Bitterness Suppression of BCAA Solutions by L-Ornithine

Additive Effects of L-Ornithine on Preferences to Basic Taste Solutions in Mice

In addition to the taste receptors corresponding to the six basic taste qualities-sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami, and fatty-another type of taste receptor, calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR), is found in taste-bud cells. CaSR is called the 'kokumi' receptor because its agonists increase sweet, salty and umami tastes to induce 'koku', a Japanese word meaning the enhancement of flavor characters such as thickness, mouthfulness, and continuity. Koku is an important factor for enhancing food palatability. However, it is not well known whether other kokumi-receptors and substances exist. Here, we show that ornithine (L-ornithine but not D-ornithine) at low concentrations that do not elicit a taste of its own, enhances preferences to sweet, salty, umami, and fat taste solutions in mice. Increased preference to monosodium glutamate (MSG) was the most dominant effect. Antagonists of G-protein-coupled receptor family C group 6 subtype A (GPRC6A) abolished the additive effect of ornithine on MSG solutions. The additive effects of ornithine on taste stimuli are thought to occur in the oral cavity, and are not considered post-oral events because ornithine's effects were confirmed in a brief-exposure test. Moreover, the additive effects of ornithine and the action of the antagonist were verified in electrophysiological taste nerve responses. Immunohistochemical analysis implied that GPRC6A was expressed in subsets of type II and type III taste cells of mouse circumvallate papillae. These results are in good agreement with those reported for taste modulation involving CaSR and its agonists. The present study suggests that ornithine is a kokumi substance and GPRC6A is a newly identified kokumi receptor.

Review of arginase as a promising biocatalyst: characteristics, preparation, applications and future challenges

As a committed step in the urea cycle, arginase cleaves l-arginine to form l-ornithine and urea. l-Ornithine is essential to: cell proliferation, collagen formation and other physiological functions, while the urea cycle itself converts highly toxic ammonia to urea for excretion. Recently, arginase was exploited as an efficient catalyst for the environmentally friendly synthesis of l-ornithine, an abundant nonprotein amino acid that is widely employed as a food supplement and nutrition product. It was also proposed as an arginine-reducing agent in order to treat arginase deficiency and to be a means of depleting arginine to treat arginine auxotrophic tumors. Targeting arginase inhibitors of the arginase/ornithine pathway offers great promise as a therapy for: cardiovascular, central nervous system diseases and cancers with high arginase expression. In this review, recent advances in the characteristics, structure, catalytic mechanism and preparation of arginase were summarized, with a focus being placed on the biotechnical and medical applications of arginase. In particular, perspectives have been presented on the challenges and opportunities for the environmentally friendly utilization of arginase during l-ornithine production and in therapies.

Combined Effects of Amino Acids in Garlic and Buna-Shimeji (Hypsizygus marmoreus) on Suppression of CCl4-Induced Hepatic Injury in Rats

The combination of the garlic-derived amino acid, S-allyl-l-cysteine sulfoxide (ACSO), and ornithine or arginine on CCl₄-induced hepatic injury was examined. After investigating the effectiveness of the mixture of ACSO and ornithine or arginine in preventing hepatic injury in vivo, an extract rich in ACSO and ornithine was prepared by converting arginine in garlic to ornithine by arginase from Hypsizygus marmoreus (buna-shimeji), after screening the productivity of ornithine among 12 kinds of mushrooms. Co-administration of ACSO with ornithine or arginine suppressed the increase in aspartate transaminase, alanine transaminase, and thiobarbituric acid reactive substance, and the decrease in glutathione S-transferase and cytochrome p450 2E1 activities after CCl₄ injection more effectively than a single administration of ACSO. All extracts prepared from garlic and buna-shimeji with low and high contents of ACSO and arginine or ornithine significantly suppressed CCl₄-induced hepatic injury in rats. Considering that ACSO is tasteless, odourless, and enhances taste, and ornithine has a flat or sweet taste and masks bitterness, the extract rich in ACSO and ornithine from garlic and buna-shimeji could be considered a potential antioxidant food material that can be added to many kinds of food to prevent hepatic injury.

Evaluation of the Bitterness-Masking Effect of Powdered Roasted Soybeans

The masking of bitterness is considered important because many pharmaceutical compounds have a bitter taste. The bitterness-masking effect of powdered roasted soybeans (PRS) was investigated using a bitter taste sensor. PRS was revealed to significantly suppress the bitterness of quinine hydrochloride and denatonium benzoate. Furthermore, the bitterness-masking mechanism of PRS extracts was evaluated using dynamic light scattering. These results showed that the extracted suspension consisted of particles that were several hundreds of nanometers in size. Analysis of the PRS extracts by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy indicated that denatonium benzoate was entrapped in the PRS extracts. Thus, PRS may be useful as a bitterness-masking agent in orally administered pharmaceuticals.

Construction of a highly efficient Bacillus subtilis 168 whole-cell biocatalyst and its application in the production of l-ornithine

l-Ornithine, a non-protein amino acid, is usually extracted from hydrolyzed protein as well as produced by microbial fermentation. Here, we focus on a highly efficient whole-cell biocatalyst for the production of l-ornithine. The gene argI, encoding arginase, which catalyzes the hydrolysis of l-arginine to l-ornithine and urea, was cloned from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens B10-127 and expressed in GRAS strain Bacillus subtilis 168. The recombinant strain exhibited an arginase activity of 21.9 U/mg, which is 26.7 times that of wild B. subtilis 168. The optimal pH and temperature of the purified recombinant arginase were 10.0 and 40 °C, respectively. In addition, the recombinant arginase exhibited a strong Mn2+ preference. When using whole-cell biocatalyst-based bioconversion, a hyper l-ornithine production of 356.9 g/L was achieved with a fed-batch strategy in a 5-L reactor within 12 h. This whole-cell bioconversion study demonstrates an environmentally friendly strategy for l-ornithine production in industry.

