Soils play a critical role in supporting agricultural production. Subsoils, below 20 cm, underpin fundamental agroecosystem sustainability traits including soil carbon storage, climate regulation and water provision. However, little is known about the ecological stability of subsoils in response to global change.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs), including Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), are chronic conditions characterized by periods of intestinal inflammation and have become global diseases. Dietary pectins have shown protective effects on IBD models. However, the development of pectin-based diet intervention for IBD individuals requires knowledge of both the bioactive structural patterns and the mechanisms underlying diet-microbiota-host interactions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMulti-dimensional studies have consistently indicated the benefits of dietary proanthocyanidins on blood glucose homeostasis through consumption of them from fruits, cereals and nuts. Proanthocyanidins from various sources possess different structures, but even the minor variations in structures influence their regulation on blood glucose, including the degree of polymerization, galloacylation at C3, number of hydroxyl groups in B ring and linkage type. Therefore, this Review details the role of three types of proanthocyanidins (procyanidins, prodelphinidins and propelargonidins) in blood glucose control and their underlying mechanisms, and various structural features contribute to.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhenolic compounds are popular in screening novel hypoglycemic agents, but the impact of oxidative degradation on the determination of α-glucosidase inhibitory activity and bioavailability is unclear. Here we showed 12 phenolic compounds structure-dependently degraded during standard simulated digestion, while in physiological hypoxia their retention rates were all over 87.89 %.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdv Food Nutr Res
September 2024
Vesicular delivery systems are highly ordered assemblies consisting of one or more concentric bilayers formed by the self-assembly of amphiphilic building blocks in the presence of water. In the field of functional food, vesicular delivery systems have been widely explored for effective formulations to deliver functional substances. With the effort of scientific research, certain categories of vesicular delivery systems have successfully been translated from the laboratory to the global market of functional food.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this study, we investigated how different proportions blends of Rhamnogalacturonan-I pectic polysaccharides and hesperidin impact the gut microbiota and metabolites using an in vitro simulated digestion and fermentation model. The results indicated that both of them could modulate the gut microbiota and produce beneficial metabolites. However, their blends in particular proportions (such as 1:1) exhibited remarkable synergistic effects on modulating the intestinal microenvironment, surpassing the effects observed with individual components.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBody size is a key ecological trait of soil microorganisms related to their adaptation to environmental changes. In this study, we reveal that the smaller microorganisms show stronger community resistance than larger organisms in both maize and rice soil. Compared with larger organisms, smaller microorganisms have higher diversity and broader niche breadth to deploy survival strategies, because of which they are less affected by environmental selection and thus survive in complex and various kinds of environments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAgriculture contributes to a decline in local species diversity and to above- and below-ground biotic homogenization. Here, we conduct a continental survey using 1185 soil samples and compare microbial communities from natural ecosystems (forest, grassland, and wetland) with converted agricultural land. We combine our continental survey results with a global meta-analysis of available sequencing data that cover more than 2400 samples across six continents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this study, we addressed the limited water solubility of curcumin by utilizing epigallocatechin-3-gallate to form nanoparticles through self-assembly. The resulting particles, ranging from 100 to 150 nm, exhibited a redshift in the UV-visible spectrum, from 425 nm to 435 nm, indicative of potential π-π stacking. Molecular docking experiments supported this finding.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn increasing number of anthropogenic pressures can have negative effects on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. However, our understanding of how soil microbial communities and functions in response to multiple global change factors (GCFs) is still incomplete, particularly in less frequently disturbed subsoils. In this study, we examined the impact of different levels of GCFs (0-9) on soil functions and bacterial communities in both topsoils (0-20 cm) and subsoils (20-40 cm) of an agricultural ecosystem, and characterized the intrinsic factors influencing community resistance based on microbial life history strategy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicrocapsules were always used as functional material carriers for targeted delivery and meanwhile offering protection. However, microcapsule wall materials with specific properties were required, which makes the choice of wall material a key factor. In our previous study, a highly branched rhamnogalacturonan I rich (RG-I-rich) pectin was extracted from citrus canning processing water, which showed good gelling properties and binding ability, indicating it could be a potential microcapsule wall material.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicrobes inhabiting deep soil layers are known to be different from their counterpart in topsoil yet remain under investigation in terms of their structure, function, and how their diversity is shaped. The microbiome of deep soils (>1 m) is expected to be relatively stable and highly independent from climatic conditions. Much less is known, however, on how these microbial communities vary along climate gradients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA central aim of community ecology is to understand how local species diversity is shaped. Agricultural activities are reshaping and filtering soil biodiversity and communities; however, ecological processes that structure agricultural communities have often overlooked the role of the regional species pool, mainly owing to the lack of large datasets across several regions. Here, we conducted a soil survey of 941 plots of agricultural and adjacent natural ecosystems (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Biol Macromol
