Sara Tulipani

• Research Officer at Accion contra el Hambre

Alterations in visceral adipose tissue (VAT) are closely linked to cardiometabolic abnormalities. The aim of this work is to define a metabolic signature in VAT of insulin resistance (IR) dependent on, and independent of, obesity. An untargeted UPLC-Q-Exactive metabolomic approach was carried out on the VAT of obese insulin-sensitive (IS) and insul...

Scope: We prospectively evaluated the association between self-reported dietary intake and urinary metabolomic markers of habitual nut exposure with cognitive decline over a 3-year follow-up in an older Italian population. Methods and results: We selected 119 older participants, from the InCHIANTI cohort based on self referred nut intake: the no...

This study explores the metabolic profiles of concordant/discordant phenotypes of high insulin resistance (IR) and obesity. Through untargeted metabolomics (LC-ESI-QTOF-MS), we analyzed the fasting serum of subjects with high IR and/or obesity (n = 64). An partial least-squares discriminant analysis with orthogonal signal correction followed by uni...

The exact impact of bariatric surgery in metabolically “healthy” (MH) or “unhealthy” (MU) phenotypes for the study of the metabolic improvement is still unknown. We applied an untargeted LC-ESI-TripleTOF –MS- driven metabolomics approach in serum samples from 39 patients with morbid obesity (MH and MU) 1, 3 and 6 months after bariatric surgery. Mul...

Objective Bariatric surgery is considered the most efficient treatment for morbid obesity and its related diseases. However, its role as a metabolic modifier is not well understood. We aimed to determine biosignatures of response to bariatric surgery and elucidate short-term metabolic adaptations. Methods We used a LC- and FIA-ESI-MS/MS approach t...

Multiple factor analysis and cluster analysis. (DOC)

Multifactor analysis graphical outputs. A. Eigenvalues of the different principal components (PCx) of the analysis. B. Plot for groups of variables versus the two first principal components. C. Partial axes of each group in the first two PCx. The increment 1 month—baseline is highly correlated with the first dimension and negatively correlated with...

Metabolic correlation matrix of the discriminant metabolites of the K-means cluster analysis at the increment T6-T0 A) correlations between metabolites in phenotype 1.B) correlations between metabolites in phenotype 2. Only those correlations with p<0.05 are shown. (TIF)

Anthropometric, biochemical and clinical characteristics of metabolically healthy (MH) and unhealthy (MU) individuals before the intervention1. 1 Values are shown as Mean ± SD. P values were determined by independent t-test after log-transformated the variables * P values were determined by fisher’s exact test. AU, arbitrary units; BMI, body mass i...

Concentration of metabolites of metabolically healthy (MH) and unhealthy (MU) individuals after surgery1. 1Values are shown as Mean ± SD. Total n 39 patients, separate in metabollicaly health (MH, n = 21) and metabollicaly abnormal (MU, n = 18).2 P values represent changes over time (p-time) and time x group interaction (p-time x group) derived fro...

Concentrations of metabolites in both clusters before the intervention. 1Values are shown as Mean ± SD 2P derived from t-test after log-transformed variables and corrected for multiple testing by false discovery rate. (XLS)

Raw data with clinical and metabolomic variables in each period of time. (CSV)

Concentrations of metabolites in metabolically healthy (MH) and unhealthy (MU) individuals before the intervention1. 1Values are shown as Mean ± SD (μM) 2 P values derived from t-test after log-transformed the variables, p-adjusted are P values corrected for multiple testing by the false discovery rate aa, acyl-acyl; ae, acyl-alkyl; LPC a, lysophos...

Anthropometric, biochemical and clinical characteristics of metabolically healthy (MH) and unhealthy (MU) individuals over time1. 1Values are shown as Mean ± SD. Total n 39 patients, separate in metabollicaly health (MH, n = 21) and metabollicaly abnormal (MU, n = 18). 2P values represent changes over time (p-time) and time x group interaction (p-t...

