University of Lleida

About: University of Lleida is a education organization based out in Lleida, Spain. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Pregnancy. The organization has 2939 authors who have published 5853 publications receiving 148417 citations. The organization is also known as: Escola Superior Politècnica & Universitat de Lleida.

Stability of health-related compounds in plant foods through the application of non thermal processes

Abstract: A significant number of compounds found in plant-based foods exhibits health-promoting biological functions. Over the past decades, food research has shed light on the basic science of the degradative processes that account for losses of these compounds. Indeed, temperature/time conditions have been shown to play a determinant role when aiming at preserving the bioactive potential of raw products. The deleterious effect of certain thermal treatments on antioxidant compounds has been reported. Lately, a number of alternative technologies allowing low temperature processing have emerged and many research efforts have been put towards their development and optimisation. It is known that the concentration and biological activity of most health-related compounds is dramatically reduced as thermal treatment intensity increases. Nonetheless, both extrinsic and intrinsic factors such as oxygen, light, pH, and the presence of certain enzymes, can also induce changes in the bioactive constituents of foods. The susceptibility of each compound to these conditions needs to be considered when aiming at evaluating the effect of processing. Generally, non thermal technologies presented in this review allow preserving most food bioactive compounds, such as vitamins, phenolics, carotenoids and organosulfur compounds. Different results can be obtained, though, depending on the food matrix because the presence of antagonistic agents may substantially compromise the stability of health-promoting compounds through storage. Recent published work provides examples to illustrate the ability of non thermal food preservation technologies for keeping the bioactive properties of plant foods and, at the same time, show limitations of each technology regarding the preservation of health-related compounds.

A plasma metabolomic signature discloses human breast cancer.

Abstract: // Mariona Jove 1, * , Ricardo Collado 2, * , Jose Luis Quiles 3 , Mari-Carmen Ramirez-Tortosa 4 , Joaquim Sol 1 , Maria Ruiz-Sanjuan 5 , Monica Fernandez 5 , Capilla de la Torre Cabrera 5 , Cesar Ramirez-Tortosa 6, 7 , Sergio Granados-Principal 5 , Pedro Sanchez-Rovira 5 , Reinald Pamplona 1 1 Department of Experimental Medicine, University of Lleida-Institute for Research in Biomedicine of Lleida (UdL-IRBLleida), Lleida, Spain 2 Department of Oncology, Medical Oncology Unit, Hospital San Pedro de Alcantara, Caceres, Official Postgraduate Programme in Nutrition and Food Technology, University of Granada, Spain 3 Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology “Jose Mataix”, Biomedical Research Center, Department of Physiology, University of Granada, Granada, Spain 4 Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology “Jose Mataix”, Biomedical Research Center, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology II, University of Granada, Granada, Spain 5 Department of Medical Oncology, Hospital of Jaen, Jaen, Spain 6 Department of Pathological Anatomy, Hospital of Jaen, Jaen, Spain 7 GENYO, Centre for Genomics and Oncological Research (Pfizer / University of Granada / Andalusian Regional Government), PTS Granada, Granada, Spain * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Reinald Pamplona, email: reinald.pamplona@mex.udl.cat Pedro Sanchez-Rovira, email: oncopsr@yahoo.es Keywords: breast cancer, biomarker, mass spectrometry, metabolites, metabolomics Received: August 12, 2016 Accepted: December 26, 2016 Published: January 05, 2017 ABSTRACT Purpose : Metabolomics is the comprehensive global study of metabolites in biological samples. In this retrospective pilot study we explored whether serum metabolomic profile can discriminate the presence of human breast cancer irrespective of the cancer subtype. Methods : Plasma samples were analyzed from healthy women (n = 20) and patients with breast cancer after diagnosis (n = 91) using a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry platform. Multivariate statistics and a Random Forest (RF) classifier were used to create a metabolomics panel for the diagnosis of human breast cancer. Results : Metabolomics correctly distinguished between breast cancer patients and healthy control subjects. In the RF supervised class prediction analysis comparing breast cancer and healthy control groups, RF accurately classified 100% both samples of the breast cancer patients and healthy controls. So, the class error for both group in and the out-of-bag error were 0. We also found 1269 metabolites with different concentration in plasma from healthy controls and cancer patients; and basing on exact mass, retention time and isotopic distribution we identified 35 metabolites. These metabolites mostly support cell growth by providing energy and building stones for the synthesis of essential biomolecules, and function as signal transduction molecules. The collective results of RF, significance testing, and false discovery rate analysis identified several metabolites that were strongly associated with breast cancer. Conclusions : In breast cancer a metabolomics signature of cancer exists and can be detected in patient plasma irrespectively of the breast cancer type.