While proteins have been widely used to encapsulate, protect, and regulate the release of bioactive food compounds, little is known about the influence of co‐consumed proteins on the absorption of ...lipophilic constituents following digestion, such as vitamins (A, D, E, K), carotenoids, and curcumin. Their bioavailability is often low and very variable, depending on the food matrix and host factors. Some proteins can act as emulsifiers during digestion. Their liberated peptides have amphiphilic properties that can facilitate the absorption of microconstituents, by improving their transition from lipid droplets into mixed micelles. Contrarily, the less well digested proteins could negatively impinge on enzymatic accessibility to the lipid droplets, slowing down their processing into mixed micelles and entrapping apolar food compounds. Interactions with mixed micelles and proteins are also plausible, as shown earlier for drugs. This review focuses on the ability of proteins to act as effective emulsifiers of lipophilic vitamins, carotenoids, and curcumin during digestion. The functional properties of proteins, their chemical interactions with enzymes and food constituents during gastro‐intestinal digestion, potentials and limitations for their use as emulsifiers are emphasized and data from human, animal, and in vitro trials are summarized.
Role of proteins in the stablization of lipid droplets in the gastric phase, and in their subsequent processing into mixed micelles during the intestinal passage.
Abstract
A multitude of factors contribute to complex diseases and can be measured with ‘omics’ methods. Databases facilitate data interpretation for underlying mechanisms. Here, we describe the ...Virtual Metabolic Human (VMH, www.vmh.life) database encapsulating current knowledge of human metabolism within five interlinked resources ‘Human metabolism’, ‘Gut microbiome’, ‘Disease’, ‘Nutrition’, and ‘ReconMaps’. The VMH captures 5180 unique metabolites, 17 730 unique reactions, 3695 human genes, 255 Mendelian diseases, 818 microbes, 632 685 microbial genes and 8790 food items. The VMH’s unique features are (i) the hosting of the metabolic reconstructions of human and gut microbes amenable for metabolic modeling; (ii) seven human metabolic maps for data visualization; (iii) a nutrition designer; (iv) a user-friendly webpage and application-programming interface to access its content; (v) user feedback option for community engagement and (vi) the connection of its entities to 57 other web resources. The VMH represents a novel, interdisciplinary database for data interpretation and hypothesis generation to the biomedical community.
Brewer's spent grains (BSG) are a by-product of the beer-brewing industry, often employed as animal feeding stuffs. With BSG being rich not only in proteins, lipids, and dietary fiber but also in ...certain phytochemicals, it constitutes a potentially valuable food source that could be employed as a functional food,
against chronic inflammatory diseases. Several types of bread were prepared with various amounts of BSG as flour replacement (0, 10, 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100%), either employing wet BSG or dried BSG after pressing. Total phenolics, flavonoids, insoluble dietary fiber, as well as antioxidant capacity (FRAP, ABTS) were measured in the bread, before and after simulated gastro-intestinal digestion. Furthermore, we investigated digested BSG and bread-containing BSG for their capability to alter oxidative stress (Nrf2, malondialdehyde) and inflammation (IL-6, IL-8, NO, and PGE2) in a Caco-2 cell culture model of the small intestine. Incorporation of BSG significantly and dose-dependently enhanced the amount of dietary fiber in the product, as well as total phenolics, flavonoids, and antioxidant capacity, by over 10-fold, 3-fold, 4-fold and 5-fold, respectively, when replacing all of the flour with BSG. This pattern remained after
digestion. However, digesta failed to show significant antioxidant or anti-inflammatory effects on the biomarkers observed in the cell model. Consuming 150 g of such a BSG-bread (wet based) would supply the proposed RDA of 25 g d
dietary fiber and could be a healthy product valorizing BSG.
Uncertainty analysis is the process of identifying limitations in scientific knowledge and evaluating their implications for scientific conclusions. It is therefore relevant in all EFSA's scientific ...assessments and also necessary, to ensure that the assessment conclusions provide reliable information for decision‐making. The form and extent of uncertainty analysis, and how the conclusions should be reported, vary widely depending on the nature and context of each assessment and the degree of uncertainty that is present. This document provides concise guidance on how to identify which options for uncertainty analysis are appropriate in each assessment, and how to apply them. It is accompanied by a separate, supporting opinion that explains the key concepts and principles behind this Guidance, and describes the methods in more detail.
