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Potential and Challenges of Plant-Based Bioactive Compounds as Functional Food...
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Potential and Challenges of Plant-Based Bioactive Compounds as Functional Food Ingredients

A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Nutraceuticals, Functional Foods, and Novel Foods".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 29 July 2024 | Viewed by 1967

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Xin Wen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
Interests: bioactive components; carotenoids; polyphenols; natural products; functional food; sustainable food processing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Mo Li

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
Interests: bioactive components; polyphenols; peptides; micronutrients, functional food; vegetable and fruits processing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With increasing attention on human health and environment, functional foods using plant-based bioactive compounds has attracted more and more interest, owing to their health promotion ability, natural sources, and environmentally friendliness. Plant-based bioactive compounds including polyphenols (flavonoids, phenolic acids, anthocyanins, etc.), terpenoids (carotenoids, steroids, cannabinoids, etc.), polysaccharides, peptides, alkaloids, saponins, etc., possess various bioactive functions, such as antioxidant, anticancer, hypotensive, hypolipidemic capacities, etc., presenting great potential as functional food ingredients. However, they face enormous challenges during their application in functional food; for example, they are not stable under various environmental conditions, such as light, temperature, pH, or ionic changes. The unpleasant taste of some bioactive compounds including alkaloids, peptides, etc., are hard for consumers to accept. Additionally, their bioavailability is not satisfied during the gastrointestinal absorption. Therefore, various strategies have been proposed to conquer these challenges, such as diverse delivery systems including nanoemulsion, microencapsulation, etc., which have been developed to improve the stability of plant-based bioactive compounds during storage, to cover up unpleasant taste, or to enhance the bioavailability and bioactivity through controlled or targeted release. Promising techniques aim to facilitate the application of bioactive compounds in functional food will further accelerate the advances of functional food industry.

Dr. Xin Wen
Dr. Mo Li
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • polyphenols
  • terpenoids
  • polysaccharides
  • peptides
  • alkaloids
  • bioactive compounds
  • functional food
  • taste
  • stability
  • bioavailability

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 4142 KiB  
Article
Deep Eutectic Solvents as New Extraction Media for Flavonoids in Mung Bean
by Jingyu Gao, Longli Xie, Yu Peng, Mo Li, Jingming Li, Yuanying Ni and Xin Wen
Foods 2024, 13(5), 777; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods13050777 - 01 Mar 2024
Viewed by 681
Abstract
Mung beans contain abundant flavonoids like vitexin and isovitexin, which contribute to their strong bioactivities, such as antioxidant effects, so efforts should focus on extracting bioactive flavonoids as well as aligning with the goal of green extraction for specific applications. Deep eutectic solvent [...] Read more.
Mung beans contain abundant flavonoids like vitexin and isovitexin, which contribute to their strong bioactivities, such as antioxidant effects, so efforts should focus on extracting bioactive flavonoids as well as aligning with the goal of green extraction for specific applications. Deep eutectic solvent coupled with ultrasound-assisted extraction (DES-UAE) was applied to extract flavonoids from mung beans, and eight different DESs were compared on the extraction yield. In addition, the traditional extraction method with 30% ethanol was performed as the reference. The results showed that ethylene glycol-glycolic acid achieved the highest yield among all the DESs, 1.6 times that of the reference values. Furthermore, the DES-UAE parameters were optimized as a 60 mL/g liquid–solid ratio, 30% water content in DES, 200 W ultrasonic power, 67 °C ultrasonic temperature, and 10 min extraction time, leading to the DES extract with the maximum extraction yield of 2339.45 ± 42.98 μg/g, and the significantly stronger DPPH and ABTS radical scavenging ability than the traditional extract. Therefore, employing DES and ultrasonic extraction together offers a green method for extracting flavonoids from mung beans, advancing the development and utilization of plant-derived effective components in a sustainable manner. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Potential and Challenges of Plant-Based Bioactive Compounds as Functional Food Ingredients)
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20 pages, 6820 KiB  
Article
Synergistic Hydrolysis of Soy Proteins Using Immobilized Proteases: Assessing Peptide Profiles
by Yuhong Mao, Lan Chen, Luyan Zhang, Yangyang Bian and Chun Meng
Foods 2023, 12(22), 4115; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods12224115 - 13 Nov 2023
Viewed by 938
Abstract
Because of the health benefits and economic opportunities, extracting bioactive peptides from plant proteins, often food processing by-products, garners significant interest. However, the high enzyme costs and the emergence of bitter peptides have posed significant challenges in production. This study achieved the immobilization [...] Read more.
Because of the health benefits and economic opportunities, extracting bioactive peptides from plant proteins, often food processing by-products, garners significant interest. However, the high enzyme costs and the emergence of bitter peptides have posed significant challenges in production. This study achieved the immobilization of Alcalase and Flavorzyme using cost-effective SiO2 microparticles. Mussel-inspired chemistry and biocompatible polymers were employed, with genipin replacing glutaraldehyde for safer crosslinking. This approach yielded an enzyme loading capacity of approximately 25 mg/g support, with specific activity levels reaching around 180 U/mg for immobilized Alcalase (IA) and 35 U/mg for immobilized Flavorzyme (IF). These immobilized proteases exhibited improved activity and stability across a broader pH and temperature range. During the hydrolysis of soy proteins, the use of immobilized proteases avoided the thermal inactivation step, resulting in fewer peptide aggregates. Moreover, this study applied peptidomics and bioinformatics to profile peptides in each hydrolysate and identify bioactive ones. Cascade hydrolysis with IA and IF reduced the presence of bitter peptides by approximately 20%. Additionally, 50% of the identified peptides were predicted to have bioactive properties after in silico digestion simulation. This work offers a cost-effective way of generating bioactive peptides from soy proteins with reducing potential bitterness. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Potential and Challenges of Plant-Based Bioactive Compounds as Functional Food Ingredients)
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