Long-Chain Fatty Acids Elicit a Bitterness-Masking Effect on Quinine and Other Nitrogenous Bitter Substances by Formation of Insoluble Binary Complexes

We have previously found that fatty acids can mask the bitterness of certain nitrogenous substances through direct molecular interactions. Using isothermal titration calorimetry, we investigated the interactions between sodium oleate and 22 bitter substances. The hydrochloride salts of quinine, promethazine, and propranolol interacted strongly with fatty acids containing 12 or more carbon atoms. The (1)H NMR spectra of these substances, obtained in the presence of the sodium salts of the fatty acids in dimethyl sulfoxide, revealed the formation of hydrogen bonds between the nitrogen atoms of the bitter substances and the carboxyl groups of the fatty acids. When sodium laurate and the hydrochloride salt of quinine were mixed in water, an equimolar complex formed as insoluble heterogeneous needlelike crystals. These results suggested that fatty acids interact directly with bitter substances through hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions to form insoluble binary complexes that mask bitterness.

Meltlets(®) of soy isoflavones: process optimization and the effect of extrusion spheronization process parameters on antioxidant activity

In the current research work an attempt was made to develop "Melt in mouth pellets" (Meltlets(®)) containing 40% herbal extract of soy isoflavones that served to provide antioxidants activity in menopausal women. The process of extrusion-spheronization was optimized for extruder speed, extruder screen size, spheronization speed, and time. While doing so the herbal extract incorporated in the pellet matrix was subjected to various processing conditions such as the effect of the presence of other excipients, mixing or kneading to prepare wet mass, heat generated during the process of extrusion, spheronization, and drying. Thus, the work further investigates the effect of these processing parameters on the antioxidant activity of the soy isoflavone herbal extract incorporated in the formula. Thereby, the antioxidant activity of the soya bean herbal extract, Meltlets(®) and of the placebo pellets was evaluated using DPPH free radical scavenging assay and total reduction capacity.

Recent advances in electronic tongues

This minireview describes the main developments of electronic tongues (e-tongues) and taste sensors in recent years, with a summary of the principles of detection and materials used in the sensing units. E-tongues are sensor arrays capable of distinguishing very similar liquids employing the concept of global selectivity, where the difference in the electrical response of different materials serves as a fingerprint for the analysed sample. They have been widely used for the analysis of wines, fruit juices, coffee, milk and beverages, in addition to the detection of trace amounts of impurities or pollutants in waters. Among the various principles of detection, electrochemical measurements and impedance spectroscopy are the most prominent. With regard to the materials for the sensing units, in most cases use is made of ultrathin films produced in a layer-by-layer fashion to yield higher sensitivity with the advantage of control of the film molecular architecture. The concept of e-tongues has been extended to biosensing by using sensing units capable of molecular recognition, as in films with immobilized antigens or enzymes with specific recognition for clinical diagnosis. Because the identification of samples is basically a classification task, there has been a trend to use artificial intelligence and information visualization methods to enhance the performance of e-tongues.

Melt-in-mouth pellets of fexofenadine hydrochloride using crospovidone as an extrusion-spheronisation aid

Microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) is well established as an extrusion spheronisation aid for the preparation of pellets. Crospovidone (Polyplasdone XL-10) is compared with microcrystalline cellulose for the preparation of melt-in-mouth pellets. Taste-masked fexofenadine hydrochloride was incorporated in the melt-in-mouth formulation. Crospovidone was found to be well suited as extrusion-spheronisation aid for the preparation of melt-in-mouth pellets. The great advantage of crospovidone is, however, the disintegrating properties of the pellets after only a short time of exposure to liquid. Crospovidone was successfully employed as an extrusion-spheronisation aid to produce melt-in-mouth pellets obviating the need of a traditional extrusion-spheronisation aid, MCC. Dual properties of Crospovidone were explored viz. as an extrusion-spheronisation aid and a disintegrant.

Advanced taste sensors based on artificial lipids with global selectivity to basic taste qualities and high correlation to sensory scores

Effective R&D and strict quality control of a broad range of foods, beverages, and pharmaceutical products require objective taste evaluation. Advanced taste sensors using artificial-lipid membranes have been developed based on concepts of global selectivity and high correlation with human sensory score. These sensors respond similarly to similar basic tastes, which they quantify with high correlations to sensory score. Using these unique properties, these sensors can quantify the basic tastes of saltiness, sourness, bitterness, umami, astringency and richness without multivariate analysis or artificial neural networks. This review describes all aspects of these taste sensors based on artificial lipid, ranging from the response principle and optimal design methods to applications in the food, beverage, and pharmaceutical markets.

Sensor arrays for liquid sensing--electronic tongue systems

Electronic tongue systems are multisensor devices dedicated to automatic analysis of complicated composition samples and to the recognition of their characteristic properties. Recently, the number of publications covering this topic has significantly increased. Many possible architectures of such devices were proposed: potentiometric, voltammetric, as well as approaches embracing mass- and optical-sensors. For the analysis of sensor array data, various pattern recognition systems were proposed. All of these topics are summarized in this review. Moreover, additional problems are considered: miniaturization of electronic tongues and hybrid systems for liquid sensing.