Dietary patterns and life-styles of patients with gastrointestinal involvement of systemic lupus erythematosus: Questionnaire survey from a tertiary center of China.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the dietary patterns and lifestyles of patients with lupus gastrointestinal (GI) involvement and to reveal the possible role of organ-specific involvement of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) on daily diet. METHODS: Patients with SLE complicated with gastrointestinal involvement (SLE-GI) admitted to Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH) from January 2010 to September 2021 were enrolled. Age- and sex-matched SLE patients with lupus nephritis (SLE-LN) but free of other internal organs involvement who were admitted during the same period were enrolled as disease controls at the ratio of 1:1. In addition, a group of age- and sex-matched healthy people were also included as healthy controls (HCs). Questionnaires were distributed to these patients and HC to collect their dietary patterns and lifestyle information. Clinical features, dietary and lifestyle habits were compared between the two groups of patients and HC. RESULTS: The questionnaire survey showed that compared with HC, the SLE-GI group had higher proportions of vegetarians (p = 0.014) and a lower proportion of omnivores (p = 0.058). A higher percentage of SLE-GI patients reported a traditional Chinese medicine (p = 0.018) taken history and surgical history (p = 0.014). They also less likely to take fried/pickled food (p = 0.042) and dietary supplements (p = 0.024) than HC. Higher percentages of SLE-GI patients and SLE-LN patients preferred self-catering (87.5% and 94.3%) over take-out food than HC (70.8%) (p = 0.127 and p = 0.016). No significant difference on drinking preference among the three groups, but it seemed more SLE-GI patients consumed yogurt than HC (p = 0.097). The SLE-LN patients were also found to have lower frequencies of staying up late (p = 0.005). The SLE-GI group also presented higher positivity rates for anti-SSA (69.6% vs. 45.7%, p = 0.020) and anti-SSB antibodies (32.6% vs. 10.9%, p = 0.011) but lower positivity rates for anti-dsDNA antibodies (30.4% vs. 82.6%, p < 0.001) compared with the SLE-LN group. CONCLUSION: The dietary patterns, life-styles and autoantibody spectrum of SLE-GI patients differed greatly from those of SLE-LN patients and healthy people. These factors may reflect the influence of disease and organ involvement modes on patients' daily life and may contribute partly to the systemic involvement in SLE.

Preparation of enteric-coated microcapsules of astaxanthin oleoresin by complex coacervation.

Astaxanthin oleoresin (AO) has a number of beneficial physiological functions. However, its sensitivity to light, heat, oxygen and gastric fluids has limited its application. In this paper, we describe the preparation of AO enteric microcapsules by coacervation to improve its stability and enteric solubility, and evaluate their efficacy by measuring the drug loading, encapsulation efficiency, optical microscopic appearance, stability, in vitro release and bioavailability. The results obtained showed that the AO enteric microcapsules possessed a high encapsulation efficiency (85.9%), a satisfactory in vitro release profile, and the ability of the microencapsulated AO to resist the effects of light, heat and oxygen was improved by 2.2-fold, 3.1-fold and 2.4-fold, respectively, during storage. In addition, the bioavailability of AO microcapsules was approximately 1.29-fold higher than AO, which is important for pharmaceutical applications and as a functional food.

Comprehensive identification of novel proteins and N-glycosylation sites in royal jelly.

BACKGROUND: Royal jelly (RJ) is a proteinaceous secretion produced from the hypopharyngeal and mandibular glands of nurse bees. It plays vital roles in honeybee biology and in the improvement of human health. However, some proteins remain unknown in RJ, and mapping N-glycosylation modification sites on RJ proteins demands further investigation. We used two different liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry techniques, complementary N-glycopeptide enrichment strategies, and bioinformatic approaches to gain a better understanding of novel and glycosylated proteins in RJ. RESULTS: A total of 25 N-glycosylated proteins, carrying 53 N-glycosylation sites, were identified in RJ proteins, of which 42 N-linked glycosylation sites were mapped as novel on RJ proteins. Most of the glycosylated proteins were related to metabolic activities and health improvement. The 13 newly identified proteins were also mainly associated with metabolic processes and health improvement activities. CONCLUSION: Our in-depth, large-scale mapping of novel glycosylation sites represents a crucial step toward systematically revealing the functionality of N-glycosylated RJ proteins, and is potentially useful for producing a protein with desirable pharmacokinetic and biological activity using a genetic engineering approach. The newly-identified proteins significantly extend the proteome coverage of RJ. These findings contribute vital and new knowledge to our understanding of the innate biochemical nature of RJ at both the proteome and glycoproteome levels.

Towards posttranslational modification proteome of royal jelly.

Royal jelly (RJ) is a secretory protein from the hypopharyngeal glands of nurse honeybee workers, which contains a variety of proteins of which major royal jelly proteins (MRJPs) are some of the most important. It plays important roles both for honeybee and human. Each family of MRJP 1-5 displays a string of modified protein spots in the RJ proteome profile, which may be caused by posttranslational modifications (PTMs) of MRJPs. However, information on the RJ PTMs is still limited. Therefore, the PTM status of RJ was identified by using complementary proteome strategies of two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE), shotgun analysis in combination with high performance liquid chromatography-chip/electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight/tandem mass spectrometry and bioinformatics. Phosphorylation was characterized in MRJP 1, MRJP 2 and apolipophorin-III-like protein for the first time and a new site was localized in venom protein 2 precursor. Methylation and deamidation were also identified in most of the MRJPs. The results indicate that methylation is the most important PTM of MRJPs that triggers the polymorphism of MRJP 1-5 in the RJ proteome. Our data provide a comprehensive catalog of several important PTMs in RJ and add valuable information towards assessing both the biological roles of these PTMs and deciphering the mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of RJ for human health.