December 2023
In recent years, the incidence of inflammatory bowel disease has gradually increased. Traditional drugs can reduce inflammation, but cannot be targeting released and often require the coordination with delivery systems. However, a good targeting performance delivery system is still scarce currently.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFS. D. Shi is a new variety of Tratt and its fruits are rich in bioactive components, but its effects and mechanisms against intestinal inflammation are currently unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRhizosphere microbes play key roles in plant growth and productivity in agricultural systems. One of the critical issues is revealing the interaction of agricultural management (M) and rhizosphere selection effects (R) on soil microbial communities, root exudates and plant productivity. Through a field management experiment, we found that bacteria were more sensitive to the M × R interaction effect than fungi, and the positive effect of rhizosphere bacterial diversity on plant biomass existed in the bacterial three two-tillage system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBayberry juice is favored for its unique taste and flavor, while heat sterilization tends to reduce the aroma quality during processing, which limits its acceptability to consumers. To address this issue, we use exogenous polyphenols to regulate flavor compounds to improve the product quality. Total 13 differential key aroma-active compounds were identified between fresh bayberry juice (FBJ) and heat-sterilized bayberry juice (HBJ) using aroma extract dilution analysis (AEDA), orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) and odor activity values (OAVs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNanotechniques for curcumin (Cur) encapsulation provided a potential capability to avoid limitations and improve biological activities in food and pharmaceutics. Different from multi-step encapsulation systems, in this study, zein-curcumin (Z-Cur) core-shell nanoparticles could be self-assembled within Eudragit S100 (ES100) fibers through one-pot coaxial electrospinning with Cur at an encapsulation efficiency (EE) of 96% for ES100-zein-Cur (ES100-Z-Cur) and EE of 67% for self-assembled Z-Cur. The resulting structure realized the double protection of Cur by ES100 and zein, which provided both pH responsiveness and sustained release performances.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGIGANTEA (GI) encodes a component of the circadian clock core oscillator and has been identified as a regulatory pathway of the circadian rhythm and photoperiodic flowering in model plants. However, the regulatory pathway of GI affecting flowering time is unknown in maize. Here, we identified that the zmgi2 mutant flowered earlier than the wild type under long day (LD) conditions, whereas the difference in flowering time was not apparent under short day (SD) conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAcid-catalyzed depolymerization is recognized as the most practical method for analyzing subunit composition and the polymerization degree of proanthocyanidins, involving purification by removing free flavan-3-ols, as well as acid-catalyzed cleavage and the identification of cleavage products. However, after the removal of proanthocyanidins with low molecular weights during purification, the formation of anthocyanidins from the extension subunits accompanying acid-catalyzed cleavage occurred. Thus, grape seed extract other than purified proanthocyanidins was applied to acid-catalyzed depolymerization.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCanned citrus is a major citrus product that is popular around the world. However, the canning process discharges large amounts of high-chemical oxygen demand wastewater, which contains many functional polysaccharides. Herein, we recovered three different pectic polysaccharides from citrus canning processing water and evaluated their prebiotic potential as well as the relationship between the RG-I domain and fermentation characteristics using an in vitro human fecal batch fermentation model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGoji berry and mulberry are both popular berries with anti-colitis effects, but their leaves have received less attention. In this study, the anti-colitis effects of goji berry leaf and mulberry leaf were investigated in dextran-sulfate-sodium-induced colitis C57BL/6N mice compared with their fruits. Goji berry leaf and goji berry reduced colitic symptoms and ameliorated tissue damage, while mulberry leaf did not.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo evaluate the potential health-promoting benefits of Berberis nummularia and B. atrocarpa fruits, the biochemical properties (nutrition component, mineral substance, organic acids), total phenolic and flavonoid content and antioxidant (DPPH, FRAP, ABTS and ORAC) capacity of ethanol extracts of B. nummularia and B.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAgricultural ecosystems are facing increasing environmental changes. Revealing ecological stability of belowground organisms is key to developing management strategies that maintain agricultural ecosystem services in a changing world. Here, we collected soils from adjacent pairs of maize and rice fields along large spatial scale across Eastern and Southeast China to investigate the importance of core microbiota as a predictor of resistance of soil microbiome (e.
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