Publications

Abstract Recent studies have suggested that in addition to promoter region, DNA methylation in intragenic and intergenic regions also changes during physiological processes and disease. The current study showed that feeding of black raspberries (BRBs) to Apc Min mice suppressed colon and intestinal tumors. MBDCap‐seq suggested that dietary BRBs hypomethylated promoter, intragenic, and intergenic regions. Annotation of those regions highlighted genes in pathways involved in immune regulation, inflammatory signaling, production of nitric oxide and reactive oxygen species, and progression of colorectal cancer. BRB phytochemicals (e.g., ellagic acid, anthocyanins, oligosaccharides) and their gut bacterial metabolites (e.g., urolithin, protocatechuic acid, short‐chain fatty acids) inhibited DNMT1 and DNMT3B activities in a cell‐free assay. Our results suggest that BRBs’ hypomethylating activities result from the combined effects of multiple BRB phytochemicals and their gut bacterial metabolites. Because similar substances are found in many plant products, our results with BRBs might also apply to commonly consumed fruits and vegetables.

Moya, A1; Sineiro, E.1; Castiñeira, M. C.2; Gomara, S. M.1; Mojon, A.3; Fontao, M. J.3; Lorenzo, S.3; Ayala, D. E.3; Hermida, R. C.3 on behalf of Hygia Project Investigators Author Information

In wearable biomedical signal detection, the low-power consumption is a critical requirement. However, the process of biomedical signal detection with traditional neural-network processor is uneconomical for large data movements. A typical solution is the near memory computing (NMC) method, locating more data near the computing engine to save energy, where the detecting accuracy and power consumption is difficult to be optimized simultaneously. In addition, a suitable computing engine is needed to match both power and computation budget. In this work, we combine the NMC-based ECG processor equipped with a high-precision time-domain engine to perform the detection of arrhythmia, namely TDPRO. The proposed TDPRO supports high precision multiplication and addition operation with 8-bit input and weight parameters. Also, we propose TD-zero-jumping and idle-shutdown technique to further reduce 63%$\sim$ 91% power consumption of the time-domain engine. The error rate of 8-bit MAC operation in the TDPRO is 1.18%, which is suitable for the ECG detection.

This review highlights main bioactive compounds and important biological functions especially anticancer effects of the garlic. In addition, we review current literature on the stability and bioavailability of garlic components. Finally, this review aims to provide a potential strategy for using nanotechnology to increase the stability and solubility of garlic components, providing guidelines for the qualities of garlic products to improve their absorption and prevent their early degradation, and extend their circulation time in the body. The application of nanotechnology to improve the bioavailability and targeting of garlic compounds are expected to provide a theoretical basis for the functional components of garlic to treat human health. We review the improvement of bioavailability and bioactivity of garlic bioactive compounds via nanotechnology, which could promisingly overcome the limitations of conventional garlic products, and would be used to prevent and treat cancer and other diseases in the near future.

<title>Abstract</title> <bold><italic>Background: </italic></bold>Controversy exists as towards the association of excessive fruits intake and certain disease risks. Longan is an edible fruit rich in high levels of fructose, glucose and sucrose. The aim of this study was to provide direct evidence on the effect of the sugar rich longan fruit on the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Chemical profiling of longan fruit was conducted using LC-HRMS and HPLC-ELSD.<bold><italic>Results: </italic></bold>Longan extracts at the doses of 4.0 g/kg, 8.0 and 16.0 g/kg were orally administered for 4 weeks to healthy C57BL/6J mice or to C57BL/6J mice fed with a HFD diet. Fecal microbiome was analyzed by 16S rRNA sequencing. The amounts of short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) in colonic contents were determined by GC-MS. Colon and liver tissues were used for histopathological examination after H&amp;E, Masson’s trichrome, and Oil-red O staining. ELISA method was used for biochemical analysis in serum. In mice fed a normal diet, repeated longan intake for 4 weeks at excess doses (8 or 16 g/kg), but not the normal dose (4 g/kg), promoted inflammation and gut dysbiosis-like status and reduced short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) production. In high-fat diet (HFD)-fed mice, longan intake at 4 g/kg hardly influenced the NAFLD development. In contrast, excess longan intake (8 or 16 g/kg) promoted NAFLD pathogenesis, including increased abnormality in hepatic indices, elevated inflammation, and gut permeability associated with more severe liver steatosis and fibrosis. Moreover, the exacerbated pathogenic markers were positively correlated with increased blood sugar, aggravated HFD-associated microbial dysbiosis. <bold><italic>Conclusions:</italic></bold><italic> </italic>Effects mediated by excess longan intake resembled that of equivalent free sugars supplementation, suggesting that high level of free sugars in fruits contributed to the promotion of NAFLD development as demonstrated in case of excessive longan intake.

Abstract Mussels are ecologically and economically relevant edible marine bivalves, highly invasive and resilient to biotic and abiotic stressors causing recurrent massive mortalities in other species. Here we show that the Mediterranean mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis has a complex pan-genomic architecture, which includes a core set of 45,000 genes shared by all individuals plus a surprisingly high number of dispensable genes (∼15,000). The latter are subject to presence/absence variation (PAV), i.e., they may be entirely missing in a given individual and, when present, they are frequently found as a single copy. The enrichment of dispensable genes in survival functions suggests an adaptive value for PAV, which might be the key to explain the extraordinary capabilities of adaptation and invasiveness of this species. Our study underpins a unique metazoan pan-genome architecture only previously described in prokaryotes and in a few non-metazoan eukaryotes, but that might also characterize other marine invertebrates. Significance statement In animals, intraspecific genomic diversity is generally thought to derive from relatively small-scale variants, such as single nucleotide polymorphisms, small indels, duplications, inversions and translocations. On the other hand, large-scale structural variations which involve the loss of genomic regions encoding protein-coding genes in some individuals (i.e. presence/absence variation, PAV) have been so far only described in bacteria and, occasionally, in plants and fungi. Here we report the first evidence of a pan-genome in the animal kingdom, revealing that 25% of the genes of the Mediterranean mussel are subject to PAV. We show that this unique feature might have an adaptive value, due to the involvement of dispensable genes in functions related with defense and survival.