Scatter plot of the metabolically healthy obese (red dots) and metabolically unhealthy (blue triangles) individuals in the following increments: A: T1–T0, B: T3–T0 and C: T6–T0. (TIF)

Bubble plot of the most impacted metabolite clusters in metabotype 1 (A) and 2 (B) respectivetly. Chemical enrichment statistics was calculated by applying the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test on the metabolites at the increment of time T6-T0. Clusters are generated by chemical similarity and ontology mapping. Cluster colors give the proportion of increased...

Summary of the metabolites (semi-)quantified in blood serum by MS/MS and those excluded. Metabolites are grouped into classes based on their metabolic function or structural similarities. According to manufacturer guidelines the detected MRM signal for lipid measurements is a sum of several isobaric/isomeric lipids. "For example: the signal of PC a...

Changes in metabolite concentrations of both clusters after surgery. 1Values are shown as Mean ± SD. Total n 39 patients, separate in Cluster 1 (Cl-1, n = 24) and Cluster 2 (Cl-2, n = 15) according K-means clustering at increment 6 month vs baseline. 2 P values represent changes over time (p-time) and time x group interaction (p-time x group) deriv...

Background: Bioinformatic tools for the enrichment of 'omics' datasets facilitate interpretation and understanding of data. To date few are suitable for metabolomics datasets. The main objective of this work is to give a critical overview, for the first time, of the performance of these tools. To that aim, datasets from metabolomic repositories we...

Objective: To review the metabolomic studies carried out so far to identify metabolic markers associated with surgical and dietary treatments for weight loss in subjects with obesity. Methods: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were followed. Results: Thirty-two studies successfully met t...

Metabolomic studies aimed to dissect the connection between the development of type 2 diabetes and obesity are still scarce. In the present study, fasting serum from sixty-four adult individuals classified into four sex-matched groups by their BMI [non-obese versus morbid obese] and the increased risk of developing diabetes [prediabetic insulin res...

Polyphenols play an important role in human health. To address their accessibility to a breastfed infant we planned to evaluate whether breast milk (BM) (colostrum, transitional and mature) epicatechin metabolites could be related to mothers' dietary habits. The polyphenol consumption of breastfeeding mothers was estimated using food frequency ques...

Scope: Tomato contains a variety of phenolics associated with health-promoting properties. However, the effects of processing and the addition of oil during tomato sauce preparation on microbial metabolism of phenolics in the small intestine are still unclear. Methods and results: An open, controlled, randomized and crossover feeding trial with...

Metabolomics is one of the emerging “-omics” technologies that has great advantages for studying metabolic interaction between diet and human health. Over the last decade it has been successfully used in various wine nutritional studies, applying both hypothesis-driven and exploratory strategies; as a result, various aspects of the wine-human healt...

An UHPLC-MS/MS method for the quantification of tomato phenolic metabolites in human fluids was optimized and validated, and then applied in a pilot dietary intervention study with healthy volunteers. A 5-fold gain in speed (3.5 min of total run); 7-fold increase in MS sensitivity and 2-fold greater efficiency (50% peak width reduction) were observ...

Gut microbiota has recently been proposed as a crucial environmental factor in the development of metabolic diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, mainly due to its contribution in the modulation of several processes including host energy metabolism, gut epithelial permeability, gut peptide hormone secretion, and host inflammatory state. Sin...

Scope: To identify the most discriminant dietary biomarkers of nuts exposure in subjects with metabolic syndrome (MetS), and investigate the potential association between exposure and the severity of the MetS diagnostic traits. Methods and results: We applied the untargeted LC-ESI-qToF-MS-driven metabolomic workflow to explore the changes occurr...

The discovery of biomarkers of intake in nutritional epidemiological studies is essential in establishing an association between dietary intake (considering their bioavailability) and diet-related risk factors for diseases. The aim is to study urine and plasma phenolic and microbial profile by targeted metabolomics approach in a wine intervention c...

Tomato sauce is the most commonly consumed processed tomato product worldwide, but very little is known about how the manufacturing process may affect the phenolic composition and bioavailability after consumption. In a prospective randomised, cross-over intervention study, we analysed the plasma and urinary levels of tomato phenolic compounds and...

Diet plays an important role in the prevention and development of chronic diseases. Interventional and observational studies have provided evidence of the health benefits of dietary bioactive compounds. The assessment of dietary intake has been estimated using self‐reported questionnaires, which provide less reliable data than nutritional biomarker...

