Search

Phosphatidylserine (PS) is the part of cell structure in the body and has many beneficial functions especially in brain-related aging diseases. Although daily foods can provide PS to human body, the amount is very limited due to its poverty in most foods. To overcome the issue, numerous studies based on PS have been reported to develop PS-related supplements. In this review, PS was comprehensively and critically reviewed from the view of resources, functions, processing techniques, patents, and prospects. For resources, animal, plant, and microorganism origins were all covered with their differences in composition profiles. For functions, benefits regarding memory, cognitive enhancement, exercise performance, reducing Alzheimer's disease, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms were covered as well as the functional differences among animal-, plant-, and microorganism-based PS-related supplements. For processing techniques, traditional extracting methods from animal, plant, and microorganism tissues were comparatively discussed with enzymatic synthesis based on different reaction systems. Finally, patents of PS-related supplements were evaluated as well as their applications. This review could provide scientific and valuable support for PS industry.

In this paper, we consider an optimal portfolio deleveraging problem, where the objective is to meet specified debt/equity requirements at the minimal execution cost. Permanent and temporary price impact is [...]

Background/Objective: Several body components are known to be associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in children. However, the relative contributions of soft tissue mass components as risk or protective factors of NAFLD are largely unknown because measurements of these components are often highly correlated. Therefore, we aimed to estimate levels of association between soft tissue mass components and NAFLD. Subjects/Methods: We collected the medical records of 555 Chinese children (aged 3–18 years). Five mutually exclusive and exhaustive components of soft tissue mass were measured using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry. NAFLD was diagnosed with abdominal B-ultrasound scan. We fit Dirichlet regression and multivariate linear regression models wherein age and NAFLD were used as predictors of the proportional measurements of soft tissue mass components. Results: The proportion of android fat was significantly higher in children with NAFLD than in those without NAFLD (ratio of proportions ranged from 1.18 to 1.30), whereas proportions of trunk lean and limb lean were significantly lower (ratio of proportions ranged from 0.87 to 0.92 for trunk lean and from 0.82 to 0.91 for limb lean). The proportion of gynoid fat was slightly higher in boys with NAFLD than in those without NAFLD (ratio = 1.05), but this proportion was not significantly higher in girls. The association between the proportion of android fat and NAFLD appeared to be somewhat greater than the associations between proportions of trunk lean or limb lean components and NAFLD. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that lowering fat mass and increasing lean mass can both be used to combat NAFLD in children and that more studies are needed to determine the association between gynoid fat and NAFLD.

Lactam cyclic peptides are a class of interesting and pharmaceutically active molecules, but their previous syntheses have required the use of heavy metals and/or forcing conditions. Here, we describe the efficient application of the previously reported tert-butyl disulfide-protected amino acids and their use in the efficient, solid-phase synthesis of a series of lactam cyclic peptides under mild, metal-free conditions.

Wild melon (Cucumis melovar. agrestis) seed oil (CO) contains 71.3% polyunsaturated fatty acids. The present study investigated the effects of CO on blood cholesterol and gut microbiota. Hamsters (n= 32) were randomly divided into four groups and given one of four diets, namely noncholesterol diet (NCD), high-cholesterol diet containing 0.1% cholesterol (HCD), HCD containing 4.75% CO (COL), and HCD containing 9.5% CO (COH) for 6 weeks. CO supplementation at 9.5% in the diet reduced plasma cholesterol by 24% and enhanced the excretion of fecal bile acids by 150%. CO supplementation upregulated the gene expression of hepatic cholesterol 7α-hydroxylase (CYP7A1). In addition, supplementation of CO in the diet remarkably increased the production of fecal short-chain fatty acids and favorably altered the relative abundances of Eubacteriaceae, Clostridiales_vadinBB60_group, Ruminococcaceae, Streptococcaceae, and Desulfovibrionaceaeat a family level. It was concluded that CO could reduce plasma cholesterol via promoting the excretion of fecal acidic sterols and modulating gut microbiota.

The aim of this work was to investigate the possible synergistic interaction between monopalmitate (MP) and carnauba wax (CW) on the properties and crystallization behavior of oleogels. The soybean oleogels were prepared from MP and CW, and were characterized by oil binding capacity (OBC), solid fat content (SFC) and isothermal crystallization. The results showed that the OBC of the prepared oleogels changed in a W-shape trend with the increase of CW content. The mass ratio of MP and CW greatly affected the SFC. At 40, 50 and 60 °C, the SFC of these oleogels showed a slight deep eutectic effect with the increase of CW content in the gelators. The mass ratio of MP to CW also apparently affected the peak temperature and enthalpy during the crystallization and melting process analyzed by differential scanning calorimeter. The hysteresis occurring in the study indicated that crystallization temperature was lower than melting temperature and crystallization enthalpy was higher than melting enthalpy. The isothermal crystallization of these oleogels was characterized by Avrami equation, the Avrami exponent (n) and the apparent crystallization constant (k) of these oleogels were affected by the mass ratio of MP to CW as well as the crystallization temperature. Great difference in the values of nand kbetween the MP (or CW) oleogel and these oleogels suggested that the crystal growth mechanism had changed. However, the factor kfor the oleogel formed of MP and CW with a mass ratio of 2:8 was about 1, unaffected by the crystallization temperature. From these results, we could deduce that the synergistic interaction between MP and CW did happen and affect the properties and crystallization behavior of these oleogels.

