Comparative study of thermal processing on the physicochemical properties and prebiotic effects of the oat ß-glucan by in vitro human fecal microbiota fermentation.

This study aimed to compare the prebiotic effects of oat ß-glucan between steaming and microwave processing by high-throughput sequencing. The results showed that microwave-processed oat ß-glucan with lower average molecular weight (Mw) exhibited a more significant effect in promoting Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium compared with steaming processed oat ß-glucan with higher Mw at the genus level. The overall microbial composition structure results indicated that the relative abundance of Escherichia-Shigella, Lactobacillus, Enterococcus, and Dialister exhibited significant differences between the samples (p < 0.05). Additionally, the short-chain fatty acid in microwave-processed oat ß-glucan fermentation slurries significantly increased (p < 0.05), and more butyrate was produced from microwave-processed oat ß-glucan, which may be attributed to the higher levels of Blautia and Dialister as butyrate-producers. These results suggest that microwave processing contributed to the degradation of oat ß-glucan and enhanced its prebiotic function.

Preparation and evaluation of isoliquiritigenin-loaded F127/P123 polymeric micelles.

Isoliquiritigenin (ISL) possesses a variety of pharmacological activities amid poor solubility in water which has restricted its clinical application. In this study, isoliquiritigenin-loaded F127/P123 polymeric micelles (ISL-FPM) were successfully prepared and evaluated in vitro and in vivo. The particle size, polydispersity index, and zeta potential of the selected formulation were 20.12 ± 0.72 nm, 0.183 ± 0.046, and -38.31 ± 0.33 mV, respectively, coupled with high encapsulation efficiency of 93.76 ± 0.31%. Drug-loading test showed the solubility of ISL after formulating into micelles was 232 times higher than its intrinsic solubility. Moreover, critical micelle concentration (CMC) was tested with fluorescence probe method and turned out to be quite low, which implied high stability of ISL-FPM. Release profile in HCl (pH 1.2), double distilled water, and PBS (pH 7.4) of ISL-FPM reached over 80%, while free ISL was around 40%. Pharmacokinetic research revealed that formulated ISL-FPM significantly increased bioavailability by nearly 2.23-fold compared to free ISL. According to the results of in vitro antioxidant activity, scavenging DPPH activity of ISL was significantly strengthened when it was loaded into polymeric micelles. Altogether, ISL-FPM can act as a promising approach to improve solubility as well as enhance bioavailability and antioxidant activity of ISL.