Fibrinogen increases resveratrol solubility and prevents it from oxidation

The French paradox describes a lower incidence of cardiovascular problems despite a high intake of saturated fats. This phenomenon was associated with higher consumption of red wine, as it was later discovered that the presence of antioxidants, including resveratrol, have beneficial effects. We hypothesized that resveratrol may have a more direct role in protection from harmful oxidation, presumably through binding to important proteins of the blood coagulation process. Spectrofluorimetry demonstrated that resveratrol is capable of binding to fibrinogen, the main protein in the coagulation process, which is also important as a food additive. Various spectroscopic methods determined that binding does not cause fibrinogen unfolding or destabilization since protein melting temperature remains unchanged. A mutually protective effect against the free radical-induced oxidation of polyphenol and fibrinogen was found. The presence of fibrinogen caused only a negligible masking effect of the antioxidative abilities of resveratrol, measured by a reduction of hexacyanoferrate (III), while greatly increasing its solubility in an aqueous environment, thus increasing its potential bioavailability. Due to its interaction with fibrinogen, resveratrol may serve as an antioxidant at the site of injury. The antioxidative effect of resveratrol may also protect and thus keep the desired characteristics of fibrinogen during the application of this protein as a food additive

Spirulina Phycobiliproteins as Food Components and Complements

Spirulina has a documented history of use as a food for more than 1000 years, and has been in production as a dietary supplement for 40 years. Among many of Spirulina bioactive components, blue protein C-phycocyanin and its linear tetrapyrrole chromophore phycocyanobilin occupy a special place due to broad possibilities for application in various areas of food technology. The subject of this chapter is up-to-date food applications of these Spirulina components, with a focus on their use as food colorants, additives, nutriceuticals, and dietary supplements. Their other actual and future food application possibilities will also be briefly presented and discussed

Peptidomics of an in vitro digested α-Gal carrying protein revealed IgE-reactive peptides

The mammalian carbohydrate galactose-alpha 1,3-galactose (alpha-Gal) causes a novel form of food allergy, red meat allergy, where patients experience severe allergic reactions several hours after red meat consumption. Here we explored gastric digestion of alpha-Gal glycoproteins using an in vitro model. Bovine thyroglobulin (BTG), a typical alpha-Gal carrying glycoprotein, was digested with pepsin. The resulting peptides were characterised by SDS PAGE, immunoblot and ImmunoCAP using sera from 20 red meat allergic patients. During pepsinolysis of BTG, a wide range of peptide bands was observed of which 14 to 17 kDa peptides remained stable throughout the gastric phase. The presence of the alpha-Gal epitope on the obtained peptides was demonstrated by an anti-alpha-Gal antibody and IgE from red meat allergic patients. The alpha-Gal digests were able to inhibit up to 86% of IgE reactivity to BTG. Importantly, basophil activation test demonstrated that the allergenic activity of BTG was retained after digestion in all four tested patients. Mass spectrometry-based peptidomics revealed that these peptides represent mostly internal and C-terminal parts of the protein, where the most potent IgE-binding alpha-Gal residues were identified at Asn(1756), Asn(1850) and Asn(2231). Thus allergenic a-Gal epitopes are stable to pepsinolysis, reinforcing their role as clinically relevant food allergens

Molecular Mechanisms of Possible Action of Phenolic Compounds in COVID-19 Protection and Prevention

The worldwide outbreak of COVID-19 was caused by a pathogenic virus called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). Therapies against SARS-CoV-2 target the virus or human cells or the immune system. However, therapies based on specific antibodies, such as vaccines and monoclonal antibodies, may become inefficient enough when the virus changes its antigenicity due to mutations. Polyphenols are the major class of bioactive compounds in nature, exerting diverse health effects based on their direct antioxidant activity and their effects in the modulation of intracellular signaling. There are currently numerous clinical trials investigating the effects of polyphenols in prophylaxis and the treatment of COVID-19, from symptomatic, via moderate and severe COVID-19 treatment, to anti-fibrotic treatment in discharged COVID-19 patients. Antiviral activities of polyphenols and their impact on immune system modulation could serve as a solid basis for developing polyphenol-based natural approaches for preventing and treating COVID-19

MP-Net: Deep learning-based segmentation for fluorescence microscopy images of microplastics isolated from clams.

peer reviewedEnvironmental monitoring of microplastics (MP) contamination has become an area of great research interest, given potential hazards associated with human ingestion of MP. In this context, determination of MP concentration is essential. However, cheap, rapid, and accurate quantification of MP remains a challenge to this date. This study proposes a deep learning-based image segmentation method that properly distinguishes fluorescent MP from other elements in a given microscopy image. A total of nine different deep learning models, six of which are based on U-Net, were investigated. These models were trained using at least 20,000 patches sampled from 99 fluorescence microscopy images of MP and their corresponding binary masks. MP-Net, which is derived from U-Net, was found to be the best performing model, exhibiting the highest mean F1-score (0.736) and mean IoU value (0.617). Test-time augmentation (using brightness, contrast, and HSV) was applied to MP-Net for robust learning. However, compared to the results obtained without augmentation, no clear improvement in predictive performance could be observed. Recovery assessment for both spiked and real images showed that, compared to already existing tools for MP quantification, the MP quantities predicted by MP-Net are those closest to the ground truth. This observation suggests that MP-Net allows creating masks that more accurately reflect the quantitative presence of fluorescent MP in microscopy images. Finally, MAP (Microplastics Annotation Package) is introduced, an integrated software environment for automated MP quantification, offering support for MP-Net, already existing MP analysis tools like MP-VAT, manual annotation, and model fine-tuning

