Gianluca Picariello

Italian National Research Council | CNR · Institute of Food Sciences ISA, Avellino, Italy

We investigated the digestive peptide profiles of pea and faba bean proteins to evaluate possible bioactive peptides (BAPs), and to test immune-modulating properties of selected peptides using in vitro cell model. More than 400 unique peptides were released upon gastrointestinal digestion of pea and faba bean proteins and identified by high-resolut...

The impact of papain and/or ultrasound treatments on tenderization of semitendinosus muscle through a proteomic approach was studied. Sixteen bovine muscles were submitted to the following treatments: aging at 3 °C (Control), papain injection (PI), ultrasound (US), PI followed by US (PIUS) and US followed by PI (USPI). pH, myofibrillar fragmentatio...

Sweet cherries (Prunus avium L.) are greatly appreciated fruits worldwide due to their taste, color, nutritional value, and beneficial health effects. The characterization of autochthonous germplasm allows to identify genotypes that possess superior characteristics compared to standard cultivars. In this work, four accessions of sweet cherry from t...

A recently optimized rapid, cheap, and accurate coulometric method has been exploited to determine the antioxidant capacity of bergamot (Citrus bergamia Risso) by-products, including first (FPJ) and second press juices (SPJ), in comparison to analogous products from several citrus species. Extracts from the entire edible part (i.e., juice and pulp)...

Despite the physiological importance of the hydrolases from the intestinal brush border membrane (BBM), a step simulating the intestinal digestion has not been included yet in the harmonized protocols of in vitro digestion, due to commercial unavailability of these enzymes and lack of consensus for the conditions of use. The proper utilize of BBM r...

The effects of mulching films on the profiles of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from two strawberry cultivars, namely Elide and Sabrina, were evaluated by headspace solid-phase microextraction coupled to gas chromatography mass spectrometry (HS-SPME/GC-MS). Strawberries were grown on two biodegradable mulching films, named N5 and N18, in compari...

A dedicated two-step purification procedure prior to nanoliquid chromatography-electrospray-tandem mass spectrometry analysis enabled the identification of bovine milk-derived peptides absorbed and circulating in the plasma of three healthy volunteers who received 250 mL of pasteurized milk after a 10-days washout. The appearance and clearance of m...

Background Various bioactive peptides are present in foods and food protein hydrolysates, or are generated in the stomach/intestine of organisms after digestion of dietary proteins. Those resisting gastrointestinal degradation can exert local effects in the gut or systemic effects in the organism body as result of their transport across the intesti...

In the main strawberry areas of Southern Italy, cultivation is carried out by transplanting plants on raised beds (30–40 cm from ground level), mulched with black polyethylene (PE). This technique has becoming increasingly expensive due to the growing prices of plastic mulches, the cost to remove them at the end of crop cycle, and the difficulty to...

Electronic nose (e-nose), attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy and image analysis (IA) were used to discriminate the ripening stage (half-red or red) of strawberries (cv Sabrosa, commercially named Candonga), harvested at three different times (H1, H2 and H3). Principal component analysis (PCA) performed on...

The use of enzymes from the brush border membrane (BBM) in simulated gastrointestinal digestion of milk proteins has been evaluated. With this purpose, the resistant sequences from casein and milk whey proteins after INFOGEST in vitro digestion with and without BBM have been analyzed by tandem mass spectrometry. The use of BBM revealed additional c...

Lactiplantibacillus strains (n. 77) were screened for technological properties (e.g., xylose fermentation, EPS production, antimicrobial activity, tolerance to NaCl and phenolic compounds, oleuropein degradation and hydroxytyrosol formation) relevant for the production of fermented table olives. Survival to olive mill wastewater (OMW) and to simula...

Tritordeum results from the crossbreeding of a wild barley (Hordeum chilense) species with durum wheat (Triticum turgidum spp. turgidum). This hexaploid crop exhibits agronomic and rheological characteristics like soft wheat, resulting in an innovative raw material to produce baked goods. We applied a gel-based proteomic approach on refined flours...

