內容: Nutrigenomics is an emerging research field to investigate the interactions between food components and genes and elucidate their impacts on health and diseases. Exercise, another critical factor influencing human health, is intricately linked with nutrition and genetics, and is influenced by a combination of genetic background, lifestyle choice, and environmental factors. The high-throughput sequencing technologies and advanced bioinformatic tools have offered researchers to delve deeper into how individual genetic expression responses to exercise and how dietary interventions can enhance exercise performance and recovery through the gene expression changes and modifications. Among these mechanisms, gene expression emerges as the primary focus, highlighting its role in linking nutrients and exercise to metabolic pathways, muscle synthesis, and inflammation. While epigenetic modifications are briefly considered, the emphasis remains on how direct and indirect influences on gene expression drive physiological adaptations. Herein, the article reviews recent advancements in nutrigenomics within the context of exercise science, exploring gene-regulating mechanisms affected by specific nutrients and dietary patterns on exercise capacity, muscle synthesis, and damage repair. It also outlines the potential applications of personalized nutrition plans in athletic training and general fitness. In addition, this article addresses current challenges and potential issues in the practical implementation of nutrigenomics in exercise-induced health promotion. Future studies should emphasize interdisciplinary collaboration to unravel the intricate gene-nutrition-exercise interaction networks, thereby providing a solid theoretical foundation and technological support for the advancement of precision exercise nutrition.

內容: Cornus officinalis?Sieb. et Zucc., a valuable Chinese medicine resource, has a long clinic utilization history. In recent years, more research focus on the chemical composition and pharmacological activity of?C. officinalis?which was used as health foods and drugs. This paper summarized the active ingredients, pharmacological activities and molecular mechanisms of?C. officinalis?in recent 5 years to provide reference for the development and utilization of?C. officinalis. A total of 149 active constituents of?C. officinalis?were summarized, including iridoids (64), flavonoids (18), lignin (17), tannins (16), organic acids and phenolic acids (14), triterpenes (11) and others (9), which were further subdivided according to their pharmacological effects. It was found that the pharmacological effects of?C. officinalis?were very extensive, mainly including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, neuroprotective and other biological activities. Among these activities, the anti-inflammatory and hypoglycemic mechanisms showed multi-pathway and multi-target characteristics, which were elaborated systematically. However, there are still many compounds in?C. officinalis?that have not been studied for biological activity, which means that it still has potential pharmacological activity to be further studied.?C. officinalis?not only has high medicinal value, but also has a potential edible resource. However, limited by people’s understanding of the nutritional value of?C. officinalis, few product types and incomplete processing technology, people’s acceptance of the edible value of?C. officinalis?is not high, and it needs to be further developed and utilized.

內容: Food-derived polysaccharides are gaining popularity across diverse food applications due to their wide-ranging bioactivities and distinctive properties. The specific targeting of glycoside hydrolases towards glycosidic bonds lays the groundwork for synthesizing and exploring specific structural segments of polysaccharides, offering crucial implications in the food industry. However, macromolecular polysaccharides demonstrate limited biological activities as their active centers are tightly enveloped, posing challenges for traversing cell membrane barriers. By selectively cleaving partial glycosidic linkages in polysaccharides, glycoside hydrolases decrease the polymerization of polysaccharide molecules and effectively change the structural characteristics, where a series of smaller polysaccharide fragments can be generated for improving the bioactivities and properties in some respects. This review examines the role of glycoside hydrolases in degrading food-derived polysaccharides, the structure-function relationships, reaction conditions, and the current application status of degraded polysaccharides is discussed in particular. In addition, we also highlight challenges and future directions worth attention in the application of enzymes and polysaccharides. Overall, the present review will provide an efficient method for producing bioactivity-enhanced polysaccharides, which can improve the effectiveness and safety of functional foods to safeguard human wellness.

