Tannat grape pomace as an ingredient for potential functional biscuits: bioactive compound identification, in vitro bioactivity, food safety, and sensory evaluation.

Grape pomace, the main by-product of wine process, shows high potential for the development of functional foods, being a natural source of bioactive compounds and dietary fiber. Thus, the present study proposes the development of five potential functional biscuits. The five formulations were achieved by varying the Tannat grape pomace powder (TGP, 10-20% w/w total wet dough) and sweetener sucralose (2-4% w/w total wet dough) content through a factorial design with central points. TGP microbiological and pesticides analysis were performed as a food safety requirement. Identification of bioactive compounds by HPLC-DAD-MS, in vitro bioactivity (total phenol content, antioxidant by ABTS and ORAC-FL, antidiabetic and antiobesity by inhibition of α-glucosidase and pancreatic lipase, respectively) and sensory properties of the biscuits were evaluated. TGP microbiological and pesticides showed values within food safety criteria. Sensory profiles of TGP biscuits were obtained, showing biscuits with 20% TGP good sensory quality (7.3, scale 1-9) in a cluster of 37 out of 101 consumers. TGP addition in biscuits had a significant (p < 0.05) effect on total phenolic content (0.893-1.858 mg GAE/g biscuit) and bioactive properties when compared to controls: 11.467-50.491 and 4.342-50.912 µmol TE/g biscuit for ABTS and ORAC-FL, respectively; inhibition of α-glucosidase and pancreatic lipase, IC50 35.572-64.268 and 7.197-47.135 mg/mL, respectively. HPLC-DAD-MS results showed all the identified phenolic compounds in 20/4% biscuit (TGP/sucralose%) were degraded during baking. Malvidin-3-O-(6'-p-coumaroyl) glucoside, (+)-catechin, malvidin-3-O-glucoside, and (-)-epicatechin were the main phenolic compounds (in descendent order of content) found. The bioactive properties could be attributed to the remaining phenolic compounds in the biscuits. In conclusion, TGP biscuits seemed to be a promising functional food with potential for ameliorating oxidative stress, glucose and fatty acids levels with good sensory quality.

Healthy eating recommendations: good for reducing dietary contribution to the body's advanced glycation/lipoxidation end products pool?

The present review aims to give dietary recommendations to reduce the occurrence of the Maillard reaction in foods and in vivo to reduce the body's advanced glycation/lipoxidation end products (AGE/ALE) pool. A healthy diet, food reformulation and good culinary practices may be feasible for achieving the goal. A varied diet rich in fresh vegetables and fruits, non-added sugar beverages containing inhibitors of the Maillard reaction, and foods prepared by steaming and poaching as culinary techniques is recommended. Intake of supplements and novel foods with low sugars, low fats, enriched in bioactive compounds from food and waste able to modulate carbohydrate metabolism and reduce body's AGE/ALE pool is also recommended. In conclusion, the recommendations made for healthy eating by the Spanish Society of Community Nutrition (SENC) and Harvard University seem to be adequate to reduce dietary AGE/ALE, the body's AGE/ALE pool and to achieve sustainable nutrition and health.

Morphological and niche divergence of pinyon pines.

The environmental variables that define a species ecological niche should be associated with the evolutionary patterns present in the adaptations that resulted from living in these conditions. Thus, when comparing across species, we can expect to find an association between phylogenetically independent phenotypic characters and ecological niche evolution. Few studies have evaluated how organismal phenotypes might mirror patterns of niche evolution if these phenotypes reflect adaptations. Doing so could contribute on the understanding of the origin and maintenance of phenotypic diversity observed in nature. Here, we show the pattern of niche evolution of the pinyon pine lineage (Pinus subsection Cembroides); then, we suggest morphological adaptations possibly related to niche divergence, and finally, we test for correlation between ecological niche and morphology. We demonstrate that niche divergence is the general pattern within the clade and that it is positively correlated with adaptation.

Dietary advanced glycation end products and their role in health and disease.

Over the past 2 decades there has been increasing evidence supporting an important contribution from food-derived advanced glycation end products (AGEs) to the body pool of AGEs and therefore increased oxidative stress and inflammation, processes that play a major role in the causation of chronic diseases. A 3-d symposium (1st Latin American Symposium of AGEs) to discuss this subject took place in Guanajuato, Mexico, on 1-3 October 2014 with the participation of researchers from several countries. This review is a summary of the different presentations and subjects discussed, and it is divided into 4 sections. The first section deals with current general knowledge about AGEs. The second section dwells on mechanisms of action of AGEs, with special emphasis on the receptor for advanced glycation end products and the potential role of AGEs in neurodegenerative diseases. The third section discusses different approaches to decrease the AGE burden. The last section discusses current methodologic problems with measurement of AGEs in different samples. The subject under discussion is complex and extensive and cannot be completely covered in a short review. Therefore, some areas of interest have been left out because of space. However, we hope this review illustrates currently known facts about dietary AGEs as well as pointing out areas that require further research.