Phytosterol esters can effectively decrease serum cholesterol concentration in the human body and prevent cardio-cerebrovascular diseases. It was found that phytosterol esters exhibited better solubility and bioavailability than free phytosterols. In recent years, phytosterol esters have attracted increasing attention. However, during food processing, phytosterol esters are susceptible to degradation at high temperatures, resulting in certain losses and formation of potentially harmful substances for humans. This paper reviews the relevant literatures and updates on the thermal oxidation stability of phytosterol esters in recent years from the following aspects: (i) Sources, physiological activities, and applications of phytosterol esters; (ii) Oxidation mechanism of phytosterol esters; (iii) Effects of phytosterols species, the volume of addition, food matrix, heating temperature and time, and antioxidants on the thermal loss and oxidation stability of phytosterol esters. The research progress on the safety of phytosterol esters was also discussed in detail. Additionally, the prospects for future research are highlighted.

Enzymatic epoxidation of vegetable oils using a long chain fatty acid as an active oxygen carrier could produce a desirable epoxy oxygen group content (EOC); however, the acid value (AV) of final epoxidized oil is too high. The present study was to investigate the effect of different fatty acids with varying length of carbon chain on EOC and AV of the final epoxidized soybean oil (ESO); finding butyric acid was the choice of active oxygen carrier when hydrogen peroxide was used as an oxygen donor in the presence of lipase Novozyme 435. And in situ IR was used to monitor the epoxidation process, which revealed that the formation of perbutyric acid was the key step in the whole reaction. The epoxidation process was optimized as follows: molar ratio of butyric acid/C=C bonds of 0.19:1, 8% of immobilized lipase Novozyme 435 load (relative to the weight of soybean oil) and molar ratio of H2O2/C=C bonds of 3.5:1, reaction time of 4 h and reaction temperature of 45 °C. Under these conditions, ESO with a high EOC (7.62 ± 0.20%) and a lower AV value (8.53 ± 0.18 mgKOH/g) was obtained. The oxriane conversion degree was up to 97.94%.

The rapid and accurate detection of the moisture content is of great significance to the quality evaluation and oil extraction process of walnut kernel. Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is an ideal method for measuring the moisture content in walnut kernel. In this study, a regression model for moisture content in walnut kernel was developed based on NIR diffuse reflectance spectroscopy using chemometric methods. The different spectral pretreatment methods were adopted to preprocess the original spectral data. The whole spectra band was divided into 5 subbands, 10 subbands, 15 subbands, and 20 subbands to screen specific wavelengths relevant to the walnut kernel moisture content. PLS (partial least square regression), MLR (multivariate linear regression), PCR (principle component regression), and SVR (support vector regression) were used to establish the relationship model between the spectral data and measurement values of the moisture content. In comparison, the optimized modeling conditions were determined as follows: detection wavelength 1349–1490 nm, SNV-FD (standard normal variate transformation and first derivative) preprocessing method, and PLS algorithm. Under these conditions, the square correlation coefficient (R2) and root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) of the prediction model were 0.9865 and 0.0017, respectively. The results of this study provided a feasible method for the rapid detection of moisture content in walnut kernel. To improve the performance and applicability of the model, it is necessary to continuously expand the size of the sample set.

Deep eutectic solvents (DESs), a new group of ecofriendly solvent combined with the ultrasonic-assisted extraction (UAE) technique, were first successfully used for extraction of resveratrol from peanut roots. Resveratrol in the extract was analyzed and quantified using a HPLC-UV method. A series of DESs consisting of choline chloride (ChCl) and 1,4-butanediol, citric acid, and ethylene glycol were formulated, finding ChCl/1,4-butanediol was a most proper extraction system. The optimal extraction parameters were obtained using a Box–Behnken design (BBD) test combined with response surface methodology as follows: 40% of water in ChCl/1,4-butanediol (1/3, g/g) at 55°C for 40 min and solid/liquid ratio of 1:30 g/mL. The total extraction content and extraction yield of resveratrol from peanut roots could reach 38.91 mg/kg and 88.19%, respectively, under such optimal conditions. The present study will provide a typical example for using DESs to extract natural bioactive compounds from plants.