Mol. Nutr. Food Res. 2019, 63, 1801255

DOI: 10.1002/mnfr.201801255

Owing to their health promotion function, the procyanidins have long been employed as dietary supplements. In article number 1801255, Kaiping Wang and co-workers find that the dimer procyanidin may alleviate acute alcoholic liver disease via the activation of hepatocyte autophagy, providing novel insight into a strategy to fight against alcoholic liver disease.

Mol. Nutr. Food Res. 2019, 63, 1900478

DOI: 10.1002/mnfr.201900478

In article number 1900478, Margreet C. M. Vissers and co-workers investigate the activity of bioavailable, blueberry-derived phenolic acid metabolites on the adhesion of monocytes to vascular endothelial cells. This work shows that a physiologically relevant mixture of phenolic acid metabolites, based on those found in plasma following blueberry juice intake, can reduce monocyte adhesion to endothelial cells. This suggests a mechanism by which blueberry polyphenol metabolites may benefit vascular health.

The dimer procyanidin (DPC), which is linked by a C─O─C bond, is not only a protective reagent for alcoholic liver disease but also a potent agonist on hepatic autophagy. DPC may alleviate acute alcoholic liver disease via the promotion of the autophagylysosomal pathway, providing novel insight into the strategy to fight against alcoholic liver disease.

The effect of mixtures of bioavailable blueberry-derived phenolic acid metabolites on monocyte adhesion to vascular endothelial cells is investigated. At concentrations found in plasma, these compounds reduce monocyte adhesion to the vascular endothelium, suggesting a mechanism for maintaining cardiovascular health.

Higher-dose glycerol monolaurate (GML) supplementation improves metabolic syndrome in high-fat-diet fed mice by significantly preventing visceral fat deposition, ameliorating hyperlipidemia, modulating hepatic lipid metabolism, reducing insulin resistance, and lowering circulating lipopolysaccharide load, accompanied by gut microbiota modulation. These metabolic improvements are significantly correlated with specific bacterial genera, suggesting the potential of GML in metabolic modulation by targeting gut microbiota.

The Three-City cohort of older persons with a 12-year follow-up for cognition is leveraged to identify, in the serum of initially non-demented participants, metabolites associated with subsequent cognitive decline. Untargeted metabolomics reveals a signature of 22 metabolites improving cognitive decline prediction. It includes diet-derived metabolites (e.g., from coffee, citrus juice, cocoa, fish), as well as endogenous metabolites responsive to diet.

Human milk contains enzymes, yet their activities in response to variations including pH within infants are unclear. Using peptidomics approaches, this work shows that human milk enzyme cathepsin D cleaves α-lactalbumin as the pH shifts from 7 to 3. The study shows that selective proteolysis activated by pH shift is a mechanism for dynamic interactions between human milk and the infant.

Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) efficiently alleviate damage caused by excessive inflammation of intestinal epithelial cells by inhibiting toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) expression. It is also found that treatment with HMOs increases the proliferative cell ratio in the condition of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) treatment. The new maturation cells express low TLR4 levels during LPS treatment so that their response might be reduced.

Engineering of the lipid transfer protein Pru p 3 from peach results in the generation of stable protein fold variants. These molecules demonstrate very low allergenic potency opposed to the wild-type allergen. Proline variant presents enhanced integrity and elicits an immune response in a mouse model, thus representing a candidate molecule for allergen immunotherapy of peach allergic patients.

Maternal high-fructose diet (HFD) induces developmental programing of hypertension in adult offspring, which is associated with alterations of gut microbiota compositions and their metabolites: trimethylamine (TMA), trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO), and SCFAs. 3,3-Dimethyl-1-butanol (an inhibitor for TMA formation) or the predominant SCFA acetate supplementation can prevent maternal HFD-induced programed hypertension.

Walnut (Juglans regia L.) is a widely consumed nut as part of a regular diet. By using an intracellular β-amyloid aggregation cell model and APP/PS1 transgenic mice, it is shown for the first time that a walnut-derived peptide PW5 can effectively reduce β-amyloid plaques and alter gut microbiota and serum metabolites compositions, and these are highly associated with cognitive improvements.

6-Gingerol alleviates the clinical signs of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis by suppressing dendritic cell (DC) activation and inducing the tolerogenic properties of DCs.

Choline is an essential nutrient. It is reported here that choline supplementation could alleviate cognitive deficits, anxiety, and Alzheimer's disease (AD)-like pathology in an adult AD mouse. These effects might involve restoration of cholinergic neurons, inhibition of inflammasome activation, and restoration of synapse formation. These findings shed light on the potential preventive and therapeutic application of choline for AD.

A cocoa rich-diet strongly prevents aortic stiffening and remodelling in diabetic animals and avoids aortic oxidative stress. This effect seems to be mediated via sirtuin-1, NADPH oxidases, and nuclear factor E2-related factor 2 and their antioxidant products. Overall, these findings indicate a novel mechanism to alleviate cardiovascular risk in the diabetic population.