內容: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic gastrointestinal disease with a high incidence. Treatment for IBD includes medications and diet, and common anti-inflammatory medications have limitations like drug resistance and serious adverse effects. Accumulating evidence has demonstrated that dietary flavonoids exhibit an alleviative effect on IBD by influencing gut microbiota. The microbiota-derived metabolites also regulate IBD and maintain intestinal homeostasis. In this review, we investigate the therapeutic effect of gut microbiota and metabolites on IBD by intestinal immune and intestinal barrier function. We demonstrate the underlying mechanism of dietary flavonoids as an anti-inflammatory molecule alleviating IBD by regulating gut microbiota, short chain fatty acid (SCFA), bile acid (BA), tryptophan (Trp) metabolism and lipopolysaccharides (LPS)-toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) signaling pathway. Based on structural differences of flavonoids, we summarize the recent research progress on the role of different dietary flavonoids in alleviating IBD by gut microbiota and metabolites in animal and clinical trials. This review indicates that dietary flavonoids targeting gut microbiota and metabolites provide a promising strategy for the treatment of inflammation and novel insights into the management of IBD.

內容: Angelica sinensis, a well-known traditional Chinese medicinal herb with the unique property of being both a medicine and an edible plant, has been widely used for promoting blood circulation, modulating immunity, and relieving pain. This review comprehensively investigates the extraction methods, structural characteristics, and biological activities of its primary bioactive components, such as polysaccharides, volatile oils, organic acids, and flavonoids. The biosynthesis pathways of these compounds, along with the key enzymes and transcription factors involved, are investigated to understand the factors influencing their synthesis and accumulation. Additionally, the biological activities of A. sinensis, including hepatoprotective, anti-inflammatory, immune-modulatory, anti-tumor, circulatory benefits, and neuroprotection, along with their underlying mechanisms are introduced. These findings provide a solid foundation for the development of A. sinensis as a valuable resource in functional foods and pharmaceutical products.

內容: Lemon oils are broadly used as flavoring agents in beverages, foods, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, yet the adulteration of natural, particularly cold pressed lemon oils is very common in the industry due to its unmet demand and high cost. Nowadays, most quality control (QC) analysis of lemon oils is conducted by gas chromatography (GC) analysis, which is far from a reliable method. Oxygen heterocyclic compounds (OHCs) in non-volatile fraction are gaining increasing attention in authentication process because of the nearly finger-printing profiles of OHCs in cold pressed citrus essential oils. Our goal in this study was to identify OHCs using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) in lemon oils, establish OHC profiles, perform stepwise logistic regression analysis (SLRA) and build effective predicting model and further determine adulterated lemon oils by referencing the OHC profiles and established models. After HPLC analyses, profiling and SLRA modeling of 154 OHCs samples of industrial lemon oils, we found that the combination of isopimpinellin and total OHC concentration are essential and robust predictors to differentiate authentic samples from adulterated lemon oils with a success rate of 98% from the 5-fold cross validation. This study provided a reliable and efficient method in determining the authenticity of lemon oils.

內容: To regulate the sodium chloride content in Jinhua ham, the impact of NaCl on the activity and conformation of cathepsin B was investigated using spectroscopy and computational methods. The results showed that the activity of cathepsin B decreased with an increase in Na+ cation content and temperature. Additionally, decreased α-helix content and increased β-sheet content were observed. The increase in sulfhydryl group content was attributed to the breaking of original disulfide bonds in the molecular structure or the release of embedded groups. Furthermore, the surface hydrophobicity gradually declined, which was consistent with the analysis of endogenous fluorescence spectroscopy. At the molecular level, the number of hydrogen bonds formed in NaCl-treated samples decreased, and the interactions between the hydrogen bonding were less powerful, which caused instability in the binding of the protein and substrate. The conformation of cathepsin B accurately characterized its activity, and the structural changes had a macroscopic effect on the decrease in protease activity.