The phenolic compounds of extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) are key contributors of nutritional and sensory quality as well as chemical stability. The reference method for their determination is the HPLC-UV, which is cost-/time-expensive. In this work, total phenolic compounds were evaluated in unfractionated EVOO adapting the Fast Blue BB (FBBB) assay...

Protein expression from the berry skin of four red grape biotypes with varying hybrid character was compared at a proteome-wide level to identify the metabolic pathways underlying divergent patterns of secondary metabolites. A bottom-up shotgun proteomics approach with label-free quantification and MaxQuant-assisted computational analysis was appli...

Omic sciences such as metabolomic, lipidomic, and proteomic were used for characterizing and identifying chemical compounds from seed germs such as flavonoids, lipids, and proteins of different species of Prosopis. Reversed phase-HPLC-diode array detector and nanoflow-HPLC coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) were used. Fatty acids of Prosop...

Volatile compounds, quality traits (total phenols and antioxidant capacity) and High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-isolated polyphenols of strawberries, variety Sabrosa, commercially referred to as “Candonga”, harvested at three different times (H1, H2 and H3) and at two different ripening stages, namely half-red (Half-red-H1, Half-red-H...

The objective of this study was to characterize the insoluble and soluble dietary fiber present in Argentine and Italian artichoke (Cynara scolymus) by-products by comparing chemical analysis and ATR-FTIR spectroscopy. Non-edible bracts of Argentine (AR) and Italian (Benevento (BN) and Sicily (SC)) artichoke cultivars were employed. The soluble and...

Current approaches based on electrophoretic, chromatographic or immunochemical principles have allowed characterizing multiple allergens, mapping their epitopes, studying their mechanisms of action, developing detection and diagnostic methods and therapeutic strategies for the food and pharmaceutical industry. However, some of the common structural...

Volatile and phenolic compounds of four onion landraces (Airola, Alifana, Montoro and Vatolla) cultivated in Campania region (southern Italy) were compared. Overall, 31 volatiles were identified in the four landraces including: sulfur metabolites (19), aldehydes (7), alcohols (2), acids (2) and others (3). Phenolic compounds, assigned using high pe...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the dynamics of proteolysis during dough fermentation started with different lactic acid bacteria species, through the identification of intermediate and small-sized peptides generated during fermentation. Single-strain cultures of Levilactobacillus brevis, Fructilactobacillus sanfranciscensis, Companilactobaci...

Antioxidant capacity of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) is associated with the overall content of health-promoting compounds, including biophenols. In this work, antioxidant capacity of polar extracts from 42 EVOO and 3 edible seed oil samples was evaluated by constant-current coulometry, using Br2 electrogenerated at a Pt anode as the titrant and bi...

Several formulas are available for the dietary treatment of cow’s milk allergy (CMA). Clinical data suggest potentially different effect on immune tolerance elicited by these formulas. We aimed to comparatively evaluate the tolerogenic effect elicited by the protein fraction of different formulas available for the dietary treatment of CMA. Five for...

Infant Milk Formula (IMF) is designed as a breastmilk substitute to satisfy the nutritional requirements during the first months of life. This study investigates the effects of two IMF processing technologies on cow milk protein digestion using an infant static in vitro gastrointestinal model. The degree of protein hydrolysis at the end of the gast...

The sensory traits of Pecorino di Carmasciano (PdC), an artisanal ewe‐milk cheese produced in Irpinia (Southern Italy), are believed to arise from grazing grass growing on a soil rich in sulphurated compounds. Volatiles of nine PdC samples obtained by solid‐phase microextraction gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry have been compared to those of si...

The ethno-pharmaceutical use of the edible fixed oil produced from lentisk (Pistacia lentiscus) berries covers a long tradition in several Mediterranean regions. Many of the health-promoting properties of lentisk berry oil (LBO) have been associated with the content of polar (poly)phenolic compounds. However, the polar fraction (methanol 80%, v/v)...

