Yongqi Yin

Background/Objectives: Nitraria sibirica Pall. is a halophytic shrub with ecological and phytochemical value, but its organ-level molecular organization remains poorly resolved. Methods: We integrated RNA sequencing and untargeted LC–MS metabolomics for matched roots, stems, leaves, and fruits collected from one field population. Results: We quantified 25,263 genes and 2143 annotated metabolite entries, and the four organs separated clearly in both omics datasets. Across six pairwise comparisons, 12,160 nonredundant differentially expressed genes and 1446 nonredundant differentially accumulated metabolites were identified; intersection screening further resolved 3955 organ-preferential genes and 539 organ-preferential metabolites. Leaves contained the largest and most diverse preferential metabolite set and showed photosynthetic, chloroplast, pigment, and carbon-fixation signatures. Stems were distinguished by secondary-cell-wall, cytoskeletal, carbohydrate-conversion, phenylpropanoid, and lignan-related patterns. Fruits preferentially accumulated organic acids, amino-acid-related metabolites, sugars, and glycosides and showed energy-metabolism and flavonoid-modification signatures. Roots contained fewer preferential metabolites and were characterized by signaling, protective responses, RNA processing, and surface-barrier metabolism. WGCNA identified one significant organ-associated module for each organ, and cross-omics analyses linked these modules to preferential metabolites while prioritizing candidate gene–metabolite associations. Conclusions: These data define matched four-organ molecular and metabolic partitioning in N. sibirica and provide testable candidates for functional and targeted-metabolite validation.

Chickpea is an important legume crop, characterized by its high nutritional value and abundant physiologically active compounds. Pulsed electric field (PEF), as an emerging non-thermal physical processing technology, has demonstrated unique advantages in regulating seed germination and the accumulation of secondary metabolites. In this study, chickpeas were subjected to germination combined with PEF treatment to optimize germination conditions, and the physiological and metabolic changes, as well as flavonoid biosynthetic patterns in chickpea sprouts under conventional germination and PEF-assisted germination were systematically investigated. The results showed that under the optimal conditions (12 h soaking, PEF treatment at 30 kV applied voltage, 6 µs pulse width, and 500 Hz frequency for 27 min, followed by 72 h germination), the total flavonoid content in chickpea sprouts reached a peak of 3025.27 ± 21.11 µg/g DW. Optimized PEF conditions markedly activated the enzyme activities of the phenylpropanoid pathway and induced the upregulated expression of their corresponding genes. Meanwhile, the activities of antioxidant enzymes and the expression levels of related genes in PEF-treated chickpea sprouts were also markedly enhanced. PEF can promote flavonoid accumulation and improve antioxidant capacity in chickpea sprouts by activating the phenylpropanoid metabolic pathway and the antioxidant system. This study contributes to the development of nutritious foods based on chickpea.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is associated with intestinal inflammation and oxidative stress. Protein-rich crayfish shell (CS) by-products may provide a sustainable source of bioactive hydrolysates. This study screened five protease-derived hydrolysates and evaluated the alkaline protease-derived hydrolysate (ACSP) in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated IEC-6 cells and mice with DSS-induced colitis. ACSP scavenged DPPH and ABTS•⁺ radicals, with IC₅₀ values of 0.888 ± 0.004 and 0.853 ± 0.003 mg/mL. It also enhanced superoxide dismutase and catalase activities, and inhibited NO release and albumin denaturation in vitro. In IEC-6 cells, ACSP increased viability, reduced iNOS, IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α expression, and increased IL-10 expression. In mice, ACSP attenuated weight loss, disease activity, colon shortening, histopathological injury, and goblet cell depletion. The high-dose group had disease activity index and histological scores of 3.60 ± 0.55 and 4.80 ± 0.40 compared with 9.40 ± 1.14 and 10.40 ± 0.80 in the model group. ACSP reduced pro-inflammatory cytokines, myeloperoxidase activity, and NO levels while restoring antioxidant enzyme activities and tight junction protein expression. Peptidomic analysis identified 516 peptide sequences, including peptides containing hydrophobic, acidic, and C-terminal basic residues. These findings support further investigation of ACSP for intestinal health applications and the value-added utilization of CS by-products.

