Mass spectrometry in nutrition: Understanding dietary health effects at the molecular level

Abstract

In modern nutrition research, mass spectrometry has developed into a tool to assess health, sensory as well as quality and safety aspects of food. In this review, we focus on health-related benefits of food components and, accordingly, on biomarkers of exposure (bioavailability) and bioefficacy. Current nutrition research focuses on unraveling the link between dietary patterns, individual foods or food constituents and the physiological effects at cellular, tissue and whole body level after acute and chronic uptake. The bioavailability of bioactive food constituents as well as dose-effect correlations are key information to understand the impact of food on defined health outcomes. Both strongly depend on appropriate analytical tools to identify and quantify minute amounts of individual compounds in highly complex matrices-food or biological fluids-and to monitor molecular changes in the body in a highly specific and sensitive manner. Based on these requirements, mass spectrometry has become the analytical method of choice with broad applications throughout all areas of nutrition research. The current review focuses on selected areas of application: protein and peptide as well as nutrient and metabolite analysis. #

Biodisponibilidade de ácidos fenólicos

“…A hifenação de detectores do tipo espectrômetro de massas aos sistemas de CLAE trouxe grandes avanços para este campo de estudos por permitir a identificação e/ou caracterização dos metabólitos formados após a ingestão, 5,8,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] pois permite a análise de quantidades diminutas e é capaz de fornecer um diagnóstico da estrutura química dos compostos.…”

“…Biomarcadores, neste contexto, correspondem a "uma propriedade observável de um organismo, a qual indica mudanças em componentes celulares ou bioquímicos, em sua estrutura ou função, e que pode ser medida em sistemas biológicos". 5 O estabelecimento de biomarcadores é essencial para a compreensão da absorção, transporte e metabolismo de um determinado CBA que produz um determinado efeito, em determinado alvo fisiológico (tecido) e em concentração estabelecida.…”

Role of proteomics in nutrigenomics and nutrigenetics

“…Dietary components appear in complex mixtures and, hence, not only the concentrations of single compounds but also the interactions between them have an impact on final ingredient bioavailability and bioefficacy [4]. Proteins are the key actors in virtually all biological processes in the human body.…”

“…Current mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomic platforms can deliver a dynamic range of 10 4 . This means that the remaining, as such inaccessible, low-abundance proteome has to be addressed by either depletion of the most-abundant proteins (e.g., by the commercially available multiple affinity removal system that specifically removes the top seven or even 14 plasma proteins) [17], or by selective enrichment of low-abundance proteins (e.g., by the immobilized metal affinity chromatography or titanium dioxide techniques for phosphoproteins [18], lectins [19] or the cell-surface capture technique for glycoproteins [20]).…”

Genotypic, grain morphological and locality variation in rice phytate content and phytase activity

“…The phytate level in whole rice grain would depend on food matrix, co-occurrence of other components and agronomic conditions, which are generally categorized as genotype and environmental effects (Kussmann et al, 2007). The influence from genotype and environment are widely reported in cereal plants but their effects often varied (Liu et al, 2005;Polycarpe Kayodè et al, 2006;Dai et al, 2007;Mahmood et al, 2010).…”