Cinzia Ballabio's research while affiliated with University of Milan and other places

... Because of the positive sensory effects in wine, several countries add this substance to mask eventual defects in the beverages. Therefore, monitoring has been performed as a form of quality control (Moro et al. 2007). In addition to contamination by organic compounds, heavy metals might also be present in distilled beverages if the materials used are not adequate. ...

... Proteases play a crucial role in biological processes like extracellular matrix turnover, antigen presentation, digestion, protein processing, etc. [1]. Multiple protease allergens have been identified from house dust mites, plant-based foods (fruits), pollen and fungus, illustrating cross-reactivity [2][3][4][5]. Liu et al., 2019 reported co-sensitization and cross-reactivity of cysteine protease from storage mite (Blo t 1) with Group 1 allergens from house dust mite (Der p 1 and Der f 1) [6]. Additionally, ficin (fig cysteine protease allergen) exhibited cross reactivity with HDM cysteine protease allergens demonstrated by skin pick test and in vitro assays [7]. ...

... Leucine, phenylalanine, and valine (822, 669, 583 mg 100 g -1 of air-dried flour, respectively) were determined as the main amino acids of this crop (Agza et al., 2018). The grain flour of quinoa has been extensively used in the food industry due to its gluten free-based values and highly nutritive quality based on the protein, Ca, Fe, and Zn contents (Ballester-Sánchez et al., 2019, Bazile et al., 2016Präger et al., 2018), which can justify the quinoa as a suitable product for celiac patients (Peñas et al., 2014). ...

... Another study on 400 commercial wines highlighted that some wines contained egg traces after filtration. In many cases, no detectable amount of egg proteins was found, independently of the rate of fining agent added and winemaking technology adopted (Uberti et al., 2014), although the findings by others showed that winemaking practices such as filtration and bentonite addition result in the removal of residual egg proteins (Deckwart et al., 2014). ...

... Considering a LoD of 10 ng/mL of caprine β-CN in dairy products resuspended with a mass-to-volume ratio of 1:10, a LoD of 0.1 ppm (100 ng of β-CN in 1 g of dairy matrix) was reached without significant interference from bovine milk. The LoD of our immunoassays was then at least as sensitive as the ones developed to assess CM protein contamination, in particular to detect bovine casein (46,47). Unfortunately, eliciting doses of GSM based on clinical data are still missing, probably because of the low prevalence of GSM allergy without CM allergy. ...

... The role of dietary lipids in wellbeing as protectors or potential therapeutic targets has been explored in last year (Rey et al. 2019). Humans can synthesize many fatty acids but are unable to desaturate longchain fatty acids at either C3 or C6 from the methyl end, making them essential, as the PUFAs (Ballabio and Restani 2012). The importance of the dietary lipids has few considered in nutritional researches, even less in the technology of functional food (Meyner and Genot 2017) Besides this limiting aspect, lipid oxidation (rancidity) is the primary process involved in reducing shelf-life food. ...

... By using an ELISA approach, Weber, Steinhart, and Paschke (2007) initially showed no presence of milk proteins in wines, while in a follow-up experiment, the same group found casein traces in 3 out of 61 commercial wines tested (4.9%), while 2 out of 32 experimental wines contained traces of caseinate (Weber, Steinhart, & Paschke, 2009a). In contrast, 153 commercial wines produced in Australia did not show any residue of casein when analyzed by a dedicated ELISA system (Rolland, Apostolou, De Leon, Stockley, & O'Hehir, 2008), and similar results were reported for 16 experimental and 63 Italian commercial wines by Restani et al. (2012). Lifrani et al. (2009) analyzed 400 commercial wines using a sandwich ELISA system and detected the presence of caseinate residues in some samples. ...

... The traditional analyzing of wine components is performed by chemical, physicochemical and biochemical methods [2]. At the same time, the most modern approaches 2 T. Chaikivskyi et al. were applied: high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) [3][4][5] and gas chromatography (GC) [5,6], molecular weight chromatography [5], affinity chromatography using immobilized enzymes [7,8], chemo-and biosensors with spectrophotometric [9,10], chemiluminometric, fluorescence. methods of product registration, mass spectrometry (MS) [9], atomic and molecular adsorption spectrometry [10], including electrothermal, electron ionization (EI) [4]. ...

... Another alcohol found in wine is the glycerol, which in normal condition is produced by Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Candida pulcherrima during fermentation, and it is produced in concentrations ranging between 2 and 36 g/L (Nykänen & Suomalainen, 1983). Higher glycerol concentrations (26 g/L and above) increase wine viscosity (Jackson, 2020) and are rot indicators (Restani et al., 2007). Clearly, there is no indication of putrefaction since all the analysed red wines showed values ranging between 7.2 and 10 g/L, the white wines were between 7 and 9 g/L, and the wine distillates had a glycerol content of 3.4-4 g/L. ...

... With the increase in the use of lupine flour as a food ingredient, the number of adverse reactions has increased over the years [8][9][10]. Numerous clinical studies have been carried out [2,[11][12][13] together with the implementation of methodologies to detect the presence of lupine in food and understand the structure of allergenic proteins [14][15][16][17]. For this reason, the knowledge of the mechanisms of action causing the onset of the allergic reaction is of particular interest and may lead to the design of more effective food technologies and food compositions capable of mitigating allergic reactions. ...