Advances in spray-dried probiotic microcapsules for targeted delivery: a review.

Probiotics have gained significant attention owing to their roles in regulating human health. Recently, spray drying has been considered as a promising technique to produce probiotic powders due to its advantages of high efficiency, cost-saving, and good powder properties. However, the severe environmental conditions from drying and digestion can significantly reduce cell viability, resulting in poor bioaccessibility and bioavailability of live cells. Therefore, there is a need to develop effective targeted delivery systems using spray drying to protect bacteria and to maintain their physiological functions in the targeted sites. This review highlights recent studies about spray-dried targeted delivery vehicles for probiotics, focusing on key strategies to protect bacteria when encountering external stresses, the formation mechanism of particles, the targeted release and colonization mechanisms of live cells in particles with different structures. Advances in the targeted delivery of live probiotics via spray-dried vehicles are still in their early stages. To increase the possibilities for industrialization and commercialization, functional improvement of microcapsules in terms of protection, targeted release, and colonization of bacteria, as well as the effect of spray drying on bacterial physiological functions in the host, need to be further investigated.

Modified porous starch for enhanced properties: Synthesis, characterization and applications.

Native starches have low water solubility at room temperature and poor stability, which demand modifications to overcome. Porous starch as a modified one shows enhanced adsorptive efficiency and solubility compared with its native starch. In contrast, some inherent disadvantages exist, such as weak mechanical strength and low thermal resistance. Fortunately, modified porous starches have been developed to perform well in adsorption capacity and stability. Modified porous starch can be prepared by esterification, crosslinking, oxidation and multiple modifications to the porous starch. The characterization of modified porous starch can be achieved through various analytical techniques. Modified porous starch can be utilized as highly efficient adsorbents and encapsulants for various compounds and applied in various fields. This review dealt with the progress in the preparation, structural characterization and application of modified porous starch. The objective is to provide a reference for its development, utilization, and future research directions.

UPLC-QqQ-MS/MS-based phenolic quantification and antioxidant activity assessment for thinned young kiwifruits.

For the first time, thinned young kiwifruits (TYK) have been investigated as a source of deserted agriculture resource and evaluated for their phenolic characteristics along with antioxidant capacity. Two batches of TYK in different maturity stages (TYK1 and TYK2) and mature kiwifruits (MK) were sourced from three New Zealand cultivars. Comparing with MK, the TYK, especially TYK1, exhibited significantly higher contents of total phenolics (7.92 fold), total flavonoids (17.56 fold) and total flavanols (10.11 fold) as well as elevated and phenolic-correlated antioxidant capacities. A novel UPLC-QqQ-MS/MS method with low limit of detection (0.010-0.240 mg/L) and high accuracy (RSDs < 6.79%) was established to quantify 15 phenolics in the kiwifruit extracts. Epicatechin was the prevailing antioxidant in both TKY and MK, with the highest level of 2989.23 µg/g FDW present in TYK1 of 'Zesy002' cultivar. These results provide good evidence for the development and utilization of TYK of these cultivars in food and nutraceuticals.