Donkey's milk (DM) has been extensively investigated as a valuable substitute of breast milk, often suitable to manage cow's milk protein allergy in infants. DM exhibits potent inhibitory properties against numerous microbial species. Although oligosaccharides and lipids might contribute to the antimicrobial potential, the current inventory of prot...

Using a range of chromatographic, spectroscopic, and mass spectrometric analytical techniques, we characterized one of the “edible items” found at the Vesuvius archeological sites and guarded at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples (MANN) in Naples, Italy. We authenticated the specimen contained in a glass bottle (Mann-S1 sample) as origina...

The lipid fraction of durum wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. durum (Desf.) Husn.), cultivar Svevo, was characterized during grain maturation. Growing grain kernels were harvested at five key stages of development between 5 and 30 days post anthesis (dpa). Lipid evolution was assessed during kernel filling by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS...

Celiac disease (CeD) is an autoimmune enteropathy triggered by immunogenic gluten peptides released during the gastrointestinal digestion of wheat. Our aim was to identify T cell epitope-containing peptides after ex vivo digestion of ancestral (einkorn, spelt and emmer) and common (hexaploid) wheat (Fram, Bastian, Børsum and Mirakel) using human ga...

Probiotic and synbiotic yogurt preparations were manufactured at semi-industrial pilot scale with L. acidophilus and Bifidobacteria strains without inulin or fortified with 1 and 3% (w/w) inulin. The pathway of casein breakdown was determined in probiotic, synbiotic, conventional yogurt and non-started milk base using HPLC-ESI-MS/MS-based peptidomi...

The protein/peptide composition of five beer kinds, including two experimental beer-like products brewed with einkorn (Triticum monococcum), a beer labeled as “gluten-free,” a traditional all-barley malt and a wheat (T. aestivum) containing beer, was characterized with HPLC-ESI MS/MS-based proteomics. To enlarge the characterization of the componen...

Heat treatments induce chemical/physical modifications, which may affect the stability to enzymatic digestion and consequently the allergenicity of food proteins to a varying extent, depending on the time/temperature regimen. Herein, we evaluated the stability to digestion of whole tree nut (walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds) allergens in a food diges...

Pistachio flour obtained from oil industry was nutritionally characterized for use as food ingredient in functional foods. Proximal composition, jointly with mineral content, amino acids and fatty acid profile were studied. In addition, different components present in this food ingredient have been analyzed by attenuated total reflectance Fourier t...

The fatty acid (FA) composition of human milk (HM) from N = 9 Italian healthy donors following a free diet exhibited FA-dependent ranges of variability, as assessed by GC-FID. The possible short-term changes in the FA profile were monitored in the milk of lactating mothers (three) collected at five time points over a 6 h period, following an oral l...

Recent studies suggested that gliadin proteins from the ancient diploid einkorn wheat Triticum monococcum retained a reduced number of immunogenic peptides for celiac disease patients because of a high in vitro digestibility with respect to hexaploid common wheat. In this study, we compared the immunological properties of gliadins from two Triticum...

The protein aggregation mechanism in UHT milk samples stored at ambient temperature for 1, 3 and 5 months was assessed in this study. Three phases of the UHT milks were studied: supernatants, dispersed phase and sediments. The supernatants showed a great variability, suggesting the presence of a dynamic arrangement within the protein system of UHT...

Prosopis alba and Prosopis nigra powders from pods were evaluated through chemical and mineral composition and other healthy food compounds such as polyphenols and fatty acids exhibiting antioxidant activity. P. nigra presented higher content of lipids and polyphenols leading to a higher antioxidant activity than P. alba. Although P. nigra presente...

Kashk is a typical dairy product of Iran, made from sour milk. It is traditionally produced from buttermilk in a dry, round-shaped form. Today, it is also produced at industrial level in a liquid form starting from fermented milk. We aimed to characterise the kashk proteome and peptidome comparing a traditional product with the industrial using a c...