Metabolic characterization of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is crucial for the identification of individuals at risk for developing diabetes and T2DM-related vascular complications as well as for monitoring disease progression. The application of metabolomics to diabetes research may lead to the identification and discovery of diagnostic and prog...

Although LC-MS untargeted metabolomics continues to expand into exiting research domains, methodological issues have not been solved yet by the definition of unbiased, standardized and globally accepted analytical protocols. In the present study, the response of the plasma metabolome coverage to specific methodological choices of the sample prepara...

Bread is one of the most widely consumed foods. Its impact on human health is currently of special interest for researchers. We aimed to identify biomarkers of bread consumption by applying a nutrimetabolomic approach to a free-living population. An untargeted HPLC–q-TOF-MS and multivariate analysis was applied to human urine from 155 subjects stra...

Over the last decade, a growing body of interventional and epidemiological studies has furnished new evidence on the beneficial properties of dietary polyphenols in the reduction of the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, further research is required on the discovery and validation of new polyphenol intake biomarkers and their effect on...

The health benefits associated with the consumption of polyphenol-rich foods have been studied in depth, however, the full mechanism of action remains unknown. One of the proposed mechanisms is through microbiota interaction. In the present study, we aimed to explore the relationship between changes in fecal microbiota and changes in urinary phenol...

The beneficial impact of walnuts on human health has been attributed to their unique chemical composition. In order to characterize the dietary walnut fingerprinting, spot urine samples from two sets of 195 (training) and 186 (validation) individuals were analyzed by an HPLC-q-ToF-MS untargeted metabolomics approach, selecting the most discriminati...

Epidemiological studies have demonstrated the beneficial effect of plant-derived food intake in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). The potential bioactivity of cocoa and its polyphenolic components in modulating cardiovascular health is now being studied worldwide and continues to grow at a rapid pace. In fact, the high polyphenol c...

The set up of a novel, rapid and sensitive UHPLC-QqQ-MS method was described for the determination of phenolic compounds in tomatoes and tomato based-products (tomato sauce and juice). Phenolic compounds including hydroxybenzoic and hydroxycinnamic acid derivatives, flavonols and flavanones were detected, separated and quantified in a 3 min chromat...

The biological properties of dietary polyphenols are greatly dependent on their bioavailability that, in turn, is largely influenced by their degree of polymerization. The gut microbiota play a key role in modulating the production, bioavailability and, thus, the biological activities of phenolic metabolites, particularly after the intake of food c...

Metabolomics approach is focused on identifying all metabolites present in a biological sample (metabolome). Consumption of cocoa products has been related to health benefits including positive effect on cardiovascular health. Twenty volunteers were included in this randomized, crossover, and controlled clinical trial. After a 2-wk washout period,...

BACKGROUND: Berries are raising increasing interest in the last years because of their nutritional quality and the several bioactive compounds with antioxidant properties that contain. Many studies reported significant increases in the plasma antioxidant capacity after long term and acute consumptions of antioxidant-rich foods. OBJECTIVE: The aim o...

The strawberry (Fragaria X ananassa, Duch.) represents a relevant source of micronutrients, such as minerals, vitamin C, folate and phenolic substances, most of which are natural antioxidants and contribute to the high nutritional quality of the fruit. All these compounds are essential for health and, in particular, strawberry phenolics are best kn...

Resveratrol consumption has been positively associated with the prevention of a number of diseases, mainly due to its reported antioxidant activity and anti-inflammatory and antitumor effects, and has, therefore, the potential to be evaluated for therapeutic use. However, scarce studies have been carried out in humans and the results yielded are st...

Diet is implicated in a myriad of diseases, ranging from events in the first weeks of life to chronic and age-related illnesses, for example, cancer and cardiovascular disease. A primary goal of nutrition research is to optimize health via dietary interventions, by prevention, delay, or reduction in the severity of disease. To date, several methods...

Blood sample preparation before LC-MS metabolomic fingerprinting is one of the most challenging and error-prone part of the analytical procedure. Besides proteins, phospholipids contained in blood fluids are known to cause matrix effects and ion suppression phenomena, thus masking biological variation. Nevertheless, the commonly used sample prepara...

