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Soymilk is a natural nanocarrier. However, the performance of flavonoid-soymilk nano-complex remains unclear. In this work, icariin-soymilk nano-complexes (ISNCs) were successfully fabricated and characterized. The effects of high-pressure homogenization (HPH) treatment on structure and physicochemical properties of soymilk and nano-complexes were investigated. HPH treatment could significantly improve the surface hydrophobicity and interfacial activity of soymilk. The soymilk with HPH treatment could significantly improve the water solubility (20 folds), thermal stability and bioavailability of icariin. The highest encapsulation efficiency (93.28%), loading capacity (39.09 μg/mg), ζ-potentia (absolute value, 31.20 mV) and bioavailability (72.14%) were observed in HSI-200 (200 bar of homogenization pressure). While HSI-500 (500 bar of homogenization pressure) showed the smallest particle size (183.73 nm). ISNCs showed a rougher surface and an irregular lamellar structure with large amount of fi ne particles by using Cryo-SEM, suggesting that icariin was encapsulated in soymilk. These data supplied a novel strategy to improve the performance of icariin in functional foods.

【Objective】This study aims to understand the roles of MIR164, NAC gene families and miR164-NAC regulatory modules in banana ripening and response to low temperature stress, so as to provide a theoretical basis for banana variety improvement and molecular breeding.【Method】'Brazil banana' was used as test material. Through high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics analysis using miRBase, NCBI database and Clustal, TBtools, MCScanX and iTOL softwares, miR164 and NAC family members in banana were characterized, including their chromosomal location, structure, physical/ chemical properties, phylogenetic relationships, etc. Multiple miR164-NAC regulatory modules in bananas were identified through degradome sequencing and experimental validation combining transcriptome data. Next, the expression patterns of miR164-NAC regulatory modules during ripening and under cold stress were analyzed by small RNA northern blot and qRT-PCR.【Result】A total of six miR164 family members were identified in banana, of which four were located within the coding genes and two in the intergenic region. Phylogenetic analysis showed that several banana MIR164 precursors with high abundance were clustered together with papaya, suggesting that the origin of banana MIR164 gene family was closer to dicotyledonous plants. The banana genome encodes a total of 222 NAC members, unevenly distributed across all 11 chromosomes. A total of 134 homologous gene pairs were identified in these banana NACs, including 4 tandem repeats and 130 segment-replicating repeats, indicating that the main driving force of banana NAC genes evolution came from segmentreplicating events. Comparative phylogenetic analysis of all NAC proteins in banana, Arabidopsis thaliana and Oryza sativa divided this family into 23 subgroups, and transcriptome data revealed extensive redundancy and expression specificity of banana NAC genes. Physicochemical analysis showed that almost all banana NAC proteins were hydrophilic, and less than 15% were stable proteins. The miR164-NAC176/165 regulatory module in banana was verified, and the accumulation of miR164 in banana was induced by ethylene and gradually increased with fruit ripening, while the expression of MaNAC176/165 negatively regulated by miR164 in this module was gradually decreased during fruit ripening. Under the cold stress, miR164 was also obviously induced, resulting in the downregulation of its targets MaNAC176 and MaNAC165.【Conclusion】This study suggested that MaNAC176 and MaNAC165 may be transcriptional repressors of banana fruit ripening, while miR164 promotes ripening by negatively regulating MANAC176/165. This module may also be a key regulatory pathway of banana chilling injury. This study identified key miR164-NAC candidate modules in banana fruit ripening and cold stress response, which laid a foundation for subsequent gene cloning and functional analysis.

Epimedium has been used for functional foods with many beneficial functions to human health. Wushanicaritin is one of the most important chemicals int Epimedium. This study investigated the neuroprotective effects of wushanicaritin and potential underlying mechanisms. The results demonstrated that wushanicaritin possessed superior intercellular antioxidant activity compared to icaritin. Wushanicaritin, with an EC50 value of 3.87 μM, showed better neuroprotective effect than quercetin, a promising neuroprotection agent. Wushanicaritin significantly reversed lactate dehydrogenase release, reactive oxygen species generation, cell apoptosis, and mRNA expression related to cell apoptosis and oxidative defense, in glutamate-induced PC-12 cells. Wushanicaritin could also maintain the enzymatic antioxidant defense system and mitochondrial function. The suppression of caspase-3 activation and amelioration of mitochondrial membrane potential loss and nucleus morphology changes were involved in the antiapoptotic effect of wushanicaritin. These findings suggested that wushanicaritin possesses excellent intercellular antioxidant and neuroprotective activities, showing potential promise in functional foods.

