Luigi Lucini

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Plant-derived protein hydrolysates (PHs) are an important category of biostimulants able to increase plant growth and crop yield especially under environmental stress conditions. PHs can be applied as foliar spray or soil drench. Foliar spray is generally applied to achieve a relatively short-term response, whereas soil drench is used when a long-t...

Under global climate change forecasts, the pressure of environmental stressors (and in particular drought) on crop productivity is expected to rise and challenge further global food security. The application of beneficial microorganisms may represent an environment friendly tool to secure improved crop performance and yield stability. Accordingly,...

Designing and developing new biostimulants is a crucial process which requires an accurate testing of the product effects on the morpho-physiological traits of plants and a deep understanding of the mechanism of action of selected products. Product screening approaches using omics technologies have been found to be more efficient and cost effective...

The interest in gluten-free (GF) products increases together with the increase in gluten-sensitive people. However, GF foods might have decreased nutritional quality as compared to the gluten containing counterparts. In this work, an investigation of the phenolic and antioxidant profile in 18 GF flours belonging to legumes, cereals or pseudocereals...

Interest in using polyphenols as modulators of the activity of digestive enzymes is rapidly increasing. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the role of phenolic compounds characterising pigmented maize flours in the modulation of in vitro starch digestibility. Flours from three different pigmented maize varieties were evaluated under...

Buttafuoco dell'Oltrepo’ Pavese (or Buttafuoco) is an important and renowned red wine, protected by a Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC) designation established in 2010, produced in the Northern Italy in the province of Pavia (Italy). The knowledge of factors as the typical microbial terroir and the metabolite composition of the wine is fun...

Blackcurrants are sources of phenolic compounds, such as anthocyanins, possessing strong antioxidant, antimicrobial and antifungal activity. Therefore, the addition of different blackcurrant pomace ingredients may affect the overall meat quality. The actual chemical profile and bioactivities of blackcurrant pomace ingredients may strongly depend on...

Extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) is subjected to different frauds. This work aimed at integrating the untargeted phenolic and sterol signatures with supervised multivariate discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) for tracing the authenticity (as a function of variety, origin, and the blending) of Taggiasca Ligure, a renown...

Novel insights on the valorisation of onion (Allium cepa L.) are required to decipher its potential as nutritional and health-promoting agent. Wood vinegar (WV) was exogenously applied to onion plants to determine its effectiveness as an elicitor. An untargeted UHPLC-QTOF-MS metabolomics approach was combined with evaluating the bioactivities of on...

Wheat flour is one of the most prevalent foodstuffs for human consumption, and novel strategies are underway to enhance its nutritional properties. This work evaluated wholegrain flours from bread wheat lines with different amylose/amylopectin ratios through in vitro starch digestion and large intestine fermentation. High-amylose flours presented a...

Heat waves and drought stress are typical aspects of current climate change, significantly affecting the grapevine physiology in many world growing areas. Biostimulants can play an important role in reducing the negative effects of climate change; that’s why this experiment was set up in order to test two new foliar biostimulants (protein hydrolysa...

A multi-omics approach was adopted to investigate the impact of lactic acid fermentation and seed germination on the composition and physicochemical properties of rye doughs. Doughs were prepared with either native or germinated rye flour and fermented with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, combined or not with a sourdough starter including Limosilactobaci...

Individual behavior is one of the most influential factors affecting both environmental change and chronic disease development. To encourage behaviors bringing about environmental and health co-benefits, it is important to understand the underlying factors of behavior change for healthy and sustainable lifestyles. One area of potential overlap conc...

The application of microbial biostimulants to plants has revealed positive effects related to nutrients uptake, stress tolerance, root development and phenological growth. However, little information is available exploiting the potential synergistic biostimulant action of microbes on the functional quality of the yields. The current research elucid...

Plants have evolved diverse plant-species specific tolerance mechanisms to cope with salt stress. However, these adaptive strategies often inefficiently mitigate the stress related to increasing salinity. In this respect, plant-based biostimulants have gained increasing popularity since they can alleviate deleterious effects of salinity. Hence, thi...

In this study, untargeted metabolomics was used to shed light into the impact of different pasture-based diets on the chemical profile of Sarda sheep milk. The study considered 11 dairy sheep farms located in Sardinia, and milk samples were collected in 4 different periods, namely January, March, May, and July 2019, and the animal diet composition...

Salinity in water and soil is a critical issue for food production. Using biostimulants provides an effective strategy to protect crops from salinity-derived yield losses. The research supports the effectiveness of protein hydrolysate (PH) biostimulants based on their source material. A greenhouse experiment was performed on lettuce plants under co...

