Nutraceutical Improvement Increases the Protective Activity of Broccoli Sprout Juice in a Human Intestinal Cell Model of Gut Inflammation

Abstract

Benefits to health from a high consumption of fruits and vegetables are well established and have been attributed to bioactive secondary metabolites present in edible plants. However, the effects of specific health-related phytochemicals within a complex food matrix are difficult to assess. In an attempt to address this problem, we have used elicitation to improve the nutraceutical content of seedlings of Brassica oleracea grown under controlled conditions. Analysis, by LC-MS, of the glucosinolate, isothiocyanate and phenolic compound content of juices obtained from sprouts indicated that elicitation induces an enrichment of several phenolics, particularly of the anthocyanin fraction. To test the biological activity of basal and enriched juices we took advantage of a recently developed in vitro model of inflamed human intestinal epithelium. Both sprouts’ juices protected intestinal barrier integrity in Caco-2 cells exposed to tumor necrosis factor α under marginal zinc deprivation, with the enriched juice showing higher protection. Multivariate regression analysis indicated that the extent of rescue from stress-induced epithelial dysfunction correlated with the composition in bioactive molecules of the juices and, in particular, with a group of phenolic compounds, including several anthocyanins, quercetin-3-Glc, cryptochlorogenic, neochlorogenic and cinnamic acids.

Sprouted Grains: A Comprehensive Review

“…Exogenous elicitation with yeast extracts of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (0.1% w / v ) had little or no significant influence on total phenolic content and antioxidant activity of sprouted wheat [ 25 ], while significantly increased the levels of ferulic, p-coumaric and syringic acids in broccoli sprouts [ 178 ]. Other investigated biotic elicitors include mannitol [ 179 ], sucrose [ 180 , 181 , 182 ], glucose [ 180 , 181 , 183 ], glucosamine and collagen [ 184 ] as well as tea tree [ 175 ] and Salix daphnoides bark [ 25 ] extracts. Moreover, among protein elicitors, fish protein hydrolysates (FPH)—produced from byproduct of fishery industry—seem interesting due to their high content of proline and proline precursors.…”

Bioactive Compounds and Bioactivities of Brassica oleracea L. var. Italica Sprouts and Microgreens: An Updated Overview from a Nutraceutical Perspective

“…The anti-inflammatory mechanisms of broccoli sprouts are probably associated with the nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) and nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) signaling pathways [27]. Both in vitro and in vivo experiments, as well as clinical trials, mainly exhibit anti-inflammatory effects of broccoli sprouts, which showed high concentrations of sulforaphane and a group of phenolic compounds, including anthocyanins, isoquercetin, chlorogenic and cinnamic acids, via inhibiting inflammatory mediators such as a nitric oxide (NO), decreasing the levels of proinflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and IL-1β, and increasing the levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-10 and IL-22 [27,28,55,72,113,114]. For example, a study showed that sulforaphane-enriched broccoli sprouts inhibited activation of the NF-κB signaling pathway and the secretions of inflammatory proteins (inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2), TNF-α, IL-6, IL-1β, and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2)) in microglial cells (BV2) and male ICR (Institute of Cancer Research) mice.…”

Sprouts and Microgreens: Trends, Opportunities, and Horizons for Novel Research

“…Within this context, sprouts provide the opportunity for implementing quick, flexible, and versatile procedures to concurrently develop metabolic variants for subsequent characterizations, comparisons to controls, and application of multivariate statistical analyses to discriminate the chemical entities exercising an active role on observed biological effects. By way of example, this rationale was applied by Ferruzza et al [227] to show a protective effect by Brassica oleracea sprouts against a human model of gut inflammation developed in Caco-2 cells.…”