Large yellow croaker (Larimichthys crocea) is one of economic important mariculture fish species with abundant nutritional value, and usually stored at refrigerated temperature. Our study investigated the effects of temperature fluctuation and abuse on the quality of the large yellow croaker and further analyzed the volatile compounds as temperature abuse sensitivity or indicators during temperature fluctuations. We simulated a cold chain model that mapped the temperature of chilled large yellow croaker during land-sea freight. Temperature fluctuation caused a non-negligible effect on the quality of the large yellow croaker. Samples exposed to greater temperature fluctuation had a higher rise in total viable count (TVC), total volatile basic nitrogen content, K value, and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances value. Among them, TVC is the sensitive index to temperature fluctuation. A total of 81 typical target compounds were identified by using headspace-gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry. During temperature fluctuations, the concentration of volatile aldehydes, including pentanal, heptanal, nonanal, and octanal decreased, while the concentration of ketones and nitrogenous and heterocyclic compounds increased. Principal component analysis and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis showed that 2-pentanone and ethyl acetate were significantly correlated with the quality changes during temperature fluctuations, which could be the potential indicators for observing quality changes in large yellow croaker during temperature fluctuation.

Histamine in food has attracted widespread attention due to the potential toxicity and associated health risk. However, its influences on immunological components, especially the function of key immune cells, are still poorly known. In this work, we explored the effects of exogenous histamine on the function of key immune cells such as intestinal epithelial cells, dendritic cells, and T cells. The results showed that histamine could affect the expression of allergy-related genes in CMT93 cells at a high dose of histamine. Moreover, it’s found that histamine could cause an imbalance in the levels of relevant immune factors secreted by dendritic cells and T cells, especially those related to allergy. At the same time, the proportion of MHC class Ⅱ-positive dendritic cells and the proportion of T helper 2 (Th2) cells in CD4⁺ T cells increased after histamine stimulation. We concluded that the presence of a certain level of histamine in food may affect the expression of allergy-related cytokines, disrupt the balance of the immune homeostasis, and potentially lead to adverse immune reactions. This work demonstrated the importance of including the estimation of histamine’s immune safety in aquatic products rather than merely considering the potential risk of food poisoning.

Hyperuricemia, a metabolic disorder related to uric acid metabolism dysregulation, has become a common metabolic disease worldwide, due to changes in lifestyle and dietary structure. In recent years, owing to their high activity and few adverse effects, food-derived active peptides used as functional foods against hyperuricemia have attracted increasing attention. This article aims to focus on the challenge associated with peptide-specific preparation methods development, functional components identification, action mechanism(s) clarification, and bioavailability improvement. The current review proposed recent advances in producing the food-derived peptides with high anti-hyperuricemia activity by protein source screening and matched enzymatic hydrolysis condition adjusting, increased the knowledge about strategies to search antihyperuricemia peptides with definite structure, and emphasized the necessity of combining computer-aided approaches and activity evaluations. In addition, novel action mechanism mediated by gut microbiota was discussed, providing different insights from classical mechanism. Moreover, considering that little attention was paid previously on the structure-activity relationships of anti-hyperuricemia peptides, we collected the sequences from published studies and make a preliminary summary about the structure-activity relationships, which in turn provided guides for enzymatic hydrolysis optimization and bioavailability improvement. Hopefully, this article could promote the development, application and commercialization of food-derived anti-hyperuricemia peptides in the future.

Gluten, known as the major allergen in wheat, has gained increasing concerns in industrialized countries, resulting in an urgent need for accurate, high-sensitive, and on-site detection of wheat gluten in complex food systems. Herein, we proposed a silver nanoparticles (AgNPs)/metal-organic framework (MOF) substrate-based surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensor for the high-sensitive on-site detection of wheat gluten. The detection occurred on the newly in-situ synthesized AgNPs/MOF-modified SERS substrate, providing an enhancement factor (EF) of 1.89 × 10⁵. Benefitting from the signal amplification function of AgNPs/MOF and the superiority of SERS, this sensor represented high sensitivity performance and a wide detection range from 1 × 10^-15 mol/L to 2 × 10^-6 mol/L with a detection limit of 1.16 × 10^-16 mol/L, which allowed monitoring the trace of wheat gluten in complex food system without matrix interference. This reliable sandwich SERS sensor may provide a promising platform for high-sensitive, accurate, and on-site detection of allergens in the field of food safety.

N-glycans in many proteins are of great concern because of their strong association with food allergies. Triticum aestivum (bread wheat), a major food crop, is known as one of the "Big Eight" allergenic groups. However, little research has been done about N-glycans in wheat glycoproteins. In this study, a soluble wheat glycoprotein was purified from wheat and further identified as globulin-1 S allele (GSA). The wheat GSA displayed significant IgE-binding activity. Moreover, one N-glycosylation site and 6 kinds of N-glycans were identified by mass spectrometry, including 3 high mannose types and 3 complex types. Furthermore, the IgE-binding activity of wheat GSA is proved to be reduced by the removal of N-glycan, thermal treatment (temperatures > 80 ℃), and strong acidic treatment (pH 3.0). These findings would provide a better understanding of the effects of N-glycosylation, thermal treatment, and acidic treatment on the molecular characteristics of GSA, and further provide new insights into the development of hypoallergenic wheat products.