Health Benefits of High Voltage Electrostatic Field Processing of Fruits and Vegetables.

High voltage electrostatic field processing (HVEF) is a food preservation procedure frequently used to produce healthy minimally processed fruits and vegetables (F&V) as it reduces the growth of microorganisms and activates or inhibits various enzymes, thus retarding their natural ripening while preserving and even enhancing native nutritional quality and sensory characteristics. HVEF is one of the various nonthermal processing technology (NTPT) regarded as abiotic stress that can activate the antioxidant system of F&V and can also inhibith spoilage enzymes as, polyphenol oxidase (PPO), lipoxygenase (LOX), pectin methylesterase (PME), polygalacturonase (PG), cellulase (Cel), β-xylosidase, xyloglucan and endotransglycosylase/hydrolase, bringing positive effect on hardness, firmness, colour attributes, electric conductivity, antioxidant compounds, microstructure and decreasing electrolyte leakage (EL), malondialdehyde (MDA) contents and browning degree. This technique can also increase the contents of fructose, glucose, and sucrose and decrease the production of CO and HO.

New Molecular Insights into the Inhibition of Dipeptidyl Peptidase-4 by Natural Cyclic Peptide Oxytocin.

Protease inhibition has led to treating many diseases and has been successful in producing many commercial drugs by pharmaceutical companies. Among many proteases, serine protease has been attractive in treating metabolic disorder diabetes mellitus (DM). Gliptins have been proven to inhibit dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP4), a serine protease, and are an emerging therapeutic drug target to reduce blood glucose levels, but until now there is no natural cyclic peptide proven to inhibit serine protease DPP4.

Designed Functional Dispersion for Insulin Protection from Pepsin Degradation and Skeletal Muscle Cell Proliferation: In Silico and In Vitro Study.

Functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes with polyethylene glycol (PEGylated SWCNTs) are a promising nanomaterial that recently has emerged as the most attractive "cargo" to deliver chemicals, peptides, DNA and RNAs into cells. Insulin therapy is a recommended therapy to treat diabetes mellitus despite its side effects. Recently, functional dispersion made up of bioactive peptides, bioactive compounds and functionalized carbon nanomaterials such as PEGylated SWCNTs have proved to possess promising applications in nanomedicine.