Vascular oxidative stress serves as a pathological foundation for various vascular injury-related diseases, including atherosclerosis, hypertension, restenosis, and abdominal aortic aneurysms. Recent studies have indicated that the intestinal flora-derived metabolites phenylacetylglutamine (PAGln) and phenylacetylglycine (PAGly) may contribute to the promotion of thrombosis, heart failure, and other related conditions. Aucubin (AU), an iridoid glycoside, has been shown to exhibit anti-cardiovascular properties. Nevertheless, the precise role and underlying mechanisms by which AU mitigates PAGly-induced vascular injury remain poorly understood. Our results indicated that PAGln/PAGly promoted oxidative stress in vascular endothelial cells (ECs) and vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) in vitro and in vivo. Network pharmacology suggest that AU may possess the capacity to regulate lipid and atherosclerosis, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) processes. We found that AU penetrated the blood vessels and mitigated oxidative stress induced by PAGln/PAGly. Mechanistically, combined the results from intersections analysis between the targets of AU and vascular diseases and molecular docking, we found that TNF may be the potential target of AU. Further DARTS and molecular docking analysis demonstrated that AU bound to recombinant TNF-α, and AU could interact with multiple amino acid residues of TNF-α including Asn-92 and Phe-144. Additionally, PAGly upregulated the level of soluble TNF-α (sTNF-α) in mouse VSMCs and plasma, and promoted the interaction between sTNF-α and TNF receptor 1 (TNFR1), whereas AU inhibited this interaction. Both AU and Infliximab, a specific monoclonal antibody of TNF-α, inhibit TNF-α-induced ROS production. In summary, our results revealed that TNF-α is a cellular target of AU, and the interaction between AU and sTNF-α may mitigate PAGln/PAGly-induced vascular oxidative stress by inhibiting the interaction of TNF-α-TNFR1.

Exosomes are extracellular vesicles (EVs) with a diameter of 30-150 nm. They are widely involved in intercellular communication and disease diagnosis, and can serve as drug delivery carriers for targeted disease treatment. Due to the lack of sufficient sources and methods to obtain exosomes, their therapeutic application as drug carriers is limited. Milk contains abundant exosomes. Multiple studies have shown that milk-derived exosomes play a crucial role in preventing and treating intestinal diseases. This article reviews the extraction and identification methods of milk-derived exosomes reported in the literature. It also discusses the role of milk-derived exosomes in regulating intestinal physiological functions by protecting the intestinal barrier, alleviating intestinal inflammation, regulating the intestinal microbiota, and promoting intestinal cell proliferation. Milk-derived exosomes have various advantages such as no adverse immune reactions or inflammatory reactions. Understanding the regulatory mechanism of milk-derived exosomes on intestinal physiological functions can help further study their role in preventing and treating intestinal diseases.

Organoids are derived from adult or pluripotent stem cells through in vitro differentiation, which can recapitulate the cellular diversity, spatial organization, and physiological functions of in vivo organs or tissues. Organoid models have been widely used in drug development, precision medicine and other fields, and have begun to be applied in the field of food safety. This paper briefly introduces the development history, classification and construction of organoids and their application in the metabolomics, nutritional and functional evaluation of milk and dairy products and research on their roles in intestinal protection. It also summarizes problems existing in the construction of organoid models and discusses future prospects for their application in milk and dairy products in order to provide a reference for further application of organoid models in various fields including food safety and nutrition.

Cornus officinalis Sieb. et Zucc., a valuable Chinese medicine resource, has a long clinic utilization history. In recent years, more researches focus on the chemical composition and pharmacological activity of C. officinalis which was used as health foods and drugs. This paper summarized the active ingredients, pharmacological activities and molecular mechanisms of C. officinalis in recent 5 years to provide reference for the development and utilization of C. officinalis. One hundred and forty-nine active constituents of C. officinalis were summarized, including iridoids (64), flavonoids (18), lignin (17), tannins (16), organic acids and phenolic acids (14), triterpenes (11) and others (9), which were further subdivided according to their pharmacological effects. It was found that the pharmacological effects of C. officinalis were very extensive, mainly including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, neuroprotective and other biological activities. Among these activities, the anti-inflammatory and hypoglycemic mechanisms showed multi-pathway and multi-target characteristics, which were elaborated systematically. However, there are still many compounds in C. officinalis that have not been studied for biological activity, which means that it still has potential pharmacological activity to be further studied. C. officinalis not only has high medicinal value, but also has a potential edible resource. However, limited by people's understanding of the nutritional value of C. officinalis, few product types and incomplete processing technology, people's acceptance of the edible value of C. officinalis is not high, and it needs to be further developed and utilized.