內容: Advanced lipoxidation end products (ALEs) are formed by modifying proteins with lipid oxidation products. ALEs formed in the body have been linked to diabetes and hepatic disease. However, it is not known whether ALEs formed in heat-processed foods can induce metabolic diseases. Our results indicate that dietary ALEs induce lipid accumulation in the liver of mice at an early stage and continuous feeding of ALEs induces inflammation, oxidative stress and hepatic insulin resistance. The core reason for these adverse reactions is the damage to the intestinal barrier caused by ALEs. Due to the damage to the intestinal barrier, there is an increase in lipopolysaccharides (LPS) in the liver that induces hepatic lipid accumulation by modulating hepatic lipid metabolism. Furthermore, ALEs plays a major role in the regulation of metabolic diseases by directly or indirectly inhibiting AMP activated protein kinase (AMPK)/Sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) signaling through LPS.

內容: Pu-erh tea, a traditional Chinese beverage, performs an anti-obesity function, but the correlation between its components and efficacy remains unknown. Here, we screened two Pu-erh teas with significant anti-obesity efficacies from 11 teas. In vitro experiments revealed that lipid accumulation in L02 cells and lipid synthesis in 3T3-L1 cells were significantly better inhibited by Tea-B than Tea-A. Further in vivo experiments using model mice revealed that the differences in chemical components generated two pathways in the anti-obesity efficacy and mechanism of Pu-erh teas. Tea-A changes the histomorphology of brown adipose tissue (BAT) and increases the abundance of Coriobacteriaceae_UCG_002 and cyclic AMP in guts through high chemical contents of cyclopentasiloxane, decamethyl, tridecane and 1,2,3-trimethoxybenzene, eventually increasing BAT activation and fat browning gene expression; the high content of hexadecane and 1,2-dimethoxy-benzene in Tea-B reduces white adipose tissue (WAT) accumulation and the process of fatty liver, increases the abundance of Odoribacter and sphinganine 1-phosphate, inhibits the expression of lipid synthesis and transport genes. These mechanistic findings on the association of the representative bioactive components in Pu-erh teas with the anti-obesity phenotypes, gut microbes, gut metabolite structure and anti-obesity pathways, which were obtained for the first time, provide foundations for developing functional Pu-erh tea.

內容: Food allergy has become a global concern. Spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) inhibitors are promising therapeutics against allergic disorders. In this study, a total of 300 natural phenolic compounds were firstly subjected to virtual screening. Sesamin and its metabolites, sesamin monocatechol (SC-1) and sesamin dicatechol (SC-2), were identified as potential SYK inhibitors, showing high binding affinity and inhibition efficiency towards SYK. Compared with R406 (a traditional SYK inhibitor), sesamin, SC-1, and SC-2 had lower binding energy and inhibition constant (Ki) during molecular docking, exhibited higher bioavailability, safety, metabolism/clearance rate, and distribution uniformity ADMET predictions, and showed high stability in occupying the ATP-binding pocket of SYK during molecular dynamics simulations. In anti-dinitrophenyl-immunoglobulin E (Anti-DNP-IgE)/dinitrophenyl-human serum albumin (DNP-HSA)-stimulated rat basophilic leukemia (RBL-2H3) cells, sesamin in the concentration range of 5–80 μmol/L influenced significantly the degranulation and cytokine release, with 54.00% inhibition against β-hexosaminidase release and 58.45% decrease in histamine. In BALB/c mice, sesamin could ameliorate Anti-DNP-IgE/DNP-HSA-induced passive cutaneous anaphylaxis (PCA) and ovalbumin (OVA)-induced active systemic anaphylaxis (ASA) reactions, reduce the levels of allergic mediators (immunoglobulins and pro-inflammatory cytokines), partially correct the imbalance of T helper (Th) cells differentiation in the spleen, and inhibit the phosphorylation of SYK and its downstream signaling proteins, including p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases (p38 MAPK), extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK), and p65 nuclear factor-κB (p65 NF-κB) in the spleen. Thus, sesamin may be a safe and versatile SYK inhibitor that can alleviate IgE-mediated food allergies.

