Functional Ingredients and Food Preservative in Immature Persimmon “Tekka-Kaki”

Immature persimmons are unripe fruits that are cut off during the persimmon cultivation process and immediately discarded, amounting to an annual fruit loss of approximately 100 to 400 kg per 1000 m2. The purpose of this study was to make effective use of unused resources, namely, immature persimmons, and attempt to use them as food additives. In this study, we studied the Tone Wase (fully astringent persimmon) and Fuyu (fully sweet persimmon) cultivars. As a result, we performed a component analysis of the immature persimmons, isolating 12 compounds, of which two were newly identified. Differences in the components and their contents were found between cultivars and between the peel and flesh. To effectively use immature persimmons as food for the elderly, we searched for active substances that inhibit AGE formation and found that extracts of immature persimmons and isolated compounds showed high activity. In particular, high activity was observed for catechin and its polymeric form, procyanidin. Regarding the inhibition of aroma deterioration, 5 mg/L of gallic acid in octadecane was found to be the optimal condition for the inhibition of citral deterioration. As for antimicrobial activity, we found that extracts at a concentration of 500 mg/L had no antimicrobial effect. Based on these findings, we made a microencapsulation process, and plan to advance to the clinical trial study in future. These findings confirmed the effectiveness of immature persimmons, which are an unused resource, and reveal their potential as a food for the elderly and as a food additive in other food products, which we hope will lead to new industrial innovations

Field Investigation Of PAHs In Soils Around Nara City In Japan

PAHs are the general term for compounds, having two or more benzene rings. These are discharged from diesel motor gas, tanker accidents, oil emissions by cars, and so on. They float in the atmosphere, and it is considered that they are absorbed in soil as a result of rain. Generally, compounds that have two and three benzene rings show only toxicity, whereas those having four or more benzene rings show toxicity, carcinogenicity and mutagenicity. Especially, benzo(a)pylene has been shown to be an endocrine disrupter. We investigated the action of 16 PAHs specified by the U.S. EPA in soil around Nara city in Japan. Soil was collected from different locations involving traffic and vegetation. Soils from three locations around our university were collected every month, to investigate seasonal movement. PAHs were extracted from soil by soxhlet extraction with dichloromethane. They were then analyzed quantitatively by HPLC/UV. We classed PAHs by number of rings, and examined the concentration and seasonal movements. All content of 16 PAHs in soils increased in proportion to traffic volume. At the same locations of traffic volume, the gravitation at a location with plant with all content of 16 PAHs in soils was, furthermore, found to have a low concentration. There were different seasonal movements of the 2, 3-ring and 4, 5, 6-ring PAHs. 4, 5, 6-ring PAHs have a strong correlation with each other ( r\u3e0.79), but there were no correlations between 2, 3-ring and 4, 5, 6-ring PAHs. As a result, the traffic volumes are exposition sources of 4, 5, 6-ring PAHs in soils

Accumulation Of Heavy Metals By Cucumber And Brassica Juncea Under Different Cultivation Conditions

Pollution by heavy metals from industries, the storage of polluted wastes, and agricultural fertilizer pose a serious threat to human health. These pollutants may pass into the soil where plant uptake or leaching to groundwater can contaminate the food chain. Phytoremediation is the technique that removed contaminants in environment by plants, and is researched in world, recently. This process, termed evapotranspiration, is responsible for moving contamination into the plant shoots as well. Because contamination is translocated from the roots to the shoots, which are harvested, contamination is removed while leaving the original soil undisturbed. Some plants that are used in phytoextraction strategies are termed hyperaccumulators , which are plants that achieve a shoot to root metal-concentration ratio greater than one. Brassica juncea is known as Pb hyperaccumulator well. And cucumber is well used to understand transportation mechanism of heavy metals. Because the sap of cucumber is easy to collecting. We focused to whether the temperature related to the transportation of heavy metal. Cucumber and Brassica juncea were used to this research. These plants were cultivated under hydroponics with Pb (60 to 600 ppm). The cultivation temperature has been changed from 8 degrees to 30 degrees for 96hours. We measured Pb concentration and GSH concentration and protein concentration every 24 hours. Pb concentration was measured by AAS after ashed with microwave system, GSH and protein concentrations were measured after crushing with liquid nitrogen by HPLC. As for the cucumber, at 25 degrees the amount of absorption of lead was the maximum. However as for Brassica juncea, at 12 degrees the amount of absorption of lead was the maximum. This result shows that the accumulation time of the heavy metal is different in each plant. And it was shown that GSH and the protein related closely to the accumulation of the heavy metal and the cultivation temperature

