Maintaining a steady state of mucus barrier is an important potential target for polyphenol to exert its anticolitis activity. This study elucidates the pivotal role of polyphenol rosmaric acid (RA) in regulating the mucus barrier function and alleviating inflammation by identifying its gut microbiota-derived metabolites and evaluating its inhibitory effect on inflammasomes in colitis mice. Results demonstrated that RA treatment promoted the proliferation of goblet cells and restored the level of mucus secretion, especially Muc2. RA reshaped the microbiota of colitis mice, particularly the boost of core probiotics, such as p. Bacteroidaceae, f. Muribaculaceae, g. Muribaculaceae, g. Alistipes, and g. Clostridia_UCG-014. Nontargeted metabonomics and targeted metabonomics confirmed a significant increase in the bile acids and their metabolites (7-sulfocholic acid, stercobilin, chenodeoxycholic acid 3-sulfate, chenodeoxycholic acid sulfate, and ursodeoxycholic acid 3-sulfate), indole metabolites ((R)-2,3-dihydro-3,5-dihydroxy-2-oxo-3-indoleacetic acid, frovatriptan, 3-formyl-6-hydroxyindole, and brassicanal A), and short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) (acetic acid, butyric acid, isobutyric acid, isovaleric acid, and valeric acid) that contributed to the strengthened mucus barrier function. In addition, being absorbed mainly in the lower digestive tract, RA inhibited the overexpression of inflammasomes (especially NLRP6) that occurred in colitis mice to promote the mucus secretion of goblet cells. These data confirmed that RA, as a promising candidate to enhance gut health, restored colonic mucus secretion in colitis mice by mediating the production of gut microbiota-derived metabolites and the overexpression of inflammasomes. The presented study provides scientific evidence explaining the apparent paradox of low bioavailability and high bioactivity in polyphenols.
Food enzymes have an important role in the improvement of certain food characteristics, such as texture improvement, elimination of toxins and allergens, production of carbohydrates, enhancing flavor/appearance characteristics. Recently, along with the development of artificial meats, food enzymes have been employed to achieve more diverse functions, especially in converting non-edible biomass to delicious foods. Reported food enzyme modifications for specific applications have highlighted the significance of enzyme engineering. However, using direct evolution or rational design showed inherent limitations due to the mutation rates, which made it difficult to satisfy the stability or specific activity needs for certain applications. Generating functional enzymes using de novo design, which highly assembles naturally existing enzymes, provides potential solutions for screening desired enzymes. Here, we describe the functions and applications of food enzymes to introduce the need for food enzymes engineering. To illustrate the possibilities of using de novo design for generating diverse functional proteins, we reviewed protein modelling and de novo design methods and their implementations. The future directions for adding structural data for de novo design model training, acquiring diversified training data, and investigating the relationship between enzyme–substrate binding and activity were highlighted as challenges to overcome for the de novo design of food enzymes.
Background: Hypertension and its complications represent major health problems worldwide and are distributed differently in different populations. This study aimed to reveal the differences between two populations of patients with hypertension who had atherosclerotic complications: local residents in and migrants to the city of Shanghai, China. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study among hospitalized patients with hypertension age 21-65 years in Pudong District. We compared the characteristics of local and migrant patients with hypertension, and analyzed the distribution and risk factors of atherosclerotic complications between these groups. Results: The proportion of young and uninsured patients with hypertension was higher among migrant than local participants. The rates of stroke (15.4% vs. 25.0%, p < 0.05) and coronary heart disease (8.6% vs. 11.7%, p < 0.05) were lower and the rates of other atherosclerotic diseases higher (8.5% vs. 7.9%, p = 0.429) among migrant than local participants. According to logistic regression analysis, age was an important risk factor in both the migrant and local groups for all three atherosclerotic complications investigated. Insurance, diabetes, and frequency of hospitalization could influence the incidence of atherosclerotic complications among local patients with hypertension. Among migrant patients, differences for sex, insurance, marital status, diabetes history, and frequency of hospitalization were not significant. Conclusions: Our study demonstrated differences in the characteristics, distribution, and risk factors of atherosclerotic complications among migrant and local patients with hypertension. Greater attention in needed for the increasing population of migrants.
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