內容: Rape bee pollen has attracted increasing interests for its excellent protective effect against chemical-induced liver injury owing to its abundant polyphenols. This study aims to analyze the types and contents of phenolamides (seldom concerned) in rape bee pollen and their protective mechanism on alcoholic liver disease (ALD). Different from the previous finding that flavonoids are dominant polyphenols in bee pollen polyphenolic extract, our results demonstrated that there are only three flavonoids but 24 phenolamides in the as-prepared rape bee pollen phenolic extract (PPE). In addition, PPE was found to significantly improve the viability (from 54.9% to 84.1%, 89.2%, and 94.0%) of alcohol-induced AML12 cells and alleviate alcohol-induced cell apoptosis (from 28.5% to 22.89%, 22.0%, and 17.4%). To dissect the underlying mechanism for the protective effect of PPE against ALD, the molecular pathway was identified by RNA-seq analysis. Transcriptome data revealed that PPE may protect against ALD by decreasing inflammation, cholesterol, and fatty acid synthesis (P < 0.05). The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) model was used to further evaluate the hepatoprotective effect of PPE in vivo, and the results validated that PPE could alleviate liver injury and hepatic steatosis (from 22.7% to 11.5% and 10.9%) induced by alcohol. As the dominant polyphenols in PPE, phenolamides can be a class of valuable polyphenolic compounds in bee pollen with the potential to alleviate ALD.

內容: Lactiplantibacillus plantarum MWFLp-182 was originally isolated from the feces of long-living elderly individuals in Hezhou city, Guangxi, China. L. plantarum MWFLp-182 showed favorable gastric and intestinal tolerance compared with Lactiplantibacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG). L. plantarum MWFLp-182 was further examined for its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity in ABAP-treated HT-29 cells. Importantly, it enhanced the expression of anti-inflammatory factor (interleukin-10 (IL-10)), antioxidant cytokines (superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor (Nrf2), and hemeoxygenase 1 (HO-1)), B-cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2), and tight junction (Zonula occludens protein 1 (ZO-1), Claudin-1, and Occludin) proteins and genes, and reduced reactive oxygen species (ROS). The complete genome of L. plantarum MWFLp-182 contained a single circular chromosome that was 3 257 196 bp long, with a G + C content of 44.49%, and a single circular plasmid that was 53 560 bp long. The genes tpx, trxA, trxB, npr, nrdH, dps, recA, gpx, gshA and arsC in this strain were related to antioxidant function; the key genes involved in antioxidant function were further investigated. In this study, we identified a probiotic candidate with antioxidant properties.

內容: Ganoderma lingzhi is a new species of the prize medicinal mushroom Ganoderma (Agaricomycetes). Using angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) as a target, a tripeptide Ser-Tyr-Pro (SYP) was discovered with preponderant ACE inhibitory activity with an 50% inhibiting concentration (IC50) value of 62.50 μg/mL attribute to the formed salt bridge and hydrogen bonds between SYP and ACE. SYP even maintained superior bioactivity after intestinal digestion, and exerted no cytotoxicity, but presented incomplete bioavailability in blood of spontaneous hypertensive rats (SHRs). Furthermore, it performed antihypertensive effect in vivo by inhibiting the influx of Ca2+ through activating endothelial NO synthase (eNOS)/NO/guanosine 3’,5’-cyclic monophosphate (cGMP) pathway, accompanied by attenuating angiotensin II (Ang II)/NADPH oxidase (NOX)/reactive oxygen species (ROS) pathway. This work not only discoverers a novel pharmacological ingredient from medicinal mushroom G. lingzhi for hypertension therapy, but also provides an insight into molecular mechanism of the ACE inhibitory peptide (ACEIP) on lowering blood pressure.