The strawberry (Fragaria X ananassa, Duch.) represents a relevant source of micronutrients, such as minerals, vitamin C, folate and phenolic substances, most of which are natural antioxidants and contribute to the high nutritional quality of the fruit. All these compounds are essential for health and, in particular, strawberry phenolics are best kn...

Walnuts ( Juglans regia L.), hazelnuts ( Corylus avellana L.), and almonds ( Prunus dulcis Mill.) are rich sources of ellagitannins and proanthocyanidins. Gut microbiota plays a crucial role in modulating the bioavailability of these high molecular weight polyphenols. However, to date there are no studies evaluating the capacity to produce nut phen...

Correctly assessing the metabolic status of subjects after consumption of specific diets is an important challenge for modern nutrition. Recently, metabolomics has been proposed as a powerful tool for exploring the complex relationship between nutrition and health. Nutritional metabolomics, through investigating the role that dietary components pla...

Tomato is a good source of bioactive molecules such as vitamin C, carotenoids, and phenolic compounds. Up to now, only a few studies have evaluated the bioavailability of phenolic compounds from tomato. This paper presents the optimization of a method for the determination of phenolics in tomato and their metabolites in human urine and plasma after...

Exposure to UV-A radiation is known to induce discrete lesions in DNA and the generation of free radicals that lead to a wide array of skin diseases. Strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) contains several polyphenols with strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. Because the major representative components of strawberry are anthocyanins, thes...

The health-promoting effects attributable to dietary phenolic compounds strongly depend on their bioaccesibility from the food matrix and their consequent bioavailability. We carried out a pilot randomized controlled cross-over study to evaluate the effect of addition of an oil matrix during tomato sauce processing, on the bioavailability of tomato...

Flavan-3-ols are polyphenols present in the diet in monomeric, oligomeric and polymeric forms, but their bioactivity and in vivo health effects remain unclear due to their complex metabolism. According to the degree of polymerization, monomeric flavan-3-ols can be absorbed in the small intestine, whereas oligomers and polymers need to be biotransfo...

Background and aim: Free radicals are implicated in the aetiology of gastrointestinal disorders such as gastric ulcer, colorectal cancer and inflammatory bowel disease. Strawberries are common and important fruit due to their high content of essential nutrient and beneficial phytochemicals which seem to have relevant biological activity on human h...

Through an HPLC-Q-TOF-MS-driven nontargeted metabolomics approach, we aimed to discriminate changes in the urinary metabolome of subjects with metabolic syndrome (MetS), following 12 weeks of mixed nuts consumption (30 g/day), compared to sex- and age-matched individuals given a control diet. The urinary metabolome corresponding to the nut-enriched...

Significant increases in the plasma total antioxidant capacity (TAC) have already been reported after acute intake of strawberries. In addition, antihaemolitic effects of strawberry extracts have been recently demonstrated in vitro, revealing that part of the antioxidant properties of strawberry bioactive compounds could lie in their localisation w...

Flavonoids are a widely distributed group of polyphenolic compounds present in an extensive range of edible plants, notably Citrus species. This article reports a rapid, optimized, and validated method for the separation and quantification of flavonoids in three Citrus fruit extracts by ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) using a ph...

Strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa, Duch.) represents a relevant source of micronutrients and phenolic substances, most of which are natural antioxidants and contribute to the high nutritional quality (NQ) of the fruit. Despite its proven health benefits, strawberries also contain allergenic compounds. In particular protein Fra a 1 is considered the m...

Flavonoids comprise a large group of phenolic compounds synthesized by plants as secondary metabolites, with a common diphenylpropane skeleton (C6-C3-C6). Over 9,000 structurally distinct flavonoids have been identified in nature, although less than 200 were found in a sample French population. Flavonoids can be classified according to their chemic...

Almond, as a part of the nut family, is an important source of biological compounds, and specifically, almond skins have been considered an important source of polyphenols, including flavan-3-ols and flavonols. Polyphenol metabolism may produce several classes of metabolites that could often be more biologically active than their dietary precursor...

