Objective
Foreseen Results
The results of the research will define the antioxidants that should be preferably conserved or added when handling and storing fruits and vegetables or other foods, or when converting them to industrial products such as juices, dried, precooked or deep-frozen products. This insight provides improved possibilities for the production of so-called functional foods; foods with beneficial health effects.
Toxic redox-active food residues such as nitroaromatic and quinone-type of food components can originate from pesticide use and/or can be present in food because they are natural food constituents and food conservants. An intrinsic property of quinones and aromatic nitrocompounds is the possibility of their biochemical reduction in organisms, often resulting in formation of cytotoxic products that give rise to oxidative stress through redox-cycling. Redoxcycling is a toxic process in which, catalyzed by flavin-dependent enzymes, quinones and nitroaromatics may undergo one or two electron reduction steps, leading to the formation of intermediates that react with molecular oxygen to give reactive oxygen species. The production of reactive oxygen species causes toxic phenomena known as oxidative stress, resulting in lipid peroxidation, oxidation of important thiol groups in enzymes and proteins, enzyme inactivation, DNA modification and cell death. The bioreduction of nitroaromatics gives also rise to the formation of hydroxylamines and nitroso derivatives which may react directly with DNA or with hemoglobin causing methemoglobinemia. In addition, the semiquinones formed can give rise to DNA intercallation.
Bioremediation against the toxic adverse health effects exerted by the products resulting from bioreduction of the redox-active food components can be exerted through the action of antioxidants. These antioxidants are also a factor present in food. Nowadays, the antioxidant content of foods becomes of increasing importance because it helps to maintain the health of people living in highly contaminated areas, especially in areas contaminated with radical- and oxidative stress- inducing risk factors such as pesticide pollution, heavy metal exposure, exhaust gasses, or radiation contamination.
Taken together the presence of pro- and also antioxidant components in food defines the objectives of the present proposal, which are:
1. to investigate if and to what extent various pro- and antioxidants are present in fruits and vegetables, both in Eastern and Western European situations,
2. to define quantitative structure activity relationships that indicate which food antioxidants are best at preventing or bioremediating the toxic effects resulting from toxic redox-active food residues,
3. to investigate how food processing can be improved, preserving or adding antioxidants that are best at preventing adverse health effects of the redox-active food components, and at maintaining food quality.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics DNA
- natural sciences chemical sciences electrochemistry electrolysis
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules lipids
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences environmental sciences pollution
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins enzymes
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
6703 HA WAGENINGEN
Netherlands
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