1
Food and Nutrition Research Centre, Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria, Via Ardeatina 546, 00178 Rome, Italy
2
Food Quality and Nutrition Department, Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, Via Edmund Mach 1, 38010 San Michele all’Adige (TN), Italy
3
Department of Experimental Medicine, Section of Medical Physiopathology, Food Science and Endocrinology, Sapienza University, P.le Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy
†
These authors contributed equally to this work
‡
Current address: Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Monash University, 264 Ferntree Gully Road, 3168 Vic, Australia
§
Current address: Steno Diabetes Center A/S, Niels Steensens Vej 2, 2820 Gentofte, Denmark
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Current address: Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Sassari, Via Muroni 23, 07100 Sassari, Italy
Abstract
Benefits to health from a high consumption of fruits and vegetables are well established and have been attributed to bioactive secondary metabolites present in edible plants. However, the effects of specific health-related phytochemicals within a complex food matrix are difficult to assess. In
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Benefits to health from a high consumption of fruits and vegetables are well established and have been attributed to bioactive secondary metabolites present in edible plants. However, the effects of specific health-related phytochemicals within a complex food matrix are difficult to assess. In an attempt to address this problem, we have used elicitation to improve the nutraceutical content of seedlings of
Brassica oleracea grown under controlled conditions. Analysis, by LC-MS, of the glucosinolate, isothiocyanate and phenolic compound content of juices obtained from sprouts indicated that elicitation induces an enrichment of several phenolics, particularly of the anthocyanin fraction. To test the biological activity of basal and enriched juices we took advantage of a recently developed in vitro model of inflamed human intestinal epithelium. Both sprouts’ juices protected intestinal barrier integrity in Caco-2 cells exposed to tumor necrosis factor α under marginal zinc deprivation, with the enriched juice showing higher protection. Multivariate regression analysis indicated that the extent of rescue from stress-induced epithelial dysfunction correlated with the composition in bioactive molecules of the juices and, in particular, with a group of phenolic compounds, including several anthocyanins, quercetin-3-Glc, cryptochlorogenic, neochlorogenic and cinnamic acids.
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