Flammulina velutipes polysaccharides (FVP) have been reported to exhibit excellent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. This study further investigated the efficacy and mechanism of action of FVP in alleviating vascular injury induced by benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) in mice. The expression of vascular inflammatory cytokines was assessed through immunohistochemistry analysis. Flow cytometry was used to analyze the proportion of pro-inflammatory cells in the peripheral blood and spleen as well as the composition of hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) subsets in bone marrow. The results demonstrated that FVP treatment mitigated the expression of vascular pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin-6, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 and intercellular cell adhesion molecule-1 in mice induced by BaP. Moreover, FVP treatment significantly inhibited the increases in the proportions of monocytes, macrophages and neutrophils in the peripheral blood and those of macrophages and neutrophils in the spleen of BaP-induced mice. Further analysis of bone marrow HSC subsets revealed that BaP exposure elevated the proportions of hematopoietic progenitor cells and granulocyte-macrophage progenitor cells in mouse bone marrow, while reducing the proportions of hematopoietic stem cells and common myeloid progenitor cells, which were reversed by FVP treatment, thus restoring bone marrow HSC subsets to the level of the healthy control group. At the cellular level, FVP suppressed BaP-induced oxidative stress in Raw264.7 cells. Taken together, FVP alleviate BaP-induced vascular inflammatory injury by maintaining the homeostasis of the bone marrow hematopoietic system, thereby regulating the output of pro-inflammatory cells into the circulatory system, and down-regulating the proportion of peripheral pro-inflammatory cells.

Meat and meat products are an essential part of the human diet. Being nutritious, they are easily contaminated by foodborne pathogens, which causes serious damage to human health. Therefore, the prevention and control of foodborne pathogen contamination in meat and meat products is of great importance for food safety. In order to deeply understand the relationship between foodborne pathogens and epithelial cells in the whole infection process, it is a prerequisite to establish an effective intestinal evaluation model. Accordingly, this paper summarizes the infection status of common foodborne pathogens in meat and meat products, and discusses the in vivo and in vitro models currently used to assess the infection of foodborne pathogens. Among them, intestinal organoids, a new model to evaluate the infection mechanism of foodborne pathogens, have great potential in the research of the pathogenic mechanism, cell and tissue tropism. Therefore, this paper focuses on the current status of the application of intestinal organoid models in research on the infection mechanism of foodborne pathogens, and discusses the characteristics and problems of the current intestinal organoid models as well as future development directions.

Microplastics (MPs) in food have aroused widespread concern, and it has been clarified that MPs have toxic effects on cells, animals and human organoids, and that the cytotoxicity is inversely proportional to the particle size of MPs, and positively proportional to the concentration of MPs and the time of exposure; in experimental animal models, the toxic effects of MPs mainly occur in the digestive, nervous, respiratory, reproductive, and cardiovascular systems; the hazardous effects of MPs have also been identified in the human organoids of liver, intestine, heart and brain. The contamination of MPs in dairy products may occur at different stages of the production process. This paper reviews the sources, toxicological effects and detection methods of MPs contamination in dairy products, with the aim of providing a reference for the risk prevention and control of MPs in dairy products and for future research.

A droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) method for the quantitative detection Acetobacter aceti in fermented milk was established. Specific primers and probes were designed according to the internally transcribed spacer (ITS) gene sequence of Acetobacter aceti, and annealing temperature was optimized. The specificity of the method was verified by applying it on various strains, the limit of detection (LOD) was determined for artificially inoculated Acetobacter aceti, and the absolute quantification was systematically investigated by comparing the results of ddPCR and the counting results. The experimental results showed that the optimal annealing temperature was 54.6 ℃, the method had strong specificity and high sensitivity, and the LOD was 7.2 × 10¹ CFU/mL. The quantitative deviation rate was 23.73%. This method can meet the demand for quantitative detection of Acetobacter aceti in fermented milk.

Plant protein beverage adulteration occurs frequently, which may cause health problems for consumers due to the hidden allergens. Hence, a novel method was developed for authentication by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). Almond, peanut, walnut and soybean were hydrolyzed, followed by separation by NanoLC-Triple TOF MS. The obtained fingerprints were identified by ProteinPilot^TM combined with Uniprot, and 16 signature peptides were selected. Afterwards, plant protein beverages treated by trypsin hydrolysis were analyzed with UPLC-MS/MS. This method showed a good linear relationship with R² > 0.99403. The limit of quantification (LOQ) were 0.015, 0.01, 0.5 and 0.05 g/L for almond, peanut, walnut and soybean, respectively. Mean recoveries ranged from 84.77% to 110.44% with RSDs < 15%. The developed method was successfully applied to the adulteration detection of 31 plant protein beverages to reveal adulteration and false labeling. Conclusively, this method could provide technical support for authentication of plant protein beverages to protect the rights and health of consumers.

Inflammatory stimulation plays a significant role in the development and worsening of insulin-resistant diabetes. Therefore, it is crucial to identify therapeutic agents that can alleviate insulin resistance by targeting inflammation. Here, we present evidence that Bakuchiol (BL), a monoterpene phenolic compound first discovered from Psoralea corylifolia L. as traditional Chinese medicine, can effectively improve insulin resistance in diabetic mice through anti-inflammation. Our findings demonstrate that BL alleviates inflammation by inhibiting the toll-like receptor 4/nuclear factor κB/mitogen-activated protein kinase axis, consequently enhancing insulin receptor signaling through the c-Jun N-terminal kinase/suppressors of cytokine signaling 3/insulin receptor substrate1 pathway and improving glucolipid homeostasis. Furthermore, the insulin recovery achieved with BL (60 mg/kg) was comparable to that of metformin (200 mg/kg). These results provide further support for considering BL as a potential treatment option for insulin-resistant diabetes mellitus.