Chitosan-Based Oleogels: Emulsion Drying Kinetics and Physical, Rheological, and Textural Characteristics of Olive Oil Oleogels.

Oleogels are of high interest as promising substitutes for trans fats in foods. An emulsion-templated method was used to trap olive oil in the chitosan crosslinked with vanillin matrix. Oil in water emulsions (50:50 w/w) with different chitosan content (0.7 and 0.8% w/w) with a constant vanillin/chitosan ratio (1.3) were air-dried at different temperatures (50, 60, 70, and 80 °C) and freeze-dried (-26 °C and 0.1 mbar) to produce oleogels. Only falling rate periods were determined during air-drying kinetics and were successfully modeled with empirical and diffusional models. At a drying temperature of 70 °C, the drying kinetics were the fastest. The viscoelasticity of oleogels showed that the elastic modulus significantly increased after drying at 60 and 70 °C, and those dried at 50 °C and freeze-dried were weaker. All oleogels showed high oil binding capacity (>91%), but the highest values (>97%) were obtained in oleogels with a threshold elastic modulus (50,000 Pa). The oleogels' color depended on the drying temperature and chitosan content (independent of the drying method). Significant differences were observed between air-dried and freeze-dried oleogels with respect to oxidative stability. Oxidation increased with the air-drying time regardless of chitosan content. The found results indicated that drying conditions must be carefully selected to produce oleogels with specific features.

Rhesus macaque as a model for sex-biased neurological diseases.

Sexual dimorphism, differences between males and females of the same species, is widespread in mammals. However, good animal models to study human sexually dimorphic phenotypes are currently lacking. In this issue, DeCasien et al.1 explore the potential of rhesus macaque as a model for investigating sexually dimorphic traits in the human brain.

Effect of polyphenols from Ascophyllum nodosum seaweeds on the rheology and digestion of corn starch gels and gluten-free bread features.

The main objective of this work is to study the effect of polyphenols, from the brown seaweed Ascophyllum nodosum, on the structure and digestion behaviour of gels at two corn starch concentrations (1.95 and 5.00% w/w) as well as the structure, color and texture features of crumbs from gluten-free breads. Adsorption isotherms of polyphenols on native and gelled starches were carried out and modelled by means of Langmuir and Henry models, respectively. The formation and characteristics of tested gels were rheologically monitored by means of heating ramp, time sweep at high temperature, cooling ramp and frequency sweep at 25 °C. Elastic modulus values decreased with the presence of polyphenols. Additionally, the polyphenols significantly decreased the digestion rate, measured by both chemical and rheological procedures, and the final concentration of digested starch. Finally, the presence of polyphenols in breads increased the hardness and chewiness values and decreased the cohesiveness and resilience values as well as the crumb hardening during storage.

Two novel genomes of fireflies with different degrees of sexual dimorphism reveal insights into sex-biased gene expression and dosage compensation.

Sexual dimorphism arises because of divergent fitness optima between the sexes. Phenotypic divergence between sexes can range from mild to extreme. Fireflies, bioluminescent beetles, present various degrees of sexual dimorphism, with species showing very mild sexual dimorphism to species presenting female-specific neoteny, posing a unique framework to investigate the evolution of sexually dimorphic traits across species. In this work, we present novel assembled genomes of two firefly species, Lamprohiza splendidula and Luciola italica, species with different degrees of sexual dimorphism. We uncover high synteny conservation of the X-chromosome across ~ 180 Mya and find full X-chromosome dosage compensation in our two fireflies, hinting at common mechanism upregulating the single male X-chromosome. Different degrees of sex-biased expressed genes were found across two body parts showing different proportions of expression conservation between species. Interestingly, we do not find X-chromosome enrichment of sex-biased genes, but retrieve autosomal enrichment of sex-biased genes. We further uncover higher nucleotide diversity in the intronic regions of sex-biased genes, hinting at a maintenance of heterozygosity through sexual selection. We identify different levels of sex-biased gene expression divergence including a set of genes showing conserved sex-biased gene expression between species. Divergent and conserved sex-biased genes are good candidates to test their role in the maintenance of sexually dimorphic traits.