Comparison of Odorants in Beef and Chicken Broth-Focus on Thiazoles and Thiazolines

The shift in consumer landscape towards vegan, vegetarian and flexitarian diets has created an unprecedented challenge in creating meat aroma from plant-based alternatives. The search for potential vegan solutions has thus led to a renewed interest in authentic meat flavour profiles. To gain a better understanding of the qualitative odour differences between boiled beef and boiled chicken, aroma extracts were isolated using Likens-Nickerson simultaneous distillation-extraction (SDE), selected expressly because the in-situ heating of the sample facilitates the capture of aroma intermediates during the cooking process, thereby mimicking the cooking of meat in stocks and stews. The extracts were then analysed by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) and GC-Olfactometry (GC-O). Most of the volatiles identified in this study were sulfur-containing compounds, such as sulfides, thiols, mercaptoaldehydes and mercaptoketones, which are derived from the Maillard reaction. Meanwhile, lipid oxidation results in the formation of unsaturated aldehydes, such as alkenals and alkadienals. Families of thiazoles and 3-thiazolines were found in the extracts. Two novel 3-thiazolines (5-ethyl-2,4-dimethyl-3-thiazoline and 2-ethyl-4,5-dimethyl-3-thiazoline) which may also contribute to the meaty aroma were identified in this work and synthesised from their respective aldehyde and mercaptoketone precursors.

Development of an Affordable, Sustainable and Efficacious Plant-Based Immunomodulatory Food Ingredient Based on Bell Pepper or Carrot RG-I Pectic Polysaccharides

The prevalence of acute respiratory infections and their impact on quality of life underlies the need for efficacious solutions that are safe, sustainable and economically viable. Polysaccharides in several (traditional) plant extracts have been shown to be immunostimulatory, and some studies suggest beneficial effects against respiratory infections. The aim of this study was to (i) identify the active polysaccharide constituents from affordable and renewable crops (bell pepper and carrot) using activity-guided fractionation, (ii) evaluate in vitro effects on innate immune responses (phagocytosis and cytokine secretion), microbiota modulation and production of short chain fatty acids, followed by (iii) the evaluation of effects of a bell pepper extract enriched for the active component in a human proof of concept study. We identified rhamnogalacturonan-I (RG-I) as the nutricophore responsible for the immunostimulatory activity with substantial structural and functional equivalence between bell pepper (bp) and carrot (c). The in vitro studies showed that bpRG-I and cRG-I comprise similar immune- and microbiota modulatory potential and the human study demonstrated that bpRG-I was well tolerated and enhanced innate immune responsiveness in vivo. This is an important step towards testing the efficacy of RG-I from bpRG-I or cRG-I in an infection trial in humans.

Chemical Fingerprints of Emotional Body Odor

Chemical communication is common among animals. In humans, the chemical basis of social communication has remained a black box, despite psychological and neural research showing distinctive physiological, behavioral, and neural consequences of body odors emitted during emotional states like fear and happiness. We used a multidisciplinary approach to examine whether molecular cues could be associated with an emotional state in the emitter. Our research revealed that the volatile molecules transmitting different emotions to perceivers also have objectively different chemical properties. Chemical analysis of underarm sweat collected from the same donors in fearful, happy, and emotionally neutral states was conducted using untargeted two-dimensional (GC×GC) coupled with time of flight (ToF) MS-based profiling. Based on the multivariate statistical analyses, we find that the pattern of chemical volatiles (N = 1655 peaks) associated with fearful state is clearly different from that associated with (pleasant) neutral state. Happy sweat is also significantly different from the other states, chemically, but shows a bipolar pattern of overlap with fearful as well as neutral state. Candidate chemical classes associated with emotional and neutral sweat have been identified, specifically, linear aldehydes, ketones, esters, and cyclic molecules (5 rings). This research constitutes a first step toward identifying the chemical fingerprints of emotion.

Investigation of isomeric flavanol structures in black tea thearubigins using ultraperformance liquid chromatography coupled to hybrid quadrupole/ion mobility/time of flight mass spectrometry

Ultra performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) when coupled to ion mobility (IMS)/orthogonal acceleration time of flight mass spectrometry is a suitable technique for analyzing complex mixtures such as the black tea thearubigins. With the aid of this advanced instrumental analysis, we were able to separate and identify different isomeric components in the complex mixture which could previously not be differentiated by a conventional high performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry. In this study, the difference between isomeric structures theasinensins, proanthocyanidins B-type and rutin (quercetin-3O-rutinoside) were studied, and these are present abundantly in many botanical sources. The differentiation between these structures was accomplished according to their acquired mobility drift times differing from the traditional investigations in mass spectrometry, where calculation of theoretical collisional cross sections allowed assignment of the individual isomeric structures. The present work demonstrates UPLC-IMS-MS as an efficient technology for isolating and separating isobaric and isomeric structures existing in complex mixtures discriminating between them according to their characteristic fragment ions and mobility drift times. Therefore, a rational assignment of isomeric structures in many phenolic secondary metabolites based on the ion mobility data might be useful in mass spectrometry-based structure analysis in the future.

Age dependent incorporation of 14C-DHA into rat brain and body tissues after dosing various 14C-DHA-esters

INTRODUCTION

The omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) accounts for 10% of fatty acids in human brain and is critical for neuronal function and brain development. Mechanisms of transport, accumulation and conservation of DHA in the brain are unclear. The objective of the study was to quantify the age dependent DHA incorporation into the brain of 2-, 4- or 10-week-old rats after a bolus dose of different DHA-esters.

METHODS

Rats were gavaged with (14)C-DHA-TAG, (14)C-DHA-PL or (14)C-DHA-TAG+PL at 2 mg DHA/kg BW. After 24h the distribution of radioactivity in body and brain regions was determined using quantitative whole body autoradiography (QWBA). Radiolabeled compounds were extracted from the brains to determine the identity of the radiolabeled compounds.

RESULTS

Accumulation of orally ingested (14)C-DHA in rat brain was less than 1% of the dose and decreased with age. Ester specific differences were seen only in 10-week-old rats, where oral (14)C-DHA-PL delivered a 2-fold higher accretion of radioactivity in the brain.

CONCLUSIONS

Less than 1% of a dietary achievable DHA dose reached the rat brain within 24h. Optimal efficacy of DHA-PL may occur in older age groups.