Developing a Segmentation Model for Microscopic Images of Microplastics Isolated from Clams

peer reviewe

The modifications of bovine β-lactoglobulin: Effects on its structural and functional properties

Due to its excellent techno-functional properties, high nutritional value and low cost, beta-lactoglobulin (BLG), the main protein in whey, is a frequently used additive in wide range of food products. It is also considered as an acid-resistant drug carrier for the delivery of pharmaceutical and nutraceutical agents. However, BLG is the main allergen of milk. A variety of methods has been explored for the modification of BLG in attempts to improve its functional properties and to decrease its allergenicity. Due to its compact globular structure, BLG is relatively resistant to modifications, especially under, mild conditions. BLG can be modified by physical, chemical and enzymatic treatments. Although chemical modifications offer efficient routes to the alteration of the structural and functional properties of proteins, they are associated with safety concerns. In the last decade, there is a tendency for application of novel non-thermal physical processing methods, as well as enzymes in order to obtain BLG derivatives with desirable properties. The objective of this review is to overview the chemical, physical and enzymatic processing techniques utilized to modify BLG and their effects on the structural and functional properties of BLG.Beta-laktoglobulin (BLG) je glavni protein surutke koji se često koristi kao aditiv u velikom broju prehrambenih proizvoda zahvaljujući svojim izvanrednim tehničkim i funkcionalnim osobinama, visokoj nutritivnoj vrednosti, kao i niskoj ceni. Ovaj protein se pokazao kao pogodan nosač za lekove i hranljive supstance, jer je otporan na kiselu sredinu u gastro-intestinalnom traktu. Međutim, BLG je i glavni alergen mleka. Sa ciljem unapređenja funkcionalnih osobina i smanjenja alergenosti ovog proteina do sada je razvijen veliki broj metoda za njegovu modifikaciju. Zahvaljujući svojoj kompaktnoj globularnoj strukturi BLG je relativno rezistentan na modifikacije, naročito one pod blagim uslovima. BLG može biti modifikovan fizičkim, hemijskim i enzimskim metodama. Mada su hemijske modifikacije efikasan način promene strukturnih i funkcionalnih osobina proteina, u vezi sa njima se često postavlja pitanje bezbednosti. Tokom poslednje decenije postoji sve veća tendencija ka primeni novih tretmana zasnovanih na fizičkim netermalnim metodama, kao i na primeni enzima, kako bi se dobio BLG sa željenim osobinama. Cilj ovog preglednog rada je prikaz hemijskih, fizičkih i enzimskih tehnika koje se koriste za modifikaciju BLG, kao i njihovih efekata na strukturu i funkciju BLG

The role of dietary phenolic compounds in protein digestion and processing technologies to improve their antinutritive properties

Digestion is the key step for delivering nutrients and bioactive substances to the body. The way different food components interact with each other and with digestive enzymes can modify the digestion process and affect human health. Understanding how food components interact during digestion is essential for the rational design of functional food products. Plant polyphenols have gained much attention for the bioactive roles they play in the human body. However, their strong beneficial effects on human health have also been associated with a negative impact on the digestion process. Due to the generally low absorption of phenolic compounds after food intake, most of the consumed polyphenols remain in the gastrointestinal tract, where they then can exert inhibitory effects on enzymes involved in the degradation of saccharides, lipids, and proteins. While the inhibitory effects of phenolics on the digestion of energy-rich food components (saccharides and lipids) may be regarded as beneficial, primarily in weight-control diets, their inhibitory effects on the digestion of proteins are not desirable for the reason of reduced utilization of amino acids. The effect of polyphenols on protein digestion is reviewed in this article, with an emphasis on food processing methods to improve the antinutritive properties of polyphenols

An AI life cycle assessment toward a sustainable food supply chain

Optimization of resource allocation in agri-food sector, in order to find the most appropriate mix of inputs, could contribute to mitigation of environmental impacts, reduction of agricultural and food wastes, and moving toward a more circular food supply chain. Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been coupled with several artificial intelligent-based optimization techniques in order to optimize food systems in terms of environmental impacts. One important step in an optimization problem of a food system is to determine the bounds for the optimization variable. This study developed an optimization bound determination scheme through application of Delphi methodology. A hybrid LCA + multilayer perception artificial neural network + Delphi methodology + genetic algorithm was applied to optimize a food production system. Five functional units were considered for this study: one ton of produced pomegranate, one hectare, daily energy intake, vitamin C, and dietary fibre for 1 person. The results indicated that a remarkable amount of environmental impacts could be mitigated using this approach in a case study of pomegranate production