Publications

Future studies are needed to document the effects of multiple micronutrient associations in order to include them in nutritional guidelines to increase survival and to improve quality of life in patients with heart failure.

Corn (Zea mays L.) is an important annual grain that is cultivated as a food staple around the world. The current study examined the effect of wastewater and a combination of biological and organic fertilizers on the morphological and phytochemical traits of corn, using a factorial experiment based on a randomized complete block design with three replications. The first factor was biological and organic fertilizers at seven levels, including the control (no fertilization), bacterial biological fertilizers (NPK) along with iron and zinc Barvar biofertilizers, fungal biofertilizers made from Mycorrhiza and Trichoderma, biochar, a combination of bacterial and fungal biofertilizers, and a combination of bacterial and fungal biofertilizers with biochar. The second factor was irrigation at two levels (conventional irrigation and irrigation with wastewater). The traits studied included the morphological yield, phenols, flavonoids, polyphenols, glomalin, cadmium content in plant parts, and translocation factor (TF). The results disclosed that the best treatment in regard to the morphological traits was related to conventional water + biochar + mycorrhiza + Trichoderma + NPK. The highest phenol and flavonoid content were observed when biochar + mycorrhiza + Trichoderma + NPK treatments were used in both water treatments. Also, the wastewater + biochar + mycorrhiza + Trichoderma + NPK treatment demonstrated the highest total glomalin and phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) activity. The obtained results demonstrate that combined biological and organic fertilizer use on corn plants can effectively alleviate the deleterious effects of cadmium present in wastewater.

Abstract Two higher plants (Platanus occidentalis and Pinus sylvestris) were used as bioindicators for assessment of contamination by Pb and Cd in an urban and industrialized area. Both toxic metals in plant tissue were determined by transverse-heated electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry-longitudinal Zeeman background correction combined with automated ultrasonic slurry sampling. Twenty sampling points were established to observe a relationship between metal concentration in plant and traffic density. Screening optimization of variables influencing slurry preparations (sonication time, sonication power, and surfactant concentration) followed a fractional factorial design at 2 levels. No significant effects were observed in the interval of variables studied. Limits of detection of Pb and Cd in the plants were 0.28 and 0.025 μ/g (dry weight), respectively. Metal concentrations in the plants were in the range of 5–51 and 0.05–0.7 μg/g for Pb and Cd, respectively. Factor analysis to data of metal concentration in both plants, extractable metal content in soil, distance to traffic, and traffic density, showed a significant association between features such as concentration of Pb and Cd in leaves of P. occidentalis and traffic density, which accounted for the largest variance. Other features such as extractable metal contents in soil accounted for lesser variance, meaning that soils in the area investigated were less suitable than plants for monitoring metal pollution caused by vehicular traffic.

The agri-food industry has historically determined the socioeconomic characteristics of Galicia and Northern Portugal, and it was recently identified as an area for collaboration in the Euroregion. In particular, there is a need for action to help to ensure the provision of safe and healthy foods by taking advantage of key enabling technologies. The goals of the FOODSENS project are aligned with this major objective, specifically with the development of biosensors able to monitor hazards relevant to the safety of food produced in the Euroregion. The present review addresses the state of the art of analytical methodologies and techniques—whether commercially available or in various stages of development—for monitoring food hazards, such as harmful algal blooms, mycotoxins, Listeria monocytogenes, allergens, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. We discuss the pros and cons of these methodologies and techniques and address lines of research for point-of-care detection. Accordingly, the development of miniaturized automated monitoring strategies is considered a priority in terms of health and economic interest, with a significant impact in several areas, such as food safety, water quality, pollution control, and public health. Finally, we present potential market opportunities that could result from the availability of rapid and reliable commercial methodologies.

Several studies have found a link between oxidative stress and a variety of noncommunicable diseases including diabetes, obesity, aging, Down syndrome, cancers, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative diseases. All these pathologies are aided by oxidative stress, which is caused by the excessive production of free radicals or insufficient elimination of free radicals. To avoid, reduce, or eliminate this imbalance favoring prooxidants in organs and cells, one of the healthier and promising approaches is to use antioxidant compounds like nutraceuticals, which can scavenge the excessive free radicals and restore the balance. Nutraceuticals are dietary compounds that include dietary fibers, prebiotics, probiotics, polyunsaturated fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, polyphenols, and spices. Some of them have antioxidant activity, which can react with the free electron available in the outer layer of free radicals to make the unstable compounds more stable while avoiding free radicals’ proliferation and the induced damage to the different metabolisms that occur in the human body because of oxidative stress. Thus, each nutraceutical class performs specific functions in managing the onset of oxidative stress. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to sort out the mechanisms by which different classes of nutraceuticals can have beneficial effects on oxidative stress and related pathologies via their biological properties. However, it also observes that the efficacy of nutraceutical compounds can only be guaranteed if they can maintain their properties during production, preservation, consumption, digestion, and use by the various targeted active sites. Thus, it shows that the concepts of bioavailability and bio-accessibility are key factors for the effectiveness of nutraceuticals on oxidative stress when consumed by humans.

Himanthalia elongata (HE), commonly named sea spaghetti, is a brown alga from the order Fucales, mainly found in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Baltic and North Seas. This algae is currently used in numerous functional applications in the food, pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries, due to its biological properties such as antioxidants, anti-inflammatory, antimicorbial and anticancer and other health benefits. These effects are reported to be attributed to the high content of nutrients and their secondary metabolites such as phenolic compounds. In this context, the objective of this study is to optimize the microwave-assisted extraction method (MAE) to recover phenolic compounds and flavonoids, taking into account three extraction parameters: the ethanol concentration in water (0-100%), the extraction time (3-25 minutes) and the pressure (2-20 bar). In order to verify the total phenolic content (TPC) and the total flavonoid content (TFC), two biological tests were carried out based on the radical scavenging activity 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and the antioxidant capacity trolox equivalent (TEAC). Subsequently, the optimization was carried out by response surface methodology (RSM) considering the performance (Y) of each fraction. Finally, the optimized MAE parameters were fixed at 16.01 ± 4.80 min, 20 ± 0.50 bar and 0% of ethanol. These results show that water is an ideal environmenally friendly solvent for the extraction of bioactive HE compounds with some beneficts from a industrially point of view due to its nature. Furthermore, the resulting RSM was a successful model to establish the optimal conditions of MAE and a suitable methodology to maximize the content of polyphenols and total flavonoids, as well as the antioxidant capacity and the SM extraction performance.

Rocha, Sara, Rösler, Herbert, Gehring, Philip-Sebastian, Glaw, Frank, Posada, David, Harris, James, Vences, Miguel (2010): Phylogenetic systematics of day geckos, genus Phelsuma, based on molecular and morphological data (Squamata: Gekkonidae). Zootaxa 2429: 1-28, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.194693