內容: The intestinal barrier is crucial for homeostasis. This study aimed to investigate the protective effects of earthworm protein hydrolysates (EWPH) on the intestinal mucosal barrier and elucidate the underlying mechanisms. We first hydrolyzed earthworm protein using alcalase and identified the primary peptide components of EWPH through Nano LC-MS/MS analysis. Network pharmacology and bioinformatics approaches were employed to predict potential targets associated with the intestinal mucosal barrier. Experimentally, we demonstrated that EWPH effectively protects against dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced intestinal barrier damage in mice. The protective mechanisms involve not only the inhibition of the Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)-nuclear factor-κ (NF-κ)/mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) signaling pathway in the intestinal epithelium but also the suppression of other key molecules implicated in intestinal mucosal barrier damage, including phosphorylated-SRC proto-oncogene (p-SRC), phosphorylated-signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (p-STAT3), Caspase-3, and matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP9), thereby mitigating intestinal inflammation and mucosal barrier injury. This study provides evidence that EWPH have the potential to safeguard the intestinal barrier hemostasis.

內容: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is intricately linked to dysregulated hepatic lipid metabolism and gut microbiota imbalances. This study explores the potential mechanisms by which AEN, a lignan-rich extract from?Myristica fragrans?Houtt., alleviates NAFLD by affecting gut bacteria, bile acid metabolism, and fecal chemical composition. We demonstrate that AEN prevents weight gain, lipid accumulation, and enhances liver function in mice subjected to a high-fat diet. Utilizing a multi-omics strategy that includes microbiome analysis and metabolomics, we observed significant shifts in gut microbial composition and fecal metabolites, notably an increase in lithocholic acid, taurocholic acid, and the ratio of non-12-OH to 12-OH conjugated bile acids. These metabolic changes were accompanied by a decrease in bile acid metabolism-related enzymes, such as bile salt hydrolase, in the AEN group compared to the high-fat diet group. Moreover, AEN downregulated the farnesoid X receptor-fibroblast growth factor 15 pathway in the intestine, promoting the alternative bile acid synthesis pathway. The elucidation of the correlation between changes in the microbiome and fecal metabolites suggests that AEN modulates specific gut microbes, thereby influencing bile acid metabolism. This modulation was evident in the increased abundance of beneficial bacteria related to bile acid production, such as?Parabacteroides?and?Bilophila, and the decreased abundance of harmful bacteria like?Helicobacter?and?Streptococcus. Network pharmacology and GC ?á GC-TOF-MS suggested that licarin A and B could be key bioactive lignans in AEN. These findings underscore the potential of AEN in countering NAFLD by targeting the gut-liver axis, offering a novel therapeutic avenue for NAFLD management.

內容: Advanced glycation end products (AGEs), a group of complex compounds generated by nonenzymatic interactions between amino acids, proteins and reducing sugars or lipids, accumulate?in vivo?and activate various signaling pathways closely related to the occurrence of various chronic metabolic diseases. This study aims to explore the structure-activity relationship between phenolic acids with different structure and affecting the AGEs generation, and to provide data support for AGEs control. Phenolic acids (4-hydroxybenzoic, protocatechuic, gallic,?p-coumaric, caffeic, ferulic and sinapic acids) were employed to indicate the AGEs formation condition in Maillard reaction performed in the glucose-lysine model system. Three 1,2-dicarbonyl compounds were reacted with phenolic acids and then tested by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. The results showed that?Nε-carboxy-methyl-lysine (CML),?Nε-carboxy-ethyl-lysine (CEL), and pyrraline formation inhibited by phenolic acids varied from (8.7 ± 2.5)% to (33.2 ± 2.5)%, (10.5 ± 0.8)% to (57.1 ± 3.2)% and (1.3 ± 0.3)% to (23.3 ± 0.8)%, respectively. The?p-coumaric acid has no inhibitory effect on CML and CEL formation. Gallic acid shows the best inhibitory effect on CML formation due to its strong antioxidant activity. Sinapic acid showed the best glyoxal (GO) trapping rate and thus had the stronger inhibitory effect on CML formation. Ferulic acid can react with mono-, di-, and tri-methylglyoxal (MGO) to form adduct products, showing the best MGO scavenging rate and a good inhibitory effect on CEL formation. The main role of phenolic acid is an antioxidant agent to inhibit pyrraline formation. The glucose itself or ammonia-induced degradation and Amadori rearrangement products oxidation were lowered by protocatechuic, gallic and caffeic acids due to their antioxidant activities to form AGEs, while AGEs inhibited by ferulic and sinapic acids were mainly dependent on their trapping ability on 1,2-dicarbonyl compounds.

