Opportunities for plant‐derived enhancers for iron, zinc, and calcium bioavailability: A review

Abstract

Understanding of the mechanism of interactions between dietary elements, their salts, and complexing/binding ligands is vital to manage both deficiency and toxicity associated with essential element bioavailability. Numerous mineral ligands are found in both animal and plant foods and are known to exert bioactivity via element chelation resulting in modulation of antioxidant capacity or micobiome metabolism among other physiological outcomes. However, little is explored in the context of dietary mineral ligands and element bioavailability enhancement, particularly with respect to ligands from plant‐derived food sources. This review highlights a novel perspective to consider various plant macro/micronutrients as prospective bioavailability enhancing ligands of three essential elements (Fe, Zn, and Ca). We also delineate the molecular mechanisms of the ligand‐binding interactions underlying mineral bioaccessibility at the luminal level. We conclude that despite current understandings of some of the structure–activity relationships associated with strong mineral–ligand binding, the physiological links between ligands as element carriers and uptake at targeted sites throughout the gastrointestinal (GI) tract still require more research. The binding behavior of potential ligands in the human diet should be further elucidated and validated using pharmacokinetic approaches and GI models.

Enhanced Nutritional Quality of Sweet Maize Kernel in Response to Cover Crops and Bio-Fertilizer

“…In general, higher values of ratio between phytic acid and essential elements were noticed in BF variant, contributing to the increased availability of essential macro-and micro-elements from poorly accessible forms [13,14,44]. It is important to emphasize that enhanced absorption of essential elements from the maize kernel during digestion could be enhanced by the increased YP concentration [18,19], what was obtained in variants without BF.…”

“…However, some other constituents, like vitamin C, carotenoids, amino acids, glutathione, etc. are substances that enhance the bio-availability of minerals (promoters) [18,19].…”

Effect of Enzymatic Hydrolysis on the Zinc Binding Capacity and in vitro Gastrointestinal Stability of Peptides Derived From Pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo L.) Seeds

“…Specifically, studies showed that zinc may bind to the acidic side chain of protein, phosphorylated residue, deprotonated nitrogen, and sulfur residues of amino acids and peptides. While functional groups including thiol group (cysteine, glutathione), imizadole group (hisidine), as well as asparagine and glutamine residues, phosphorylated residues, and methionine all contributed to the increased chelation capacities of zinc ( 33 ). The amino acid profiles of pumpkin seed protein and five enzymatic hydrolysates were shown in Table 1 .…”

“…As shown in Figure 5 , the zinc binding capacity of PSPHs were 64.7 ± 9.1% for PSPH-Bro, 62.5 ± 5.6% for PSPH-Alc, 57.9 ± 3.8% for PSPH-Fla, 76.3 ± 8.7% for PSPH-Pap, and 39.3 ± 3.0% for PSPH-Try, respectively. Zinc binding capacity of a certain peptide is predominately determined by the amino acid composition and arrangement of that specific peptide ( 33 ). According to the above-mentioned results, PSPH-Pap had the largest average molecular weight of 3,312 Da and contained the highest content of amino acid that tend to chelate with zinc.…”

Calcium Biofortification of Crops–Challenges and Projected Benefits

“…Phytate to Ca molar ratios are used to predict Ca bioavailability; the phytate:Camolar ratio above 0.24 is shown to impair Ca absorption (Morris and Ellis, 1989). Food processing approaches, such as germination, fermentation, and thermal treatments, are generally seen as promising tools for increasing Ca bioavailability, as they tend to reduce the amounts of phytate and improve Ca bioaccessibility (Zhang et al, 2020b).…”