Niche divergence versus neutral processes: combined environmental and genetic analyses identify contrasting patterns of differentiation in recently diverged pine species.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Solving relationships of recently diverged taxa, poses a challenge due to shared polymorphism and weak reproductive barriers. Multiple lines of evidence are needed to identify independently evolving lineages. This is especially true of long-lived species with large effective population sizes, and slow rates of lineage sorting. North American pines are an interesting group to test this multiple approach. Our aim is to combine cytoplasmic genetic markers with environmental information to clarify species boundaries and relationships of the species complex of Pinus flexilis, Pinus ayacahuite, and Pinus strobiformis. METHODS: Mitochondrial and chloroplast sequences were combined with previously obtained microsatellite data and contrasted with environmental information to reconstruct phylogenetic relationships of the species complex. Ecological niche models were compared to test if ecological divergence is significant among species. KEY RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Separately, both genetic and ecological evidence support a clear differentiation of all three species but with different topology, but also reveal an ancestral contact zone between P. strobiformis and P. ayacahuite. The marked ecological differentiation of P. flexilis suggests that ecological speciation has occurred in this lineage, but this is not reflected in neutral markers. The inclusion of environmental traits in phylogenetic reconstruction improved the resolution of internal branches. We suggest that combining environmental and genetic information would be useful for species delimitation and phylogenetic studies in other recently diverged species complexes.

Genetic, morphological, geographical and ecological approaches reveal phylogenetic relationships in complex groups, an example of recently diverged pinyon pine species (Subsection Cembroides).

Elucidating phylogenetic relationships and species boundaries within complex taxonomic groups is challenging for intrinsic and extrinsic (i.e., technical) reasons. Mexican pinyon pines are a complex group whose phylogenetic relationships and species boundaries have been widely studied but poorly resolved, partly due to intrinsic ecological and evolutionary features such as low morphological and genetic differentiation caused by recent divergence, hybridization and introgression. Extrinsic factors such as limited sampling and difficulty in selecting informative molecular markers have also impeded progress. Some of the Mexican pinyon pines are of conservation concern but others may remain unprotected because the species boundaries have not been established. In this study we combined approaches to resolve the phylogenetic relationships in this complex group and to establish species boundaries in four recently diverged taxa: P. discolor, P. johannis, P. culminicola and P. cembroides. We performed phylogenetic analyses using the chloroplast markers matK and psbA-trnH as well as complete and partial chloroplast genomes of species of Subsection Cembroides. Additionally, we performed a phylogeographic analysis combining genetic data (18 chloroplast markers), morphological data and geographical data to define species boundaries in four recently diverged taxa. Ecological divergence was supported by differences in climate among localities for distinct genetic lineages. Whereas the phylogenetic analysis inferred with matK and psbA-trnH was unable to resolve the relationships in this complex group, we obtained a resolved phylogeny with the use of the chloroplast genomes. The resolved phylogeny was concordant with a haplotype network obtained using chloroplast markers. In species with potential for recent divergence, hybridization or introgression, nonhierarchical network-based approaches are probably more appropriate to protect against misclassification due to incomplete lineage sorting. The boundaries among genetic lineages were delimited by the inclusion of morphological, geographical and ecological data in the haplotype network. These multiple lines of evidence help to assign species boundaries in this complex group. P. johannis, P. discolor, P. culminicola and P. cembroides are different species based on their genetic, morphological and ecological niche differences. We suggest a reevaluation of the conservation status of these species considering the information generated in this study.

Effect of calcium salts and surfactant concentration on the stability of water-in-oil (w/o) emulsions prepared with polyglycerol polyricinoleate.

The objective of this work was to obtain water-in-oil (w/o) emulsions with polyglycerol polyricinoleate (PGPR) as emulsifier and to study the effect of the addition of calcium in the dispersed aqueous phase on the stability of these systems. Emulsions were formulated with 0.2, 0.5 and 1.0% w/w PGPR and 10% w/w water containing calcium chloride at varied concentrations or other salts (calcium lactate or carbonate; sodium, magnesium or potassium chloride). The stability of these systems was studied with a vertical scan analyzer during 15 days; coalescence and sedimentation were observed as simultaneous destabilization processes. The increase of PGPR concentration and/or calcium chloride content gave more stable emulsions. The stabilizing effect of calcium salt was attributed to the diminution of the water droplets size, the decrease of the attractive force between water droplets and the increase of the adsorption density of the emulsifier. The viscoelastic parameters of the interfacial film were decreased with increasing calcium and PGPR concentrations. Calcium chloride produced a higher increase of stability than calcium salts with lower dissociation degree. The presence of any assayed salt in the aqueous phase also allowed the stabilization of w/o emulsions with higher water contents.