Percorrer por autor "Lucini, Luigi"
A mostrar 1 - 5 de 5
Resultados por página
Opções de ordenação
- Algal nutraceuticals: a perspective on metabolic diversity, current food applications, and prospects in the field of metabolomicsPublication . Garcia-Perez, Pascual; Cassani, Lucia; Garcia-Oliveira, Paula; Xiao, Jianbo; Simal-Gandara, Jesus; Prieto Lage, Miguel A.; Lucini, LuigiThe current consumers’ demand for food naturalness is urging the search for new functional foods of natural origin with enhanced health-promoting properties. In this sense, algae constitute an underexplored biological source of nutraceuticals that can be used to fortify food products. Both marine macroalgae (or seaweeds) and microalgae exhibit a myriad of chemical constituents with associated features as a result of their primary and secondary metabolism. Thus, primary metabolites, especially polysaccharides and phycobiliproteins, present interesting properties to improve the rheological and nutritional properties of food matrices, whereas secondary metabolites, such as polyphenols and xanthophylls, may provide interesting bioactivities, including antioxidant or cytotoxic effects. Due to the interest in algae as a source of nutraceuticals by the food and related industries, novel strategies should be undertaken to add value to their derived functional components. As a result, metabolomics is considered a high throughput technology to get insight into the full metabolic profile of biological samples, and it opens a wide perspective in the study of algae metabolism, whose knowledge is still little explored. This review focuses on algae metabolism and its applications in the food industry, paying attention to the promising metabolomic approaches to be developed aiming at the functional characterization of these organisms.
- Bioaccessibility and bioactive potential of different phytochemical classes from nutraceuticals and functional foodsPublication . Nicolescu, Alexandru; Babotă, Mihai; Barros, Lillian; Lucini, Luigi; Tanase, Corneliu; Mocan, Andrei; Bunea, Claudiu I.; Crisan, GianinaNutraceuticals and functional foods are composed of especially complex matrices, with polyphenols, carotenoids, minerals, and vitamins, among others, being the main classes of phytochemicals involved in their bioactivities. Despite their wide use, further investigations are needed to certify the proper release of these phytochemicals into the gastrointestinal medium, where the bioaccessibility assay is one of the most frequently used method. The aim of this review was to gather and describe different methods that can be used to assess the bioaccessibility of nutraceuticals and functional foods, along with the most important factors that can impact this process. The link between simulated digestion testing of phytochemicals and their in vitro bioactivity is also discussed, with a special focus on the potential of developing nutraceuticals and functional foods from simple plant materials. The bioactive potential of certain classes of phytochemicals from nutraceuticals and functional foods is susceptible to different variations during the bioaccessibility assessment, with different factors contributing to this variability, namely the chemical composition and the nature of the matrix. Regardless of the high number of studies, the current methodology fails to assume correlations between bioaccessibility and bioactivity, and the findings of this review indicate a necessity for updated and standardized protocols.
- Optimized ultrasound-assisted extraction of phenolic compounds from Thymus comosus Heuff. ex Griseb. et Schenk (wild thyme) and their bioactive potentialPublication . Babotă, Mihai; Frumuzachi, Oleg; Gâvan, Alexandru; Iacoviță, Cristian; Pinela, José; Barros, Lillian; Ferreira, Isabel C.F.R.; Zhang, Leilei; Lucini, Luigi; Rocchetti, Gabriele; Tanase, Corneliu; Crişan, Gianina; Mocan, AndreiAn optimized ultrasound-assisted extractive method was developed to obtain a polyphenol-enriched extract from the aerial parts of Thymus comosus Heuff. ex Griseb. et Schenk. Optimization process was conducted based on Design of Experiment (DoE) principles, determining the influence of three independent variables (time, ultrasound amplitude, ethanol concentration) on the total phenolic content of the extract (dependent variable). Additionally, the phenolic composition of the extract was characterized through UHPLC-HRMS, revealing beside the most abundant flavonoid-type compounds the presence of salvianolic acids C, D and L in high amounts. Phytochemical profile of the extract was correlated with its antioxidant activity (tested through five complementary assays) and enzyme-inhibitory potential, showing important antiglucosidase and anticholinesterase effects. Overall, it was concluded that the developed method is suitable for obtaining a good recovery of both phenolic and non-phenolic compounds from Thymus comosus aerial parts, and their presence in the optimized extract is responsible for its pharmacological potential.
- Untargeted metabolomics and in vitro functional analysis unravel the intraspecific bioactive potential of flowers from underexplored Camellia japonica cultivars facing their industrial applicationPublication . Pereira, Antia Gonzalez; Cassani, Lucia; Oludemi, Taofiq; Chamorro, Franklin; Calhelha, Ricardo C.; Prieto Lage, Miguel A.; Barros, Lillian; Simal-Gandara, Jesus; Lucini, Luigi; Garcia-Perez, PascualThe Camellia genus comprises a vast array of underexplored medicinal plants that merit a systematic valorization to exploit their potential as natural sources of phytochemicals with associated health-promoting properties. In this work, flower extracts from eight poorly characterized Camellia japonica L. cultivars were subjected to polyphenol profiling through untargeted metabolomics combined with in vitro functional analysis. Anthocyanins, mostly represented by cyanidin 3-O-glycosides, flavones, and flavonols, were found as the major constituents of C. japonica flowers, together with hydroxycinnamic acids, tyrosols, alkylphenols, and stilbenes, which were detected for the first time in this species. The application of multivariate statistics revealed a flower colordependent fingerprint of C. japonica cultivars, featuring anthocyanins and other flavonoids as metabolite markers associated with color-flowered cultivars with respect to white-flowered ones. The accumulation of anthocyanins, especially reported in ‘Eugenia de Montijo’ flowers, was highly correlated with the cytotoxic and anti-inflammatory properties of the derived extracts, including AGS, Caco-2, and MCF7 cancer cell lines. Moreover, the flavones accumulation reported in ‘Carolyn Tuttle’ extracts was also associated with high rates of free-radical scavenging activity, as well as a potent cytotoxicity against the Caco-2 cell line. In general, C. japonica anthocyanin-enriched flower extracts were revealed as promising candidates for the industrial production of polyphenols with associated biological activities of high interest for critical sectors in the food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries.
- Untargeted phytochemical profiling and biological activity of small yellow onion (Allium flavum L.) from different regions of RomaniaPublication . Moldovan, Cadmiel; Frumuzachi, Oleg; Babotă, Mihai; Pinela, José; Barros, Lillian; Rocchetti, Gabriele; López, Víctor; Lucini, Luigi; Crisan, Gianina; Mocan, AndreiThis study examined the phytochemical profiles (mainly phenolics, carotenoids, and organosulfur compounds) and biological effects of hydroalcoholic extracts of Allium flavum (AF), a species of the Allium genus commonly known as small yellow onion. Unsupervised and supervised statistical approaches revealed clear differences between extracts prepared with samples collected from different areas of Romania. Overall, the AFFF (AF flowers collected from Faget) extract was the best source of polyphenols, also showing the highest antioxidant capacity evaluated through both in vitro DPPH, FRAP, and TEAC anti-radical scavenging assays and cell-based OxHLIA and TBARS assays. All the tested extracts exhibited & alpha;-glucosidase inhibition potential, while only the AFFF extract exhibited anti-lipase inhibitory activity. The phenolic subclasses annotated were positively correlated with the assessed antioxidant and enzyme inhibitory activities. Our findings suggested that A. flavum has bioactive properties worth exploring further, being a potential edible flower with health-promoting implications.