Ultrasound is effective to fabricate nanocomplex. Soymilk is a natural nanocarrier with good compatibility. However, information about soymilk-nutraceuticals nanocomplex is limited. In this work, soymilk was used to encapsulate icariin, a well known nutraceutical with poor bioavailability. The effect of ultrasound on the quality of icariin-soymilk nanocomplexes (ISNCs) was investigated. Ultrasound could reduce the particle size, improve the surface hydrophobicity and change the microstructure of soymilk. With increasing ultrasound treatment time, an increased surface hydrophobicity was observed. The highest encapsulation efficiency (89.67 %) and loading capacity (28.92 µg/mg) were found for USI-20, whereas the smallest particle size (132.47 nm) was observed for USI-120. USI-60 showed the lowest ζ-potential (-31.33 mV) and the highest bioaccessibility (76.08 %). Ultrasound could enhance the storage stability of ISNCs. The data of NMR and fluorescence indicated that ISNCs were mainly stabilized by hydrophobic interaction.

Peptides are good food stabilizers and thickeners. They also present good bioactivities. The structure characteristics of peptides are related to the health benefits. In this study, immunoregulatory peptides were produced by Alcalase® and neutrase hydrolysis of soybean proteins. UHPLC-MS/MS was applied for structure identification. The immumoregulatory activities and mechanisms were investigated. Eighty five peptides were identified from the hydrolysates and 84 peptides might be immunoregulatory peptides. Most of them were novel immunoregulatory peptides. These peptides had good immunoregulatory activities, including increasing the pinocytotic capacity, and inducing the production and genes expression of NO, IL-6 and TNF-α in a dose-dependent manner. Specific inhibitors of NF-κB and JNK could significantly suppress NO production stimulated by soybean peptides, implying that NF-κB and JNK pathways were involved in their immunoregulatory mechanisms. Our results suggested that the soybean peptides prepared in this study were promising immunomodulatory neutraceuticals.

Cyclocarya paliurus leaves, which possess various bioactivities, have been widely used in dietary supplements or as ingredients in functional foods. However, limited information is available about the toxicity or safety concerns. In the present work, the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) and potential toxicity of the aqueous extracts of C. paliurus leaves (AECPL) were evaluated. Our results indicated that AECPL was rich in phenolics, flavonoids, and polysaccharides, which might be responsible for the health benefits of C. paliurus leaves. The MTD of AECPL was considered to be > 10,000 mg/kg BW in both male and female rats. The acute toxicity study was carried out by a 14-day repeat dose oral toxicity study. The results showed that the rats were all well-tolerated. No treatment-related mortality, abnormal clinical signs, body weight, or food consumption changes were reported during the study. Moreover, AECPL showed no adverse changes in the hematology, serum chemistry, urinalysis parameters, organ weights, gross finding, and histopathology. In this study, the non-observed-adverse-effect level of AECPL was 5,000 mg/kg BW/day, indicating AECPL was safe and can be used in the food industry.

As the most widely distributed phenolic compounds in the plant kingdom, flavonoids play an integral role in plant reproduction and defense. Also, they represent many important quality traits of edible plants like color and antioxidants, and have a variety of biological activities beneficial to human health. To diversify the functions of synthesized flavonoids, plants have evolved various enzymes to perform structural modifications on different flavonoid backbones. One of these modifications is prenylation, which refers to the attachment of an isoprenoid moiety, most commonly a prenyl (C5) group. Numerous structure-activity analyses of prenylflavonoids have shown that isopentenyl substitutions at specific sites can significantly expand and enhance their chemical properties, bioactivities and potential health benefits. This review summarizes prenylflavonoids reported so far in all plant species and highlights the current knowledge on naturally occurring prenyltransferases from different biological sources that can act on plant flavonoids to synthesize prenylflavonoids. Most of them have strict flavonoid substrate- and regio-specificities, and they provide a valuable gene repository to facilitate the efficient scale-up production of flavonoids with specific prenylation patterns in cell factories. To truly achieve this goal, it is necessary to explore more diversified natural prenyltransferases, and to optimize the bioreactors system such as pathway regulation and modular co-culture engineering in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]