Thymus comosus Heuff ex. Griseb. (Lamiaceae) is a wild thyme species endemic for Romanian Carpathian areas, frequently collected as substitute for collective herbal product Serpylli herba, cited as antibacterial and diuretic remedy in traditional medicine. The present study aimed to evaluate the in vivo diuretic effect and in vitro antimicrobial pr...

The present study was designed to evaluate the functional potential of common duckweed (Lemna minor L.) as a source of bioactive compounds of nutraceutical interest. The untargeted profiling of the bioactive components of common duckweed was carried out through ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrome...

Polyphenols are multifaceted bioactive compounds, but little is known about their real impact on human health after consumption. In this work, the phenolic profiling of quebracho, yellow maize, and violet rice extracts was comprehensively investigated, together with the impact of in vitro digestion and colonic fermentation on the bioaccessibility a...

Climate change and abiotic stress challenges in crops are threatening world food production. Among others, salinity affects the agricultural sector by significantly impacting yield losses. Plant biostimulants have received increasing attention in the agricultural industry due to their ability to improve health and resilience in crops. The main driv...

Protein hydrolysate biostimulants are environmentally friendly options for the reduction of nitrogen input, but their plant growth-promoting mechanisms are still not completely unveiled. Here, to put the "signaling peptide theory" to the test, a greenhouse experiment was undertaken using low (1 mM) and optimal (8 mM) NO3-treated butterhead lettuce...

In this work, untargeted metabolomics was used to shed light into the impact of different pasture-based diets on the chemical profile of Sarda sheep milk. The study considered 11 dairy sheep farms located in Sardinia, and milk samples were collected in 4 different periods, namely January, March, May, and July 2019, when all sheep had 58, 98, 138, a...

This work aimed to investigate the influence of high-power ultrasound (HPU) technology on the stability of bioactive compounds in strawberry juices obtained from fruits with different stages of ripeness (75% vs. 100%) and stored at 4 °C for 7 days. HPU parameters were amplitude (25, 50, 75, and 100%), pulses (50 vs. 100%) and treatment time (5 vs....

The impact of combined heat and drought stress was investigated in Arabidopsis thaliana and compared to individual stresses to reveal additive effects and interactions. A combination of plant metabolomics and root and rhizosphere bacterial metabarcoding were used to unravel effects at the plant holobiont level. Hierarchical cluster analysis of meta...

The metabolic composition of thyme, one of the most used aromatic herbs, is influenced by environmental and post-harvest processing factors, presenting the possibility of exploiting thyme fingerprint to assess its authenticity. In this study, a comprehensive UHPLC-QTOF-HRMS fingerprinting approach was applied with a dual objective: (1) tracing thym...

Consumers' demand for organic food has increased in the last years, together with a growing request for food authentication and safety. Omics technologies represent a viable analytical strategy to respond to such needs, strengthen food safety information transmission between consumers and industry, and differentiate between organic and conventional...

The current consumers' demand for food naturalness is urging the search for new functional foods of natural origin with enhanced health-promoting properties. In this sense, algae constitute an underexplored biological source of nutraceuticals that can be used to fortify food products. Both marine macroalgae (or seaweeds) and microalgae exhibit a my...

Lentils (Lens culinaris spp.) are promising legumes whose seed coats, the by-products produced from dehulling, can represent a valuable source of functional components. This work aimed at valorizing lentils seed coat as functional ingredients, by investigating its profile across 11 genotypes grown in two different growing locations in Italy. The to...

Increased soil salinity is one of the main concerns in agriculture and food production, and it negatively affects plant growth and crop productivity. In order to mitigate the adverse effects of salinity stress, plant biostimulants (PBs) have been indicated as a promising approach. Indeed, these products have a beneficial effect on plants by acting...

In the last years, animal proteins from meat and meat-derived products have represented one of the main concerns to achieve a sustainable food production. Within this perspective, the partial replacement of meat with non-meat substances having a high protein content, offers interesting opportunities to reformulate more sustainable meat products cha...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) have gained remarkable importance, having been proved to alleviate drought stress-induced damage in wheat due to their ability to ameliorate plant water use efficiency and antioxidant enzyme activity. However, despite the current relevance of the topic, the molecular and physiological processes at the base of this...