Digestomics can be defined as the systematic characterization of the biomolecular complement produced by food digestion. Protein digestomics, that essentially corresponds to tracking the fate of dietary proteins in human body, assumes special relevance because food-derived peptides are virtually capable of inducing positive (health-promoting) or ne...

The present paper describes the generation of derivatives from the hybrid peptide called Ent35-MccV, active against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. This peptide has a triple glycine hinge region between enterocin CRL35 and microcin V. In order to obtain variants of Ent35-MccV with greater biotechnological potential, a saturation mutagenes...

This study investigated the simultaneous impact of food matrix and processing on the food allergy eliciting capacity of peanuts in a physiologically relevant context. Whole raw and roasted peanuts were subjected to in vitro digestion combining the harmonized oral-gastric-duodenal digestion models with brush border membrane enzymes (BBM) to simulate...

Total phenolic content and antioxidant activity of polar extracts of edible resources from Fedora hemp cultivar (Cannabis sativa L.), namely seed, flour and oil, were evaluated. The main components in the polar extracts were identified using HPLC-DAD and HPLC-ESI-MS/MS. As expected, the molecular profile of components from seeds and flour was stric...

Proteomics was exploited to assess the nature of possible traces of vomit found on the scene of an alleged sexual assault. In the case in point, a woman reported to the police to be raped five days before by a cousin of hers in his car. The woman declared she had vomited in the car before fainting definitely, due to alcohol or possible drugs covert...

This work aimed to study the opioid peptide β-casomorphin-7 (BCM7) degradation or stability during digestion using human gastrointestinal (GI) juices and porcine jejunal brush border membrane (BBM) peptidases. Synthetic BCM7 was subjected to in vitro digestion by GI fluids obtained from human volunteers for 180 min, and to downstream degradation wi...

Analyzing an in vitro gastroduodenal digest of whey proteins by HPLC coupled to high-resolution/high-sensitivity MS/MS, we sought to evaluate if state-of-art peptidomics provides comprehensive peptide coverage of a food “digestomes”. A multitude of small-sized peptides derived from both -lactalbumin and β-lactoglobulin as well as disulfide cross-l...

The current allergenicity assessment of novel proteins is based on the EFSA GMO guidance. Recently, EFSA launched a new guidance document on allergenicity assessment of GM plants (2017). This document describes, amongst other topics, the new scientific and regulatory developments on in vitro protein digestibility tests. The EFSA GMO Panel stated th...

The molecular weight distribution of protein aggregates from raw meat and cooked pork products was assessed by size exclusion–high performance liquid chromatography (SE–HPLC). Electrophoretic analysis under reducing conditions showed that the high molecular weight SE–HPLC peak (peak 1)of the cooked products contained protein aggregates in addition...

Heat-stable peptidases released in refrigerated raw milk by psychrotrophic bacteria are responsible for UHT milk gelation. K-casein-derived caseinomacropeptides, identified by mass spectrometry, were constantly detected in gelled milk by capillary electrophoresis. Strains of Pseudomonas fluorescens, Ps. poae and Chryseobacterium joostei, selected a...

Nanoflow-HPLC-tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) was used to analyze the peptide fraction of breast milk samples collected from a single non-atopic donor on different days (10 samples) after receiving an oral load of cow's milk (by drinking 200 mL of bovine milk). In addition, breast milk was sampled from the same lactating mother over a 6-h period a...

Most of the bread on the market contains several additional ingredients compared to those used for traditional baking (flour, water, yeast, and salt). Modern bread is often baked using enzymatic dough improvers, which, as technological aids, can be omitted on the label. Baking mixes also can contain varying percentages of hard fat or their derivati...

By virtue of exclusive nutrient composition and nutritional properties, seed germ flours from both European carob (Ceratonia siliqua L.) and South American algarrobo (Prosopis alba and Prosopis nigra) or vinal (Prosopis ruscifolia) have potential as a high nutritional value and health-promoting ingredient for food formulations. In order to define t...