柑橘類果皮中の生物活性配糖体

[Synopsis] Since 1980\u27s we have been investigating bioactive compounds in citrus fruit peels. We have successfully isolated seventy-three glycosides including thirty-four new compounds. They were flavonoid glycosides, phenylpropanoid glycosides, terpenoid glycosides, limonoid glycosides, and alkyl glycosides. The biological activities of the compounds were studied for the utilization as hypotensive and hypertensive drugs. In this manuscript, recent works are briefly reviewed focussing on the isolation and mutual relationships between the structures of the compounds and their biological activities. (摘要）　有用植物資源として、貴重な柑橘類果皮のより高度な利用開発の基礎研究として、著者らは11種の柑橘類果皮中から34種の新規化合物を含む73種の生物活性物質の分離に成功した。これらの化合物の構造と生物活性の相関性について考察した

FAB/MSによる食用キノコに含まれる糖脂質の構造特性

[Synopsis] The structures of glycolipids isolated from mushrooms, Hypsizigus marmoreus (Bunashimeji) and Pleurotus citrinopileatus (Nireouma) were determined to be (4E,8E)-N-2-hydroxyhexadecanoyl-1-O-β-glucopyranosyl-9-methyl-C_-sphinga-4,8-dienine (1), phosphodihexose N-(2-hydroxyoctadecanoyl)-4-hydroxy-C_-sphinganine (2), phosphodihexose N-(2-hydroxyhexadecanoyl)-4-hydroxy-C_-sphinganine (3), phosphodihexose N-(2-hydroxytetracosanoy1)-4-hydroxy-C_-sphinganine (4), and phosphodihexose N-(2-hydroxydocosanoy1)-4-hydroxy-C_-sphinganine (5). In particular, location of the double bonds in the long-chain base of 1 was clearly determined by the B/E constant linked scan method. The structure of cerebroside having a long-chain base of 9-methyl-C_-sphinga-4,8-dienine could be determined in general by the presence of characteristic fragment ions of [C_-sphingadienine + H-H_2O]^+at m/z 276 and [C_-sphingadienine + H]^+ at m/z 294, and the fatty acid carbon number could be calculated from the characteristic fragment ion of [ceramide - 180]^+ ([MH - GlcOH - 180]^+) in positive ion mode FAB mass spectrometry. In the structural determination of 2-5, the ions of m/z 421 and 720 in the negative ion mode analyses are assigned to be characteristic peaks of phosphodihexose and phytosphingosine containing phosphodihexose, respectively. This method proved to be useful for the structural determination of unstable natural products such as lipids. 　（摘要）　機能性天然物分子探索の一環として、食用キノコに含まれる糖脂質の構造解析について研究を行っている。本稿では、ブナシメジ (Hypsizigus marmoreus) および楡黄麻 (Pleurotus citrinopileatus) から得た糖脂質のFAB/MSの構造特性について紹介する。得られた糖脂質の構造は、(4E, 8E)-N-2-hydroxyhexadecanoyl-1-O-β-glucopyranosyl-9-methyl-C_-sphinga-4,8-dienine (1), phosphodihexose N-(2-hydroxyoctadecanoyl)-4-hydroxy-C_-sphinganine (2), phosphodihexose N-(2-hydroxyhexadecanoyl)-4-hydroxy-C_-sphinganine(3), phosphodihexose N-(2-hydroxytetracosanoyl)-4-hydroxy-C_-sphinganine (4) および phosphodihexose N-(2-hydroxydocosanoyl)-4-hydroxy-C_-sphinganine (5) と決定した。特に、これらの構造特性において、長鎖アルキルの不飽和結合の位置、極性部および脂肪酸の種類はB/E一定リンクドスキャン法を用いたFAB/MSを測定することにより容易に決定された

Skin-Beautifying Effects of Magnolol and Honokiol Glycosides

Glycosides have been synthesized using the starting materials magnolol (1) and honokiol (4), isolated from the Japanese white-bark magnolia, and their anti-aging effects on the skin (skin-beautifying effects) have been examined. The advanced glycation end-product (AGE) inhibitory activity test (anti-glycation test) and glycation induction model test, using human-derived dermal fibroblasts, TIG-110 cells, have been conducted to evaluate the anti-aging effects. The synthesized glycoside compounds, 5,5′-di(prop-2-en-1-yl)[1,1′-biphenyl]-2-hydroxy-2′-glucopyranoside (3a), 5,5′-di(prop-2-en-1-yl)[1,1′-biphenyl]-2,2′-diglucopyranoside (3b), 3′,5-di(prop-2-en-1-yl)[1,1′-biphenyl]-4′-hydroxy-2-glucopyranoside (6a) and 3′,5-di(prop-2-en-1-yl)[1,1′-biphenyl]-2,4′-diglucopyranoside (6b), have shown significant anti-glycation activities of less than 0.10 mM in IC50. The glycation induction model test with the fibroblasts, TIG-110 cells, demonstrates that the aforementioned glycosides significantly inhibit the decrease in cell viability. These newly synthesized glycoside compounds are expected to be used as cosmetic ingredients, health foods, and pharmaceutical ingredients, which have inhibitory effects against AGE formation