Development if healthy milk and yogurt products for reducing metabolic diseases using cyclodextrin and omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil.

The food industry is constantly attempting to develop better products that will have a positive effect on health. Feiraco® and Clesa®, expressed their intention to create novel products using UNICLA® milk as a matrix to develop functional foods. In this respect, ß-cyclodextrin (ß-CD) at 1% was able to reduce the cholesterol concentration in Feiraco-UNICLA® milk products by around 87-85%. Products were fortified with omega-3 from fish oil with α- and ß-CD acting as carriers. It was possible to add around 50% of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA), with a high diet proportion of fibre and similar organoleptic properties to commercial omega-3 products. 80% of a sensory panel found our formulations satisfactory. The final product was stable, and the bioaccessibilty of the fatty acids added to the milk was around 74%. These results as a whole satisfy the aid of Feiraco® and Clesa® to develop improved products.

Digestive glands extraction and precise pigment analysis support the exclusion of the carnivorous plant Dionaea muscipula Ellis from the Caryophyllales order.

In the order Caryophyllales, plants synthesize betalains instead of anthocyanins, with only two exceptions, the Caryophyllaceae and Molluginaceae. Dionaea muscipula Ellis was included in the Caryophyllales order but recent research based on genetic studies proposed the consideration of the Droseraceae family into the Nepenthales order. In this work we face the dilemma of the phylogenetic classification of Dionaea from a phytochemical point of view. Dionaea's pigments were analyzed by using techniques of structural analysis. Extracts from the leaves, mature stem and flowers of different specimens of Dionaea were analyzed, to find possible differences in the types of pigments or in their proportion in different parts of the plant. These extracts were analyzed by spectrophotometry, HPLC co-elution and ESI-MS/MS. In addition, digestive glands were extracted from the snap trap with minor sample manipulation and by reducing the non-pigmented plant tissue. Considering only the digestive glands instead of whole snap traps, the analyses allowed to quantitate and elucidate the structure of the compounds responsible for the red coloration: delphinidin-3-O-glucoside (myrtillin), cyanidin-3-O-glucoside (kuromanin) and a third compound, the aglycone cyanidin, detected in the species for the first time. The unambiguous results of the present work support the exclusion of Dionaea from the Caryophyllales.

Development of Betalain Producing Callus Lines from Colored Quinoa Varieties (Chenopodium quinoa Willd).

Betalains are water-soluble plant pigments of hydrophilic nature with promising bioactive potential. Among the scarce edible sources of betalains is the grain crop quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd), with violet, red, and yellow grains being colored by these pigments. In this work, callus cultures have been developed from differently colored plant varieties. Stable callus lines exhibited color and pigment production when maintained on Murashige and Skoog medium supplemented with the plant growth regulators 6-benzylaminopurine (8.88 µM) and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (6.79 µM) with a reduction of the nitrogen source to 5.91 mM. Pigment analysis by HPLC-DAD and ESI-MS/MS fully describes the content of individual pigments in the cell lines and allows the first report on the pigments present in quinoa seedlings. Phyllocactin and vulgaxanthin I are described as novel pigments in the species and show the potential of C. quinoa culture lines in the production of compounds of nutritional value.

Production of dihydroxylated betalains and dopamine in cell suspension cultures of Celosia argentea var. plumosa.

Betalains are plant pigments of hydrophilic nature with demonstrated chemopreventive potential in cancer cell lines and animal models. Among the betalains, those containing an aromatic moiety with two free hydroxyl groups possess the strongest antioxidant and free radical scavenging activities. The betaxanthins dopaxanthin and miraxanthin V and the betacyanins betanidin and decarboxy-betanidin are the only natural betalains with catecholic substructures. These four pigments have been produced in cell cultures established from hypocotyls of the plant Celosia argentea. Two stable and differentially colored cell lines, yellow and red, were maintained on Murashige and Skoog medium supplemented with the plant growth regulators 6-benzylaminopurine (6.66 µM) and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (6.79 µM). Derived suspension cultures showed increased production of dihydroxylated betalains in the cells and secreted to the medium with a maximum reached after 8 days of culture. In addition, precursor molecules betalamic acid and dopamine, with content up to 42.08 mg/g dry weight, were also obtained. The joint presence of the bioactive betalains together with the production of dopamine and betalamic acid show the ability of cell cultures of C. argentea to become a stable source of valuable phytochemicals.