A series of chemical and biochemical parameters of edible hemp resources (seeds, oil, and flour) from the monoecious EU registered hemp genotype Fedora, was determined, including fatty acid profile, phytosterol composition, total phenolics, antioxidant activity, macro-and micro-elements. The fatty acid ω-3/ω-6 approached the nutritionally optimal 3...

Flour from seed germ of European carob (Ceratonia siliqua) and South American algarrobo (Prosopis spp.) is a potential ingredient for health-promoting baked products. Herein, lipids from germ of three Argentinean Prosopis (P. alba, P. nigra, and P. ruscifolia) and one European carob species were characterized in detail, exploiting an array of up-to...

Diatoms are eukaryotic microalgae that play a pivotal role in biological and geochemical marine cycles. These microorganisms are at the basis of the trophic chain and their lipids are essential components (e.g. eicosapentaenoic acid, EPA) of aquatic food webs. Galactolipids are the primary lipid components of plastid membranes and form the largest...

Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.), traditionally cultivated for industrial use and harvested for fibers and seeds, has raised much interest as a sustainable crop in the last years. Recently, hemp seeds and derived oil have started to be used in a variety of food products. Hemp-based food products are considered less allergenic than those from other edible...

In this work, we explored the “deep” seed peanut proteome by using both two dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE)-based analysis run under reducing and non-reducing condition (protein-centric) and LC-MS/MS gel-free proteomic (peptide-centric). The former approach allowed to identify high molecular weight disulfide-linked Ara h 1 and Ara h 3 heteroligo...

A long-term psychiatric 40 years-old male patient was found dead at 9:00 a.m. in the clinic where he lived. Death was caused by traumatic injuries, which the sanitary staff imputed to a fall. Nurses declared that the patient refused having breakfast, whereas at autopsy the stomach contained 350 g of whitish semifluid material. Using both shotgun an...

Butyric acid (butyrate) is a candidate marker of milk fat in complex fat blends, since it is exclusive of milk triacylglycerols (TAGs) from different ruminant species. In this work, we determined the amount of milk fat used for the preparation of fat blends by ¹³C Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (¹³C NMR) spectroscopy-based quantification of butyrate. W...

Proteins determine several key sensory and technological properties of beer. Most of the protein components of beer are barley pathogenesis–related proteins, which endure the harsh brewing treatments. Due to their intrinsic resistance, they can also survive gastrointestinal digestion in humans, evoking immune responses in predisposed individuals. F...

Hazelnut (Corylus avellana) is widely used in food production in raw, roasted, salted, and paste form. Proteins are key components conferring favorable sensory, technological, and functional properties to hazelnut. For these reasons, the protein fraction of hazelnut has been the subject of extensive research over the last years. In addition, the co...

Heat treatment induces protein modifications in both cooked whole cuts of meat and in products such as emulsion sausages. Cooking results in shrinkage and water loss with the main proteins changing through conformational rearrangements, oxidation of amino acid residues, and polymeric aggregation (as supramolecular structures). The proteomes of whol...

The proteome of liver biopsies from human obese (O) subjects has been compared to those of nonobese (NO) subjects using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE). Differentially represented proteins were identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry (MS)-based peptide mass fingerprinting (PM...

Enzymatic dough improvers (DIs) are increasingly used as baking co-adjuvants. Herein, an array of techniques, including Western blotting, PCR, electrophoresis-based and shotgun proteomics, was addressed to identify the enzymes in six commercial DI preparations. In particular, this work sought to exclude the possible undeclared use of amylolytic enz...

Ovalbumin (OVA), a major allergen from hen's egg albumen, tends to aggregate when heated. Depending on the balance of attractive and repulsive interactions, heat-induced OVA aggregates have various morphologies, which differ in digestibility. In the context of food allergy to egg, we investigated the ability of native and thermally aggregated OVA a...

In vivo studies have demostrated that casein peptides released during gastrointestinal digestion cover a wide range of bioactive peptides and immunogenic sequences. Immunoreactive casein material has been detected in jejunum and ileum in. piglets. The development of in vitro digestion models is of great importance to provide alternatives to animal...