Rapid and accurate detection of pathogenic bacteria is of critical concern in the food and pharmaceutical sectors. In this study, a gene membrane chip detection method combining multiplex PCR with reverse dot blot hybridization was developed to enable visual, high-throughput simultaneous identification of 12 common pathogenic bacteria. Specific primers and probes were designed targeting Klebsiella pneumoniae, Proteus mirabilis, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Enterobacter cloacae, Pseudomonas putida, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella spp., Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, Acinetobacter baumannii, Clostridium perfringens, and Staphylococcus aureus. The multiplex PCR reaction system, hybridization temperature, and color development conditions were systematically optimized to construct the gene membrane chip detection platform. The specificity, limit of detection, and stability of the method were rigorously evaluated. Results demonstrated that the 12 selected specific primer pairs effectively amplified the corresponding targets, yielding amplicon lengths ranging from 81 to 298 bp, with no nonspecific amplification observed. Under the optimized detection system, each probe produced clear, visually distinct color spots exclusively for its target, with no cross-reactivity. The method achieved a limit of detection as low as 0.01 ng/μL for mixed templates, and exhibited excellent intra- and inter-assay reproducibility. The established visual gene membrane chip assay successfully enables simultaneous differentiation of 12 control bacteria in a single reaction, providing a robust technical foundation and promising potential for rapid screening in food and drug safety, but its practical application requires further validation through authentic or spiked food samples.

Broccoli sprouts are abundant in bioactive antioxidants and are recognized as a novel class of functional food. This study explored the mechanisms by which selenium-sulfur coupled with heat treatment (HSS) affects the antioxidant capacity and accumulation of bioactive compounds in broccoli microgreens. The results showed that, compared to the control group, 4-day-old broccoli sprouts treated with HSS exhibited a 27.16% increase in total phenolic content and a 26.63% increase in anthocyanin content. Activities of catalase, superoxide dismutase, and peroxidase increased by 27.97, 30.54, and 46.48%, respectively. These changes enhance the antioxidant capacity of broccoli sprouts. HSS induced the biosynthesis of glucosinolates (GLs) and isothiocyanates (ITCs) by increasing myrosinase activity in the sprouts and upregulating the expression levels of genes associated with the GLs and ITCs biosynthetic pathways. iTRAQ proteomics analysis further revealed that the GLs biosynthetic pathway is the key pathway for ITCs accumulation induced by combined selenium-thiocyanate and heat stress. In addition, MAM1, APS3, SULTR1;2, and CYP79B3 were identified as potential key proteins. These proteins contribute to ITCs formation in sprouts under the combined treatment. These findings support the HSS as a novel regulatory strategy to enhance the nutritional value of broccoli sprouts and lay the foundation for the development of functional foods based on broccoli sprouts.

Aronia melanocarpa puree is rich in anthocyanins and proanthocyanidins, but its pronounced tannin-derived astringency limits product acceptance. This study developed a non-removal astringency-modulation strategy using food-grade L-proline and evaluated its molecular basis, processing window, and quality effects. Ultraviolet–visible (UV–Vis) and Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopic analyses suggested that L-proline altered the local microenvironment of procyanidin B2 (PC-B2) through hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic association, and molecular packing rearrangement, without evident disruption of the PC-B2 aromatic skeleton. In a PC-B2–bovine serum albumin model, an appropriate L-proline level reduced the protein precipitation rate from 45.3% to 31.2% and increased soluble phenolic retention, suggesting weakened polyphenol–protein precipitation. The strategy was then optimized in puree using machine learning-assisted multi-response analysis and Box–Behnken validation. The recommended condition was 150 mg/100 mL L-proline at 40 °C for 60 min, yielding a deastringency rate of 36.13%, with anthocyanin and vitamin C retention rates of 88.80% and 55.56%, respectively. The optimized treatment maintained red color, colloidal dispersion, and shear-thinning behavior; increased the anthocyanin digestion retention index from 50.0% to 87.4%; and improved overall sensory acceptance from 4.17 to 8.17. These findings support L-proline-mediated microenvironmental modulation as a mild processing approach for high-tannin cloudy berry products.

