spp. extract as a promising preventive or therapeutic strategy for cancer: A systematic review.

Acorns have traditionally been used in the human diet and for the treatment of specific diseases. Therefore, the present study performed a systematic review of studies which investigated the effects of spp. extracts in cancer prevention and treatment.

Apple Flour in a Sweet Gluten-Free Bread Formulation: Impact on Nutritional Value, Glycemic Index, Structure and Sensory Profile.

Baking bread without gluten presents many challenges generally related with poor sensorial and nutritional characteristics, and strategies to overcome this issue are needed. Despite many gluten-free (GF) bread studies, to the best of our knowledge, few are dedicated to sweet GF bread. Sweet breads have traditionally been an important type of food and are still frequently consumed worldwide.

Study on the antineoplastic and toxicological effects of pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) leaf infusion using the K14-HPV16 transgenic mouse model.

Punica granatum L. (pomegranate) has been used in functional foods due to its various health benefits. However, the in vivo biological potential of its leaf remains little known.

Acorn flour from holm oak (): Assessment of nutritional, phenolic, and technological profile.

Acorn is the fruit of holm oak (), being mainly used nowadays to feed animals, however a substantial part remains in the fields without any valorization. Underexploited crops are gaining new interest, driven by food security concerns and health benefits potential as well. In the present work, it was studied the physicochemical characteristics and functional perspective of acorn flour, as an ingredient for human diet.

Food By-Product Valorization by Using Plant-Based Coagulants Combined with AOPs for Agro-Industrial Wastewater Treatment.

Re-using and adding value to by-products is one of the current focuses of the agri-food industry, following the Sustainable Development Goals of United Nations. In this work, the by-products of four plants, namely chestnut burr, acorn peel, olive leaf, and grape stem were used as coagulants to treat elderberry wastewater (EW), a problematic liquid effluent. EW pre-treatment using these natural coagulants showed promising results after pH and coagulant dosage optimization.

Phytochemical and antioxidant analysis of medicinal and food plants towards bioactive food and pharmaceutical resources.

Plants with medicinal properties play an increasingly important role in food and pharmaceutical industries for their functions on disease prevention and treatment. This study characterizes the phenolic composition and antioxidant activity of seven medicinal and food plants, including the leaves of Salvia officinalis L., Rosmarinus officinalis L.

Acorn Flour as a Source of Bioactive Compounds in Gluten-Free Bread.

Polyphenols are important bioactive compounds whose regular ingestion has shown different positive impacts in health. Celiac patients have nutritional deficiencies, bringing many problems to their health. Thus, it is important to develop gluten-free (GF) products, such as bread, with nutritional benefits.

Comparison of near-infrared (NIR) and mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy for the determination of nutritional and antinutritional parameters in common beans.

Common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), represent the most consumed legume worldwide and constitute an important source of protein, being also known to contain antinutritional compounds, which compromise nutrients' bioavailability. However, the standard methodologies to assess these constituents are time-consuming and complex.

Critical Review on the Significance of Olive Phytochemicals in Plant Physiology and Human Health.

Olive oil displays remarkable organoleptic and nutritional features, which turn it into a foodstuff appreciated by consumers, and a basic component of the Mediterranean diet. Indeed, the noticed benefits of including olive oil in the diet have been assigned to the presence of diverse bioactive compounds with different molecular structures. These compounds confer a wide range of biological properties to this food matrix, including the prevention of distinct human diseases as well as the modulation of their severity.

Valorization Challenges to Almond Residues: Phytochemical Composition and Functional Application.

Almond is characterized by its high nutritional value; although information reported so far mainly concerns edible kernel. Even though the nutritional and commercial relevance of the almond is restricted to almond meat; to date; increasing attention has been paid to other parts of this fruit (skin; shell; and hull); considered by-products that are scarcely characterized and exploited regarding their properties as valuable sources of bioactive compounds (mainly represented by phenolic acids and flavonoids). This lack of proper valorization procedures entails the continuation of the application of traditional procedures to almond residues that nowadays are mainly addressed to livestock feed and energy production.

New grape stems' isolated phenolic compounds modulate reactive oxygen species, glutathione, and lipid peroxidation in vitro: Combined formulations with vitamins C and E.

The antioxidant potential of grape (Vitis vinífera L.) stems has been reported in the last decade although no identification of the individual compounds responsible for such action has been done. In this work, polyphenolic extract of grape stems was processed resorting to semi-preparative HPLC, allowing to obtain 5 purified polyphenols (caftaric acid, malvidin-3-O-glucoside, quercetin-3-O-glucuronide, mailvidin-3-O-(6-O-caffeoyl)-glucoside, and Σ-viniferin), which were fully characterized by HPLC-PDA-ESI-MS.

Oxidative stress prevention and anti-apoptosis activity of grape (Vitis vinifera L.) stems in human keratinocytes.

To date, grape stems have been partially assessed on their content in phenolics and their radical scavenging activity, whilst the potential to modulate oxidative stress in biological models remains underexplored. In the present work, the effect of grape stems' phenolics on redox unbalance was evaluated in human keratinocytes (HaCaT cells). Grape stems' extracts were assessed on their phenolic composition by high performance liquid chromatography coupled with photodiode array detection and electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (HPLC-PAD-ESi-MSn), besides on radical scavenging capacity (ABTS and DPPH).

Trace Element Content of Monovarietal and Commercial Portuguese Olive Oils.

