The primary role of the water-soluble vitamin B2 (riboflavin) in cell biology is connected with its conversion into FMN and FAD, the cofactors of a large number of dehydrogenases, oxidases and reductases involved in a broad spectrum of biological activities, among which energetic metabolism and chromatin remodeling. Subcellular localisation of FAD synthase (EC 2.7.7.2, FADS), the second enzyme in the FAD forming pathway, is addressed here in HepG2 cells by confocal microscopy, in the frame of its relationships with kinetics of FAD synthesis and delivery to client apo-flavoproteins. FAD synthesis catalyzed by recombinant isoform 2 of FADS occurs via an ordered bi-bi mechanism in which ATP binds prior to FMN, and pyrophosphate is released before FAD. Spectrophotometric continuous assays of the reconstitution rate of apo-D-aminoacid oxidase with its cofactor, allowed us to propose that besides its FAD synthesizing activity, hFADS is able to operate as a FAD “chaperone.” The physical interaction between FAD forming enzyme and its clients was further confirmed by dot blot and immunoprecipitation experiments carried out testing as a client either a nuclear lysine-specific demethylase 1 (LSD1) or a mitochondrial dimethylglycine dehydrogenase (Me2GlyDH, EC 1.5.8.4). Both enzymes carry out similar reactions of oxidative demethylation, in which tetrahydrofolate is converted into 5,10-methylene-tetrahydrofolate. A direct transfer of the cofactor from hFADS2 to apo-dimethyl glycine dehydrogenase was also demonstrated. Thus, FAD synthesis and delivery to these enzymes are crucial processes for bioenergetics and nutri-epigenetics of liver cells.
Food waste (FW) represents a global and ever-growing issue that is attracting more attention due to its environmental, ethical, social and economic implications. Although a valuable quantity of bioactive components is still present in the residuals, nowadays most FW is destined for animal feeding, landfill disposal, composting and incineration. Aiming to valorize and recycle food byproducts, the development of novel and sustainable strategies to reduce the annual food loss appears an urgent need. In particular, plant byproducts are a plentiful source of high-value compounds that may be exploited as natural antioxidants, preservatives and supplements in the food industry, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. In this review, a comprehensive overview of the main bioactive compounds in fruit, vegetable and cereal byproducts is provided. Additionally, the natural and suitable application of tailored enzymatic treatments and fermentation to recover high-value compounds from plant byproducts is discussed. Based on these promising strategies, a future expansion of green biotechnologies to revalorize the high quantity of byproducts is highly encouraging to reduce the food waste/losses and promote benefits on human health.
Authenticity and traceability of food products are of primary importance at all levels of the production process, from raw materials to finished products. Authentication is also a key aspect for accurate labeling of food, which is required to help consumers in selecting appropriate types of food products. With the aim of guaranteeing the authenticity of foods, various methodological approaches have been devised over the past years, mainly based on either targeted or untargeted analyses. In this review, a brief overview of current analytical methods tailored to authenticity studies, with special regard to fishery products, is provided. Focus is placed on untargeted methods that are attracting the interest of the analytical community thanks to their rapidity and high throughput; such methods enable a fast collection of "fingerprinting signals" referred to each authentic food, subsequently stored into large database for the construction of specific information repositories. In the present case, methods capable of detecting fish adulteration/substitution and involving sensory, physicochemical, DNA-based, chromatographic, and spectroscopic measurements, combined with chemometric tools, are illustrated and commented on.
An untargeted method using direct analysis in real time and high resolution mass spectrometry (DART-HRMS) combined to multivariate statistical analysis was developed for the discrimination of two monofloral (chestnut and acacia) honeys for their geographical origins—i.e., Italy and Portugal for chestnut honey and Italy and China for acacia honey. Principal Component Analysis, used as an unsupervised approach, showed samples of clusterization for chestnut honey samples, while overlapping regions were observed for acacia honeys. Three supervised statistical approaches, such as Principal Components—Linear Discriminant Analysis, Partial Least Squares—Discriminant Analysis and k-nearest neighbors, were tested on the dataset gathered and relevant performances were compared. All tested statistical approaches provided comparable prediction abilities in cross-validation and external validation with mean values falling between 89.2–98.4% for chestnut and between 85.8–95.0% for acacia honey. The results obtained herein indicate the feasibility of the DART-HRMS approach in combination with chemometrics for the rapid authentication of honey’s geographical origin.
Background: Omics technologies have been widely applied in different fields, among which, proteomics is gaining increasing interest for its application to the authenticity of food products. MS, typically coupled with LC, represents a key technique for proteomics-related studies dedicated to fish and other seafood products by using a bottom-up approach. Objective and Methods: In this paper, the optimization of an untargeted proteomics-based method using LC separation and MS detection relying on a quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer is described and applied to the analysis of Canadian farmed and wild-type salmon, followed by statistical analysis based on principal component (PC) analysis. Results and Conclusions: This untargeted approach, using a data-independent acquisition MS scheme, demonstrated the ability to effectively discriminate salmon belonging to the two classes. Furthermore, selected peptides showing high loadings on PC1 could represent potential candidate peptide markers able to discriminate farmed from wild-type salmon samples in the future.
Dietary inadequacy and nutrition-related non-communicable diseases (N-NCDs) represent two main issues for the whole society, urgently requesting solutions from researchers, policy-makers, and other stakeholders involved in the health and food system. Food by-products and wastes (FBPW) represent a global problem of increasing severity, widely recognized as an important unsustainability hotspot, with high socio-economic and environmental costs. Yet, recycling and up-cycling of FBPW to produce functional foods could represent a solution to dietary inadequacy and risk of N-NCDs onset. Bioprocessing of FBPW with selected microorganisms appears to be a relatively cheap strategy to yield molecules (or rather molecules mixtures) that may be used to fortify/enrich food, as well as to formulate dietary supplements. This review, conjugating human health and sustainability in relation to food, describes the state-of-the-art of the use of yeasts, molds, and lactic acid bacteria for producing value-added compounds from FBPW. Challenges related to FBPW bioprocessing prior to their use in food regard will be also discussed: (i) loss of product functionality upon scale-up of recovery process; (ii) finding logistic solutions to the intrinsic perishability of the majority of FBPW; (iii) inserting up-cycling of FBPW in an appropriate legislative framework; (iv) increasing consumer acceptability of food and dietary supplements derived from FBPW.
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