In this work, we studied the impact of encapsulated elderberry extracts as natural meat extenders to preserve both the quality and the oxidative stability of beef burgers. In particular, the comprehensive chemical changes of beef burgers treated with different antioxidants, namely, (a) a control without antioxidants, (b) 0.5 g/kg sodium erythorbate...

Thyme is one of Europe's most consumed aromatic herbs and represents a matrix susceptible to intentional mislabelling and food frauds. In this study, a phenolic profiling approach based on UHPLC-QTOF-HRMS untargeted metabolomics was used to trace its geographical origin, as well as to assess the effect of post-harvest processing by comparing steril...

Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) could provide a valid alternative to S. cerevisiae as a starter culture for bakery products, avoiding yeast-related health problems while contributing to the technological and functional properties of bread. In this work, we evaluate the role of certain LABs (Leuconostoc citreum SB6, Weissella cibaria UC4051, Weissella co...

Metal trace elements (MTE) can damage crops if present in excessive amounts in the environment. This research investigated the effect of a plant extract of an aquatic species, Lemna minor L. (duckweed) (LE), on the ability of maize to cope with copper (Cu) toxicity. LE reversed the effects of Cu2+ on photosynthetic activity (Pn), evapotranspiration...

The fatty acid profile, vitamins A and E, cholesterol, antioxidant power colour and the phenols profile of Sarda sheep milk from 11 commercial sheep flocks managed under permanent grassland were investigated. In each farm, the structural and managerial data and milk samples were collected during four periods (sampling dates, SD): January, March, Ma...

Wheat is a prevalent food worldwide, although its production arises several tonnes of industrial by-products that merit valorisation, owing to sustainable demands. In this work, an untargeted metabolomics approach was applied to shed light on the profile of free and bound phenolic compounds in white and wholegrain flours, as well as the major wheat...

Spices, widely used to improve the sensory characteristics of food, contain several bioactive compounds as well, including polyphenols, carotenoids, and glucosynolates. Acting through multiple pathways, these bioactive molecules affect a wide variety of cellular processes involved in molecular mechanisms important in the onset and progress of human...

Increasing consumers demand for foods with a lower environmental impact requires the introduction of effective traceability technologies ensuring the integrity of the information provided. Blockchain technology (BCT) has been the most used for this purpose. However, to effectively implement a BCT system, it is important to map the determinants that...

The biological activity of silver nanoparticles (SNP) has grabbed the attention of researchers in different fields, but this attention did not go beyond bioassays within laboratory or growth chambers. Few studies have investigated the miticidal activity of SNP, mostly against Tetranychus urticae Koch (Acari: Tetranychidae). Despite the promising pr...

Novel approaches to the characterization of medicinal plants as biofactories have lately increased in the field of biotechnology. In this work, a multifaceted approach based on plant tissue culture, metabolomics, and machine learning was applied to decipher and further characterize the biosynthesis of phenolic compounds by eliciting cell suspension...

In this work, the synergistic/antagonistic impact of glucose and mixed starter cultures, namely Latilactobacillus sakei, Pediococcus pentosaceus, and Staphylococcus xylosus, was evaluated in Italian salami in terms of metabolomics and sensory profiles. As expected, Salami manufactured with 0.5% glucose exhibited a substantial pH drop, showing value...

Root exudates play an essential role in helping plants to cope with abiotic stress. However, the modulation of root exudation profiles under multiple stress conditions is still poorly understood. Using targeted and untargeted metabolomics, here we tested the effect of drought, heat stress, and their combination on maize root exudates, also consider...

Co-inoculation of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and bacteria can synergically and potentially increase nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in plants, thus, reducing nitrogen (N) fertilizers use and their environmental impact. However, limited research is available on AMF-bacteria interaction, and the definition of synergisms or antagonistic effects...

The use of plant biostimulants such as seaweed extracts (SWE) and protein hydrolysates (PH) has grown in the recent years due to their beneficial effects on yield under both optimal and sub-optimal conditions such as salt stress. The comprehension of the mode of action of these two important categories of biostimulants on plant performance will all...

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is globally recognised as a high-value crop both for commercial profit and nutritional benefits. In contrast to the extensive data regarding the changes in the metabolism of tomato fruit exposed to UV radiation, less is known about the foliar and root metabolome. Using an untargeted metabolomic approach through UHPL...

Traceability of food is considered as an important tool for ensuring food quality and safety, in turn increasing consumers’ trust. Verification of food authenticity is currently carried out by officials and producers, typically through the use of paper documents that may not ensure a proper level of integrity. Therefore, independent analytical meth...

