A whole grain consists of the intact, ground, cracked, or flaked caryopsis, whose principal anatomical components--the starchy endosperm, germ, and bran--are present in the same relative proportions as they exist in the intact caryopsis. Whole grain food products can be intact, consisting of the original composition of bran, germ, and endosperm, throughout the entire lifetime of the product, or reconstituted, in which one or more of the original components of a whole grain is recombined to the relative proportion naturally occurring in the grain kernel. Increased consumption of whole grains has been associated with reduced risk of major chronic diseases including cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes, and some cancers. Whole grain foods offer a wide range of phytochemicals with health benefits that are only recently becoming recognized. The unique phytochemicals in whole grains are proposed to be responsible for the health benefits of whole grain consumption. In this paper, whole grain phytochemicals and the health benefits associated with their consumption are reviewed.
Allicin, an active ingredient of garlic, possesses a range of antimicrobial properties. Unfortunately, certain properties of the compound, such as chemical instability and low miscibility with water, have hampered its practical use in the past. Here, we show that it is possible to use a binary system consisting of the plant enzyme alliinase and its substrate alliin to generate allicin, and hence antifungal activity, in situ. During application, the two inactive components generate compounds that inhibit growth and infection-related development of the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe grisea. It is therefore possible to "trigger" biological activity in a controlled, yet effective manner. Apart from circumventing many of the drawbacks of allicin, this binary system has additional important advantages, such as low toxicity of its individual components and selective activation. Importantly, alliinase is also able to use different substrates, therefore paving the way to a range of novel, binary antimicrobial systems with custom-made chemical and biochemical properties.
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