內容: The Bama diet (BD), Mediterranean diet (MD), and Japanese diet (JD) are three typical dietary patterns from distinct geographical regions. The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of three diets in preventing colitis through gut microbe-metabolite-mediated regulatory mechanisms. This was achieved by integrating gut microbiome and metabolomics analyses. Results showed that BD could significantly increase the level of interleukin 10 (IL-10), which has the potential to modulate the intestinal immune response. This was achieved by modulating the?α-linoleic acid metabolism and promoting?Akkermansia?proliferation. MD elevated IL-10 level and increased the expression of tight junction proteins such as occludin, claudin-1, and zonula occludens-1. This effect might be attributed to the increased abundance of bifidobacteria, which impacted the primary bile acid biosynthesis pathway. JD decreased tumor necrosis factor α level and increased IL-10 level. This could be due to JD promoting the enrichment of?Faecalibacterium, which affected the metabolism of arachidonic acid. Furthermore, the anti-inflammatory effects of the different metabolites, namely?α-linoleic acid, cholic acid, and arachidonic acid, were confirmed using the RAW264.7 cellular inflammation model.

內容: Food-derived bioactive peptides exhibit good health-promoting effects. In this study, low molecular weight chicken intestine peptide (CIP) below 2 kDa is prepared through trypsin hydrolysis of chicken intestine and ultrafiltration, and the hepatoprotective effects of CIP and underlying mechanisms were investigated. Our findings indicated that CIP alleviated acute liver injury induced by alcohol in mice. Because of iron chelating properties and free radical scavenging activities, CIP inhibited the overload of free iron and the accumulation of lipid peroxides in liver tissues, thereby suppressing alcohol-induced ferroptosis of hepatocytes.?In vitro?studies demonstrated that CIP suppressed lipid peroxidation and subsequent ferroptosis of HepG2 cells induced by hydrogen peroxide. Mechanistic studies further revealed that CIP promoted the expression and activation of nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (NRF2), leading to the increased transcription of antioxidant response elements and solute carrier family 7 member 11 (SLC7A11). This promoted the synthesis of glutathione and enhanced the enzyme activity of glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4), facilitating the clearance of lipid peroxides. These findings suggest that CIP holds promise for the prevention and treatment of alcoholic liver disease and other oxidative stress-related liver diseases.

內容: This study investigated the intervention ability and potential mechanism of?Lactobacillus helveticus-derived whey on ovariectomy (OVX)-induced osteoporosis. The whey from two?L. helveticus?strains, ATCC15009, and CCFM1096, were orally gavaged to OVX rats at a dose of 500 mg/kg for 12 weeks. The effect of?L. helveticus-derived whey on osteoporosis varied, whereas the raw milk-derived whey showed no significant effect. CCFM1096 whey significantly enhanced bone biomechanics, improved bone microstructure, upregulated bone formation markers (bone alkaline phosphatase (BALP), bone gamma-carboxyglutamic acid-containing protein (BPG)), and downregulated bone resorption markers (tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP), C-terminal telopeptide of type Ⅰ collagen (CTX-1), procollagen type Ⅰ N-terminal propeptide (PINP)), leading to promotion of osteoblast formation and inhibition of osteoclast generation. CCFM1096 whey affected bile acid metabolism, restored intestinal homeostasis, and prevented osteoporosis in OVX rats, with higher concentrations of unsaturated fatty acids, orotic acid, and uridine than that of ATCC15009. These findings provide important insights for the development of functional dairy products targeting osteoporotic populations and further demonstrate the importance of starter cultures in fermented foods.

內容: The symptoms of allergic airway disease are impacted by the interplay of gut microbiota, which may be modulated by probiotics. This study aimed to investigate the potential anti-inflammatory effects of three lactic acid bacteria (LAB) on allergic asthma through modulation of the gut microbiota. Ovalbumin (OVA)-induced asthmatic mice were treated with three LAB strains, and their gut microbiota profiles were analyzed using 16S rRNA sequencing. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) from mice fed with?Lactobacillus rhamnosus?RL-H3-005 was administered to OVA-induced asthmatic mice. The results demonstrated that RL-H3-005 effectively reduced inflammatory infiltrates in the lung and colon, as well as suppressed cytokine levels associated with allergic asthma compared to other strains. In addition, the supplementation of RL-H3-005 modulated the composition of gut microbiota in mice with allergic asthma. FMT results further supported the notion that modulating the gut microbiota with RL-H3-005 plays a crucial role in attenuating airway inflammatory symptoms in allergic asthma.