This publication is linked to the following EFSA Journal article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2903/j.efsa.2018.5122/full
To meet the general requirement for transparency in EFSA's work, all its scientific assessments must consider uncertainty. Assessments must say clearly and unambiguously what sources of uncertainty ...have been identified and what is their impact on the assessment conclusion. This applies to all EFSA's areas, all types of scientific assessment and all types of uncertainty affecting assessment. This current Opinion describes the principles and methods supporting a concise Guidance Document on Uncertainty in EFSA's Scientific Assessment, published separately. These documents do not prescribe specific methods for uncertainty analysis but rather provide a flexible framework within which different methods may be selected, according to the needs of each assessment. Assessors should systematically identify sources of uncertainty, checking each part of their assessment to minimise the risk of overlooking important uncertainties. Uncertainty may be expressed qualitatively or quantitatively. It is neither necessary nor possible to quantify separately every source of uncertainty affecting an assessment. However, assessors should express in quantitative terms the combined effect of as many as possible of identified sources of uncertainty. The guidance describes practical approaches. Uncertainty analysis should be conducted in a flexible, iterative manner, starting at a level appropriate to the assessment and refining the analysis as far as is needed or possible within the time available. The methods and results of the uncertainty analysis should be reported fully and transparently. Every EFSA Panel and Unit applied the draft Guidance to at least one assessment in their work area during a trial period of one year. Experience gained in this period resulted in improved guidance. The Scientific Committee considers that uncertainty analysis will be unconditional for EFSA Panels and staff and must be embedded into scientific assessment in all areas of EFSA's work.
This publication is linked to the following EFSA Journal article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2903/j.efsa.2018.5123/full
The transformation of electrical signals into mechanical action of the heart underlying blood circulation results in mechanical stimuli during active contraction or passive filling distention, which ...conversely modulate electrical signals. This feedback mechanism is known as cardiac mechano-electric coupling (MEC). The cardiac MEC involves complex activation of mechanical biosensors initiating short-term and long-term effects through Ca2+ signals in cardiomyocytes in acute and chronic pressure overload scenarios (e.g. cardiac hypertrophy). Although it is largely still unknown how mechanical forces alter cardiac function at the molecular level, mechanosensitive channels, including the recently discovered family of Piezo channels, have been thought to play a major role in the cardiac MEC and are also suspected to contribute to development of cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure. The earliest reports of mechanosensitive channel activity recognized that their gating could be controlled by membrane stretch. In this article, we provide an overview of the stretch devices, which have been employed for studies of the effects of mechanical stimuli on muscle and heart cells. We also describe novel experiments examining the activity of Piezo1 channels under multiaxial stretch applied using polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) stretch chambers and IsoStretcher technology to achieve isotropic stretching stimulation to cultured HL-1 cardiac muscle cells which express an appreciable amount of Piezo1.
We introduce and validate a new precision oncology framework for the systematic prioritization of drugs targeting mechanistic tumor dependencies in individual patients. Compounds are prioritized on ...the basis of their ability to invert the concerted activity of master regulator proteins that mechanistically regulate tumor cell state, as assessed from systematic drug perturbation assays. We validated the approach on a cohort of 212 gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs), a rare malignancy originating in the pancreas and gastrointestinal tract. The analysis identified several master regulator proteins, including key regulators of neuroendocrine lineage progenitor state and immunoevasion, whose role as critical tumor dependencies was experimentally confirmed. Transcriptome analysis of GEP-NET-derived cells, perturbed with a library of 107 compounds, identified the HDAC class I inhibitor entinostat as a potent inhibitor of master regulator activity for 42% of metastatic GEP-NET patients, abrogating tumor growth in vivo. This approach may thus complement current efforts in precision oncology.
Over 23 million parasitoids in the genus Eretmocerus were released in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area and near Yuma, Arizona. The species released were Eret. hayati, Eret. mundus, Eret. ...emiratus, and Eret. nr. emiratus from Ethiopia. Two release methods were used with the goal of colonizing and spreading the parasitoids throughout Arizona. Homeowners who agreed to forfeit the use of insecticides were asked to grow whitefly host plants throughout the year. The parasitoids were also released into commercial nurseries with the expectation that they would be distributed regionally through plant sales. All four Eretmocerus species became established, although 3 years after release Eret. emiratus and Eret. nr. emiratus could be found in greater numbers. Eretmocerus nr. emiratus was only released at commercial nurseries, yet it was recovered at 44 sites being monitored through the homeowner release program. Since plants purchased from the nurseries contained Eret. nr. emiratus and were moved throughout the city as they were sold, releasing parasitoids on nursery plants is a promising method to ensure a wide distribution. Dispersal studies indicated that the exotic parasitoids had dispersed up to 1.5 km within 6 months. Three methods for recovering exotic parasitoids were used: leaf samples, sticky traps, and sentinel plants. Of these, the leaf samples and the sentinel plants were the most likely to recover exotic parasitoids. There was no strong evidence that exotic parasitoids were more likely than the native species to attack whiteflies on certain host plants. Several exotic parasitoid species were able to reproduce on B. tabaci regardless of host plant family attacked.
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