes were not subjected to any treatment and were skin macerated during 7 days. The wine chromatic characteristics and the individual phenolic compounds were followed during all the maceration period, at the end of alcoholic fermentation and after bottle storage. The wines made with ultrasound treated grapes presented differences with control wine, especially as regard color and total phenol and tannin content, the wines with three days of maceration time presenting similar chromatic characteristics than control wines with 7 days of maceration time

High power ultrasounds: A powerful, non-thermal and green technique for improving the phenolic extraction from grapes to must during red wine vinification

Wine color is one of the main organoleptic characteristics influencing its quality. It is of especial interest in red vinifications due to the economic resources that wineries have to invest for the extraction of the phenolic compounds. To increase this extraction, some chemical (maceration enzymes) or physical technologies (thermovinification, criomaceration, flash-expansion) can be applied. In this work, the results of the application of high power ultrasounds to the crushed grapes to increase the extraction of phenolic compounds are presented. Crushed grapes (400 kg) from the 2017 harvest were treated with ultrasound, and three different lengths of skin maceration period (2, 3 or 7 days) and the results were compared with a control vinification, where grapes were not subjected to any treatment and were skin macerated during 7 days. The wine chromatic characteristics and the individual phenolic compounds were followed during all the maceration period, at the end of alcoholic fermentation and after bottle storage. The wines made with ultrasound treated grapes presented differences with control wine, especially as regard color and total phenol and tannin content, the wines with three days of maceration time presenting similar chromatic characteristics than control wines with 7 days of maceration time

Response of different soil organic matter pools to biochar and organic fertilizers

Peer reviewe

Unraveling the long-term stabilization mechanisms of organic materials in soils by physical fractionation and NMR spectroscopy

The fundamental mechanisms whereby organic inputs stabilize in soil are poorly resolved, which limits our current capacity to predict the dynamics of soil organic matter (OM) turnover and its influence on soil quality and functioning. Here we fractionated soil OM from long-term experimental field plots either unamended or amended with two organic materials of different quality (i.e., solid cattle manure and crop residues) for 44 years into five measurable and meaningful pools directly related to conceptual preservation mechanisms: dissolved OM, mineral-free particulate OM located outside aggregates (unprotected from decomposition), OM occluded within both macroaggregates and microaggregates (weakly and strongly protected by physical mechanisms, respectively), and OM intimately associated with soil mineral particles (protected by chemical mechanisms). Compared to the unamended soil, the application of cattle manure and crop residues increased total organic C content by 35 and 10%, respectively. Most of these increases (up to 60 and 72% for cattle manure and crop residues, respectively) were explained by the mineral-associated OM pool, followed by the intra-microaggreggate OM fraction. In general, the distribution and dynamics of N content paralleled those of C content. As determined by a range of modern nuclear magnetic resonances (NMR) techniques, including 13C cross polarization magic angle spinning (MAS), 1H high resolution (HR)-MAS, and 1H-13C heteronuclear single quantum coherence HR-MAS NMR, the mineral-associated OM fraction was found to be predominately of microbial origin, unlike free and intra-aggregate OM pools, which were dominated by plant structures at different stages of decomposition. As a whole, our results indicate that the main mechanism by which organic inputs are stabilized and OM accrues in soils is not the physical and chemical protection of undecayed or partially degraded organic structures, but the adsorption on mineral surfaces of microbial biomass and microbial by-products resulting from microbial growth, transformation, and degradation processes. It is possible that organic amendments increase more than previously thought the microbial populations of the soil, which live, thrive, and die in close association with the mineral surfaces. This mechanism appears to be enhanced with the addition of stable organic materials

Multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of asthma exacerbations.

BACKGROUND: Asthma exacerbations are a serious public health concern due to high healthcare resource utilization, work/school productivity loss, impact on quality of life, and risk of mortality. The genetic basis of asthma exacerbations has been studied in several populations, but no prior study has performed a multi-ancestry meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies (meta-GWAS) for this trait. We aimed to identify common genetic loci associated with asthma exacerbations across diverse populations and to assess their functional role in regulating DNA methylation and gene expression. METHODS: A meta-GWAS of asthma exacerbations in 4989 Europeans, 2181 Hispanics/Latinos, 1250 Singaporean Chinese, and 972 African Americans analyzed 9.6 million genetic variants. Suggestively associated variants (p ≤ 5 × 10-5 ) were assessed for replication in 36,477 European and 1078 non-European asthma patients. Functional effects on DNA methylation were assessed in 595 Hispanic/Latino and African American asthma patients and in publicly available databases. The effect on gene expression was evaluated in silico. RESULTS: One hundred and twenty-six independent variants were suggestively associated with asthma exacerbations in the discovery phase. Two variants independently replicated: rs12091010 located at vascular cell adhesion molecule-1/exostosin like glycosyltransferase-2 (VCAM1/EXTL2) (discovery: odds ratio (ORT allele ) = 0.82, p = 9.05 × 10-6 and replication: ORT allele  = 0.89, p = 5.35 × 10-3 ) and rs943126 from pantothenate kinase 1 (PANK1) (discovery: ORC allele  = 0.85, p = 3.10 × 10-5 and replication: ORC allele  = 0.89, p = 1.30 × 10-2 ). Both variants regulate gene expression of genes where they locate and DNA methylation levels of nearby genes in whole blood. CONCLUSIONS: This multi-ancestry study revealed novel suggestive regulatory loci for asthma exacerbations located in genomic regions participating in inflammation and host defense