Olive (Olea europaea L.) represents one of the most important and ancient crops in the Mediterranean countries, being widely known due to the optimal organoleptic characteristics of its oil, besides the important health benefits assigned to this product in the last few years. Since olive oil composition, respecting specific trace elements, has a direct impact on the quality and safety of this product, eleven monovarietal and twelve commercial olive oils were analysed spectrometrically concerning their metal composition.

Discrimination and characterisation of extra virgin olive oils from three cultivars in different maturation stages using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy in tandem with chemometrics.

A methodology based on Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, combined with multivariate analysis methods, was applied in order to monitor extra virgin olive oils produced from three distinct cultivars on different maturation stages. For the first time, this kind of methodology is used for the simultaneous discrimination of the maturation stage, and different cultivars. Principal component analysis and discriminant analysis were utilised to create a model for the discrimination of olive oil samples.

Short wavelength Raman spectroscopy applied to the discrimination and characterization of three cultivars of extra virgin olive oils in different maturation stages.

Extra virgin olive oils produced from three cultivars on different maturation stages were characterized using Raman spectroscopy. Chemometric methods (principal component analysis, discriminant analysis, principal component regression and partial least squares regression) applied to Raman spectral data were utilized to evaluate and quantify the statistical differences between cultivars and their ripening process. The models for predicting the peroxide value and free acidity of olive oils showed good calibration and prediction values and presented high coefficients of determination (>0.

A novel, direct, reagent-free method for the detection of beeswax adulteration by single-reflection attenuated total reflectance mid-infrared spectroscopy.

In this work, a novel, direct, reagent-free method for the detection of beeswax adulteration by paraffin, microcrystalline wax, tallow and stearic acid using single-reflection attenuated total reflectance mid-infrared spectroscopy was developed. The use of the absorbance ratios of [Formula: see text] , [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] allows a minimum of 5% paraffin/microcrystalline wax and tallow adulteration and 0.5% stearic acid adulteration of beeswax to be detected.

Oxidation of mannosyl oligosaccharides by hydroxyl radicals as assessed by electrospray mass spectrometry.

The hydroxyl radicals are widely implicated in oxidation of carbohydrates during biological and industrial processes being responsible for their structural modifications and causing functional damage. The identification of intermediate oxidation products is hampered by a lack of reliable sensible methods for their detection. In this study, the oxidation of two models of galactomannans (Man(3) and GalMan(2)) has been studied in reaction with hydroxyl radical generated by Fenton reaction.

Effect of cooking on total vitamin C contents and antioxidant activity of sweet chestnuts (Castanea sativa Mill.).

In this work the total vitamin C contents (ascorbic acid+dehydroascorbic acid) and antioxidant activity of raw and cooked chestnuts was evaluated. The vitamin C contents of raw chestnuts varied significantly between the different cultivars (cv) studied and it varied from 400mg/kg dry weight (cv Lada) to 693mg/kg dry weight (cv Martaínha). The different cultivars behave differently during the cooking process concerning the loss of vitamin C.

A fast, simple, and reliable hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography method for the determination of ascorbic and isoascorbic acids.

A reliable method for the determination of total vitamin C must be able to resolve ascorbic acid (AA) and the epimeric isoascorbic acid (IAA) and determine the sum of AA and its oxidized form dehydroascorbic acid. AA and IAA are polar molecules with a low retention time in conventional reversed phase systems, and hence of difficult resolution. Hydrophilic interaction chromatography using a TSKgel Amide-80 stationary phase with isocratic elution was successful in resolving the two epimers.

Structural characterization of nitrated 2'-hydroxychalcones by electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry.

Isomeric 2'-hydroxychalcones bearing nitro and methoxy groups in different positions of their skeleton were analyzed by tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) with electrospray ionization (ESI), in positive mode. Collision-induced dissociation of the protonated molecules, [M + H](+), formed under electrospray conditions were studied and it was found that the product ion spectra of these chalcones presented different fragmentation patterns depending on the position of the substituents on the molecule. The product ion spectra (ESI- MS/MS) of the B ring ortho-nitro substituted 2'-hydroxychalcone and of the 4'-methoxychalcones showed loss of OH, 2OH and combined losses of OH and H(2)O.

Synthesis and structure elucidation of three series of nitro-2-styrylchromones using 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy.

2-Styrylchromones, although scarce in nature, constitute a group of oxygen heterocyclic compounds which have shown significant biological activities. New nitro-2-styrylchromones have been synthesised by the Baker-Venkataraman method, and the structure elucidation was accomplished using extensive 1D (1H, 13C) and 2D NMR spectroscopic studies (COSY, HSQC and HMBC experiments).

Synthesis and structure elucidation of five series of aminoflavones using 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy.

Twenty-six new aminoflavones have been synthesised by two different methods and the structure elucidation was accomplished using extensive 1D (1H, 13C) and 2D NMR spectroscopic studies (COSY, HSQC and HMBC experiments).

Interactions of a new 2-styrylchromone with mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation.

Many chromones, especially those having 2-substituents, manifest a remarkable variety of biological activities, such as the important cytotoxicity against human leukaemia cells, antiallergic, anticancer activities; unfortunately chromones normally disturb mitochondrial bioenergetics. A new 2-styrylchromone has been synthesized by the Baker-Venkataraman method and a classical approach has been used to assess the effects of 2-styrylchromone (3'-allyl-4',5,7-trimethoxy-2-styrylchromone) on rat liver mitochondrial bioenergetic. Mitochondrial respiratory rate and transmembrane potential were measured polarographically using a Clark oxygen electrode and with a selective electrode, respectively.