A multipurpose tool to evaluate the nutritional quality of individual foods: Nutrimap.

Background/objectives: With obesity and nutrition-related diseases rising, public health authorities have recently insisted nutritional quality be included when advertising and labelling food. The concept of nutritional quality is, however, difficult to define. In this paper we present an innovative, science-based nutrient profiling system, Nutrimap, which quantifies nutritional assets and weaknesses of foods.

Nutrient profiling: comparison and critical analysis of existing systems.

Background: Nutrient profiling systems aim at positioning foodstuffs relative to each other according to their contribution to a balanced diet. The accuracy and performance of methodologies are still debated. We present here a critical analysis of the structure and efficiency of the current schemes.

Structural and kinetic bases for the recognition of tRNATyr by tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase.

The aminoacylation of transfer RNA is a key step of translation since it relates amino acids to anticodons. To understand how the tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase (TyrTS) from Bacillus stearothermophilus recognizes tRNA(Tyr), we constructed 14 new mutant TyrTS by site-directed mutagenesis, determined their kinetic properties and used these and previous data to construct a detailed structural model of the complex between TyrTS and the acceptor arm of tRNA(Tyr). In the model Arg207, Lys208, Asn 146 and Glu 152 interact with phosphate groups.