Our manuscript shows that honey has a variety of positive nutritional and health effects. It contains at least 181 substances, is a supersaturated solution of sugars, and contains small amounts of proteins, enzymes, amino acids, minerals, trace elements, vitamins, aroma compounds and polyphones. This article reviews reports on the use of honey in t...

Several monofloral Cuban honeys were analyzed to determine their total phenolic, flavonoid, ascorbic acid, amino acid, protein and carotenoid contents as well as their radical-scavenging activity and antimicrobial capacities. The total phenolic, flavonoid and carotenoid contents varied considerably, and the highest values were obtained for Linen vi...

The consumption of antioxidant-rich foods has already been associated with acute significant increases in plasma total antioxidant capacity (TAC) in humans, but there is no consensus among different literature reports. Furthermore, the acute rise in plasma TAC observed after consumption of several non-berry fruits seems not to be necessarily relate...

To review and update the current knowledge on the potential impact of strawberry on human health, with particular attention on compounds and indirect mechanisms of action not exhaustively considered. Personal perspectives and recent data. International. Our research group was among the few groups that have recently investigated the folate content i...

The phytochemical, antioxidant and nutritional composition of strawberry fruits seems to be strongly influenced by several pre-and post-harvest factors. The first goal of our work was to evaluate the role played by the genetic background on the composition and nutritional value of strawberries from 9 different genotypes. The second goal was to asse...

Strawberry is a relevant source of dietary antioxidants, such as vitamin C and phenolic compounds, which are widely reported to have biological properties ranging from antioxidant to anticancer and antiatherosclerotic properties. However, the fine identification of the health-promoting phytochemicals in strawberry, and the mechanisms of action for...

The production and integration of small fruits are promoted in different agricultural and nutritional programmes. Strawberries are currently the most popular berries grown and consumed with an estimated amount of 3.8 million metric tons in 2007 worldwide. Despite of proven health benefits, strawberries contain allergenic Fra a 1, a PR-10 protein, w...

The antioxidant activity of honey varies greatly depending on the honey's floral source. There is little knowl-edge about the profiles of antioxidant substances in honey from different floral sources. The variation in these profiles might be responsible for the widely varying ability of honey to protect against oxidative reactions. Honey is rich in...

A growing body of epidemiological studies suggests a consistent association between the consumption of diets rich in fruits and vegetables and a lower incidence of several chronic diseases. Strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa, Duch.) is among the most popularly consumed berries, both in fresh and processed forms, and its nutritional value has been exha...

Strawberry contains high levels of micronutrients and phytochemical compounds. These exhibit functional roles in plant growth and metabolism and are also essential for the nutritional and organoleptic qualities of the fruit. The aim of the present work was to better characterize the phytochemical and antioxidant profiles of the fruit of nine differ...

A novel isocratic modified column-switching HPLC method for automated quantitative analysis of Vitamin E and Coenzyme Q, in the reduced and oxidized form, is described. Many column-switching HPLC methods are found in the literature, also for determining antioxidant substances, but we developed a different system of column-switching. An empty column...

The aim of this study was to screen and compare 50 different genotypes of peaches by measuring their total antioxidant contents (TAC) and total polyphenolic contents (TPH) immediately after harvesting and upon cold-storage; the relation between TEAC vs sugar/acidity ratio was also determined. Most of the cultivars (30) displayed very similar TEAC v...

Folate is a micronutrient essential in a variety of biological processes, and an adequate dietary folate intake seems to play a crucial role in health promotion and disease prevention. The importance of strawberry as a natural food source of folate has been recognised only recently, and few pilot studies have investigated the impact of strawberry i...

In the last few years the nutritional value of fruit has been widely studied and requested by the consumers, especially for protection against cardiovascular events, cancer and others as well as for the general health benefits it can provide. These benefits can be ascribed mainly to the Total Antioxidant Capacity (TAC) of fruit which is determined...

Strawberry fruit contains high levels of micronutrients and phytochemical compounds, which are important for both the organeptic-sensorial quality and the nutritional attributes of the fruit. The first goal of the present work was to better characterize the phytochemical and the antioxidant profiles of the fruits of nine different genotypes of stra...