Finger millet (Eleusine coracana L.) is rich in bioactive compounds, including flavonoids. Following exogenous substance regulation, its sprouts can achieve efficient flavonoid enrichment. This study investigates the regulatory effects of exogenous salicylic acid (SA) and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) on the physiological metabolism, oxidative stress response, and flavonoid biosynthesis of finger millet sprouts subjected to 5 mM zinc sulfate (ZnSO₄) stress. Compared to treatment solely with ZnSO₄, the application of both 50 μM salicylic acid (SA) and 1 mM gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) markedly enhanced flavonoid biosynthesis, with respective yields of 8.53 μg/sprout and 8.85 μg/sprout observed by 6 days post-germination. Concurrently, SA and GABA attenuated ZnSO₄-induced oxidative damage. During days 4 and 6 post-germination, malondialdehyde and hydrogen peroxide levels in sprouts were significantly reduced, with levels at 6 days showing a particularly notable decrease. Moreover, the catalytic activities of catalase, peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, and ascorbate peroxidase were significantly upregulated. Further analysis revealed that both treatments significantly activated the phenylpropanoid biosynthesis pathway. The activities of key rate-limiting enzymes, phenylalanine ammonia-lyase, cinnamate-4-hydroxylase, and 4-coumarate-CoA ligase, along with the expression levels of their corresponding genes, were markedly upregulated. Concurrently, the expression of genes and transcription factors, specifically myeloblastosis and NAC transcription factors, involved in regulating reactive oxygen species homeostasis also increased. These findings suggest that exogenous SA, GABA, and ZnSO₄ cotreatment can effectively enhance the accumulation of flavonoids and the nutritional quality of finger millet sprouts by bolstering antioxidant capacity and modulating the flavonoid biosynthesis pathway. This investigation establishes a theoretical framework for the production of superior, bioactive finger millet sprout ingredients.

Strawberry harvesting perception in greenhouse environments requires visual models that remain reliable under occlusion while staying compact enough for edge-side inference. To address this requirement, this study develops StrawPose-Lite, a lightweight pose network for strawberry picking point prediction based on YOLOv11n-pose. The network combines ADown and C3Ghost to reduce redundant computation while preserving informative structure, and it adopts a six-keypoint pose definition derived from strawberry phenotypic characteristics. In this representation, the pedicel–fruit junction is used as the final visual picking point, whereas the remaining peak, curvature, and bottom keypoints provide geometric support when the visible contour is incomplete. The keypoint branch is further enhanced by P2-guided multi-scale fusion and SimAM-based refinement to improve sensitivity to fine pedicel-related cues under strict lightweight constraints. On the public validation split, StrawPose-Lite contains 0.73 M parameters and requires 3.0 GFLOPs while achieving a pose mAP@0.5:0.95 of 79.2%. In the independent field deployment set, the TensorRT INT8 version achieved a pure network inference throughput of 277 FPS on a Jetson Orin NX 16G Super platform, with a measured total software latency of 5.01 ms under the embedded pipeline. These results indicate that StrawPose-Lite provides an effective balance between pose accuracy, model compactness, and edge-side inference speed for strawberry picking point perception on edge devices.

Replicating the authentic masticatory properties of conventional animal meat remains a primary technical bottleneck for sustainable plant-based analogues. To address critical textural deficiencies like structural fragmentation, this study systematically optimized plant-based patty formulations. The independent and interactive effects of textured fibrous soy protein (TFSP), water, and konjac glucomannan (KGM) were quantified using single-factor experiments and Response Surface Methodology (RSM). Single-factor experiments revealed that springiness peaked at 60 g TFSP, 15 g water, and 10 g KGM, respectively, with excessive additions of each component resulting in structural network disruption. Designating springiness as the core metric, a reliable quadratic regression model identified the optimal matrix: 63.36 g TFSP, 14.39 g water, and 8.57 g KGM. Empirical validation achieved a maximum springiness of 1.56 mm and hardness of 5.51 N, with a negligible relative error (1.27%) from theoretical predictions. Mechanistically, KGM functioned as an active polymeric filler, interacting synergistically with hydrated protein fibers via hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic associations to reinforce the structural network. Comparative Texture Profile Analysis demonstrated that the optimized PBP exhibited a tender masticatory profile with hardness and springiness approximating conventional beef patties, while presenting lower chewiness and higher adhesiveness attributable to the water-binding capacity of KGM. Ultimately, this research provides mathematically validated engineering parameters and theoretical insights into protein–polysaccharide phase behaviors to facilitate the industrial manufacturing of premium plant-based meats.

Driven by the growing demand for flavor diversification in the global craft beer market, conventional drum roasting for specialty malt faces limitations in time consumption and flavor retention. This study aimed to explore explosive puffing as a novel approach for specialty malt production. Base barley malt was treated via explosive puffing at 0.8 MPa to prepare puffed specialty malt, followed by comprehensive characterization of its physicochemical properties, volatile profile, and antioxidant activity, with brewing trials conducted at 15% grist substitution. Results showed that puffed malt reached a color of 183.15 EBC, with formation of roasted pyrazines and caramel-like furans, and a nearly 3-fold increase in total phenolic content and antioxidant capacity. At 15% addition, the puffed malt maintained wort free amino nitrogen and reducing sugar levels, while significantly enhancing beer color, roasted aroma, and antioxidant activity. These findings demonstrate that explosive puffing is a promising alternative to conventional roasting for producing specialty malt.