Jiguang Chen

To develop and utilize Folium Artemisia argyi (FAA) tea resources, UPLC-MS/MS, HS-GC-IMS, and HS-SPME/GC×GC-TOFMS were adopted to analyze its volatile and non-volatile compounds, when harvested from March to June, in combination with its antioxidant activity. Here, 1742 volatile compounds and 8726 non-volatile compounds were identified, with 75 differential volatile metabolites and 36 key flavor compounds screened. Notably, 1-octen-3-one, (E)-2-octenal, (E)-2-undecenal, and heptanal were identified as major contributors to the sweet, fruity, green, and herbal aromas, and the concentration of them was highest in June-harvest FAA tea. Furthermore, metabolomics revealed that there were 154 non-volatile differential metabolites in FAA tea at four harvest times, which were mainly related to amino acid biosynthetic pathways. Samples harvested in June also showed the strongest antioxidant capacity, which was positively correlated with D-xylitol, L-glutamic acid, honokiol, and costunolide. These findings highlight June as the optimal harvest time, providing FAA tea with superior flavor and enhanced antioxidant properties, underscoring its potential as a valuable resource for functional food development.

Egg-based yoghurt (EBY) is a novel yoghurt fermented by lactic acid bacteria with high nutritional and health values, serving as a potential alternative to milk-based yoghurt. However, the hardness, adhesiveness, and water-holding capacity of egg-based yoghurt need to be further improved. In this study, the improvement in EBY quality by gellan gum and its underlying mechanism were investigated. The results showed that gellan gum significantly improved the quality of EBY (p < 0.05). Among the five concentration gradients tested, the EBY supplemented with 0.045% gellan gum exhibited the best quality with the highest sensory score of 83.57. With the increasing amount of gellan gum, hydrogen bonding interactions in the yoghurt significantly increased, while ionic bonding remained unchanged, but hydrophobic interactions and disulphide bonding gradually decreased. Low-field NMR assay results demonstrated that gellan gum significantly raised the amount of strongly bonded water while decreasing the amount of immobile water in the yoghurt. Confocal laser scanning microscopy revealed that EBY with 0.045% gellan gum had a better texture, whereas too much or too little gellan gum led to a coarser structure. In summary, gellan gum altered the water phase state and enhanced the water holding capacity through increased hydrogen bonding interactions, which consequently improved the yoghurt’s texture and sensory qualities. This study provides a reference for the development and application of EBY.

The Rhizobium rhizogene-transformed root culture from Physalis peruviana L. (P. peruviana) may be a promising and novel source of valuable phenolics, including caffeoylputrescine (CP), which is known for antioxidant, antidiabetic, insect-resistant, disease-resistant, and neuroprotective properties. In this study, to improve the production efficiency of phytochemical components in P. peruviana hairy root cultures, we optimized various culture conditions, including the inoculum size, liquid volume, culture media type, carbon source, sucrose concentration, initial pH, and application of elicitors, to enhance the total phenolic content and CP yield in these hairy root cultures. The findings indicate that the use of sucrose as carbon source resulted in the highest biomass (13.28 g DW/L), total phenolic content (6.26 mg/g), and CP yield (2.40 mg/L). The White medium excelled in enhancing the total phenolic content (9.35 mg/g), whereas the B5 medium was most effective for the biomass (13.38 g DW/L) and CP yield (6.30 mg/L). A sucrose concentration of 5% was best for the biomass (18.40 g DW/L), whereas a sucrose concentration of 4% was ideal for the CP yield. Optimal culture conditions were as follows: an inoculum size of 0.5 g/100 mL, a liquid volume of 100 mL in a 250-mL flask, B5 medium, 4% sucrose, and a pH of 5.5. Among the tested elicitors, methyl jasmonate (MeJA) at 100 µM significantly increased the biomass (21.3 g/L), total phenolic content (23.34 mg/g), and CP yield (141.10 mg/L), which represent 0.96-, 2.12-, and 13.04-fold increases, respectively, over the control after 8 days. The optimized HR culture of P. peruviana provides a promising system to enhance the production of CP for pharmaceutical applications.

Chalcone-1-deoxynojirimycin heterozygote (DC-5), a novel compound which was designed and synthesized in our laboratory for diabetes treatment, showed an extremely strong in vitro inhibitory activity on α-glucosidase in our previous studies. In the current research, its potential in vivo anti-diabetic effects were further investigated by integration detection and the analysis of blood glucose concentration, blood biochemical parameters, tissue section and gut microbiota of the diabetic rats. The results indicated that oral administration of DC-5 significantly reduced the fasting blood glucose and postprandial blood glucose, both in diabetic and normal rats; meanwhile, it alleviated the adverse symptoms of elevated blood lipid level and lipid metabolism disorder in diabetic rats. Furthermore, DC-5 effectively decreased the organ coefficient and alleviated the pathological changes of the liver, kidney and small intestine of the diabetic rats at the same time. Moreover, the results of 16S rDNA gene sequencing analysis suggested that DC-5 significantly increased the ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes and improved the disorder of gut microbiota in diabetic rats. In conclusion, DC-5 displayed a good therapeutic effect on the diabetic rats, and therefore had a good application prospect in hypoglycemic drugs and foods.

Slowly digestible gorgon nut starch (GN-SDS) was prepared by heating–cooling treatment (HCT), meanwhile its morphological and structural features were characterized in detail by SEM, DSC, XRD and IR detection. The optimized parameters of GN-SDS processing were as following: starch milk (20%) was heated at 100 °C for 20 min, and then cooled under 4 °C for 24 h. Under the optimized parameters, the SDS content increased from 20.49 to 61.74%. GN-SDS showed typical SDS characteristics in in vivo digestion with a low postprandial blood glucose. SEM images suggested that GN-S particles changed from uniform regular polyhedron with smooth surface to irregular gravel-like particles with coarse surface and obvious layered structure inside after HCT. The results of SEM, DSC, XRD and IR determination indicated that HCT changed the granule morphology, interior structure, gelatinization temperature and crystal type (A to B-type) of GN-S, and therefore made it hard to be digested accordingly.

The inhibition of α-glucosidase is a clinical strategy for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and many natural plant ingredients have been reported to be effective in alleviating hyperglycemia by inhibiting α-glucosidase. In this study, the α-glucosidase inhibitory activity of fisetin extracted from Cotinus coggygria Scop. was evaluated in vitro. The results showed that fisetin exhibited strong inhibitory activity with an IC₅₀ value of 4.099 × 10⁻⁴ mM. Enzyme kinetic analysis revealed that fisetin is a non-competitive inhibitor of α-glucosidase, with an inhibition constant value of 0.01065 ± 0.003255 mM. Moreover, fluorescence spectrometric measurements indicated the presence of only one binding site between fisetin and α-glucosidase, with a binding constant (lgKa) of 5.896 L·mol⁻¹. Further molecular docking studies were performed to evaluate the interaction of fisetin with several residues close to the inactive site of α-glucosidase. These studies showed that the structure of the complex was maintained by Pi-Sigma and Pi-Pi stacked interactions. These findings illustrate that fisetin extracted from Cotinus coggygria Scop. is a promising therapeutic agent for the treatment of T2DM.