Access to health care, nutrition and dietary habits among school-age children living in socio-economic inequality contexts: results from the "ForGood: Sport is Well-Being" programme.

Social frailty is a warring phenomenon in Europe, negatively impacting children's health and nutrition. We present the results of a social programme facilitating access to physical activities for vulnerable children in Italy. 311 school-age children enrolled in the programme between 2015 and 2017 were assessed for health and lifestyle, anthropometric and nutritional status.

Expression and purification of the recombinant mustard trypsin inhibitor 2 (MTI2) in Escherichia coli.

The mustard trypsin inhibitor 2, MTI2, was expressed in Escherichia coli. A specific procedure for its production and purification is described. The recombinant protein was recovered by protein extraction from the insoluble fraction, then renatured and purified by ion exchange and gel filtration chromatography.

Use of reverse micelles for the simultaneous extraction of oil, proteins, and glucosinolates from cruciferous oilseeds.

Cruciferous oilseeds are important sources of oil, proteins, and glucosinolates (GLs), potentially available when biorefinery processes are used. The proposed extraction technology is based on the use of reverse micelles (RMs) made with cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) dispersed in organic solvent. The physicochemical properties of this extraction system and the good water solubility of many high value compounds, such as GLs and some proteins, permit the simultaneous extraction of oil, and these products from cruciferous oilseed meals.

Benzodioxole derivatives as negative effectors of plant proteases.

Previous work demonstrated that a commercial formulation of piperonyl butoxide (PBO) did inhibit the activity of some plant proteolytic enzymes. In this paper, the effect of pure PBO and nine pure PBO homologues (PBOH) appropriately synthesized toward bromelain and papain was studied in hydrocarbon solution using the bis(2-ethylhexyl)sodium sulfosuccinate (AOT) reverse micellar system. This study establishes that the majority of these compounds show, in vitro, interesting protease inhibition activities.

Isolation and biochemical characterization of a basic myrosinase from ripe Crambe abyssinica seeds, highly specific for epi-progoitrin.

On the basis of previous studies on the mechanism-based inhibition, activation, and active site structure of myrosinase(s) isolated from Sinapis alba and other cruciferous seeds, crambe myrosinase shows uncommon properties and behavior. For this reason homogeneous crambe myrosinase was isolated and investigated to establish the most important physicochemical features, including kinetic properties determined with the epimers progoitrin (R) and epi-progoitrin (S) as substrates, with and without ascorbate as an activator. The results of this study demonstrate that crambe myrosinase is highly specific for epi-progoitrin due to a better stabilization of the enzyme-substrate complex.