Aims The alkaloid hordenine is one of the major allelochemicals involved in the allelopathic ability of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), whose biosynthesis and accumulation is preferentially located in roots. Hordenine appears to have been unintentionally favored during domestication in modern and cultivated barley cultivars at the expense of another a...

Polyamines (PAs) are key signaling molecules involved in plant growth and stress acclimation processes. This work investigated the effect of spermidine, spermine, and putrescine (alone and in a mixture) in tomato plants using a combined metabolomics and lipidomics approach. The experiments were carried out under non-stress and 100 mM NaCl salinity...

Microplastics (MPs) are ubiquitous contaminants. In recent decades, the hazardous impacts of MPs on the environment have raised significant concern. However, little attention has been focused on the interaction between MPs and plants in terrestrial agroecosystems. This study aims to investigate the effects of polyethylene microspheres (PE-MS) on th...

Nutrigenomics is a multidisciplinary science focusing on the diet-genes interaction and exploiting different “omics” technologies to comprehensively investigate the overall effects of different nutrients or diets on health. Recent scientific evidence highlighted the role of dietary polyphenols in modulating gene expression, transcription factors, a...

Several studies have demonstrated that stigmas of Crocus sativus contain several bioactive compounds with potential health-promoting properties. However, during the processing of stigmas, large amounts of floral bio-residues are normally discarded as by-products. In this study, using untargeted metabolomics, the comprehensive phytochemical composit...

High nursery densities reduce the seedling quality due to the competition for light. High light intensity, shading, and blue light depletion activate morphophysiological and metabolomic responses in plants, resulting in size modification to gain an advantage over neighboring plants. Our research aimed to unravel the effects of light intensity and q...

Cross-adaptation phenomena in bacterial populations, induced by sublethal doses of antibacterial solutions, are a major problem in the food safety field. In this regard, essential oils and their major compounds appear as an alternative to common sanitizers in food industry environments. The present study aimed to evaluate the untargeted metabolomic...

Microplastics (MP) are ubiquitous contaminants of great concern due to their high persistence and potential hazardous impact on the environment. Depending on their size and shape, as well as the chemical additives they can have in their polymeric structure, MP can be taken up by organisms, ultimately leading to direct and indirect toxic effects. In...

Seed inoculation with beneficial microorganisms has gained importance as it has been proven to show biostimulant activity in plants, especially in terms of abiotic/biotic stress tolerance and plant growth promotion, representing a sustainable way to ensure yield stability under low input sustainable agriculture. Nevertheless, limited knowledge is a...

In this work, the Longissimus thoracis pig skeletal muscle was used as a model to investigate the impact of two different diets, supplemented with n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids from extruded linseed (L) and polyphenols from grape skin and oregano extracts (L+P), on the lipidomic profile of meat. A standard diet for growing-finishing pigs (CTRL) w...

Wheat‐based vegan muffins were formulated with increasing levels (0, 5, and 10 g/100g substitutes to flour) of dried grape pomace powder obtained after distillation (DGPP). The DGPP‐muffins showed a greater (p < 0.05) total dietary fiber and a lower (p < 0.05) total starch content to the control. The inclusion of DGPP influenced (p < 0.05) both the...

Biostimulants are gaining increasing interest because of their ability to provide a green and effective strategy towards sustainable crop production. Nonetheless, their mode of action remains often unknown. The object of this work was to unravel the mechanisms through which 4-Vita, a biostimulant plant extract, can mitigate drought stress in tomato...

Saffron production from Crocus sativus flowers produces large amounts of by-products that may represent an excellent source of polyphenols. The aim of this work was to evaluate infusions originating from different brewing processes and from different saffron flower portions, in terms of both functional and sensory traits. For this aim, total polyph...

An untargeted metabolomics approach combined with sensory analysis was used to depict the impact of different traditional Italian extraction methods (i.e., Espresso, Neapolitan, Moka) along with Filter, on Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora var. robusta beverages. To this aim, polyphenols, Maillard reaction products, and coffee metabolites were sc...

In this work, the impact of terroir, cultivar, seasonality, and farming systems on functional traits of tomato was hierarchically investigated. Untargeted metabolomics, antioxidant capacity, colorimetric assays and enzyme inhibition were determined. The total phenolic and carotenoid contents significantly varied between growing years, whereas an in...

Ecosystems provide many services that are essential for human activities and for our well-being. Many regulation services are interconnected and are fundamental in mitigating and hindering the negative effects of several phenomena such as pollution. Pollution, in particular airborne particulate matter (PM), represents an important risk to human hea...