Yawen Zeng

Strategies of functional food for cancer prevention in human beings.

Functional food for prevention of chronic diseases is one of this centurys key global challenges. Cancer is not only the first or second leading cause of death in China and other countries across the world, but also has diet as one of the most important modifiable risk factors. Major dietary factors now known to promote cancer development are polished grain foods and low intake of fresh vegetables, with general importance for an unhealthy lifestyle and obesity. The strategies of cancer prevention in human being are increased consumption of functional foods like whole grains (brown rice, barley, and buckwheat) and by-products, as well some vegetables (bitter melon, garlic, onions, broccoli, and cabbage) and mushrooms (boletes and Tricholoma matsutake). In addition some beverages (green tea and coffee) may be protective. Southwest China (especially Yunnan Province) is a geographical area where functional crop production is closely related to the origins of human evolution with implications for anticancer influence.

QTLs of cold tolerance-related traits at the booting stage for NIL-RILs in rice revealed by SSR

QTLs for cold tolerance-related traits at the booting stage using balanced population for 1525 recombinant inbred lines of near-isogenic lines (viz.NIL-RILs for BC5F3 and BC5F4 and BC5F5) over 3 years and two locations by backcrossing the strongly cold-tolerant landrace (Kunmingxiaobaigu) and a cold-sensitive cultivar (Towada) was analyzed. In this study, 676 microsatellite markers were employed to identify QTLs conferring cold tolerance at booting stage. Single marker analysis revealed that 12 markers associated with cold tolerance on chromosome 1, 4 and 5. Using a LOD significance threshold of 3.0,compositive interval mapping based on a mixed linear model revealed eight QTLs for 10 cold tolerance-related traits on chromosomes 1, 4, and 5. They were tentatively designatedqCTB-1-1, qCTB-4-1, qCTB-4-2, qCTB-4-3, qCTB-4-4, qCTB-4-5, qCTB-4-6, andqCTB-5-1. The marker intervals of them were narrowed to 0.3-6.8 cM. Genetic distances between the peaks of the QTL and nearest markers varied from 0 to 0.04 cM. We were noticed in some traits associated cold tolerance, such asqCTB-1-1 for 5 traits (plant height, panicle exsertion, spike length, blighted grains per spike and spikelet fertility),qCTB-4-1 for 8 traits (plant height, node length under spike, leaf length, leaf width, spike length, full grains per spike, total grains per spike and spikelet fertility),qCTB-4-2 for 3 traits (spike length, full grains per spike and spikelet fertility),qCTB-5-1 for 5 traits (plant height, panicle exsertion, blighted grains per spike, full grains per spike and spikelet fertility). The variance explained by a single QTL ranged from 0.80 to 16.80%. Three QTLs (qCTB-1-1, qCTB-4-1, qCTB-4-2) were detected in two or more trials. Our study sets a foundation for cloning cold-tolerance genes and provides opportunities to understand the mechanism of cold tolerance at the booting stage.

Strategies of Functional Foods Promote Sleep in Human Being.

Sleep is a vital segment of life, however, the mechanisms of diet promoting sleep are unclear and are the focus of research. Insomnia is a general sleep disorder and functional foods are known to play a key role in the prevention of insomnia. A number of studies have demonstrated that major insomnia risk factors in human being are less functional foods in dietary. There are higher functional components in functional foods promoting sleep, including tryptophan, GABA, calcium, potassium, melatonin, pyridoxine, L-ornithine and hexadecanoic acid; but wake-promoting neurochemical factors include serotonin, noradrenalin, acetylcholine, histamine, orexin and so on. The factors promoting sleep in human being are the functional foods include barley grass powder, whole grains, maca, panax, Lingzhi, asparagus powder, lettuce, cherry, kiwifruits, walnut, schisandra wine, and milk; Barley grass powder with higher GABA and calcium, as well as potassium is the most ideal functional food promoting sleep, however, the sleep duration for modern humans is associated with food structure of ancient humans. In this review, we put forward possible mechanisms of functional components in foods promoting sleep. Although there is clear relevance between sleep and diet, their molecular mechanisms need to be studied further.

Coevolution between Human's Anticancer Activities and Functional Foods from Crop Origin Center in the World

Cancer is the leading cause of death around the world. Anticancer activities from many functional food sources have been reported in years, but correlation between cancer prevalence and types of food with anticancer activities from crop origin center in the world as well as food source with human migration are unclear. Hunger from food shortage is the cause of early human evolution from Africa to Asia and later into Eurasia. The richest functional foods are found in crop origin centers, housing about 70% in the world populations. Crop origin centers have lower cancer incidence and mortality in the world, especially Central Asia, Middle East, Southwest China, India and Ethiopia. Asia and Africa with the richest anticancer crops is not only the most important evolution base of humans and origin center of anticancer functional crop, but also is the lowest mortality and incidence of cancers in the world. Cancer prevention of early human migrations was associated with functional foods from crop origin centers, especially Asia with four centers and one subcenter of crop origin, accounting for 58% of the world population. These results reveal that coevolution between humans anticancer activities associated with functional foods for crop origin centers, especially in Asia and Africa.

Coevolution between Cancer Activities and Food Structure of Human Being from Southwest China

Yunnan and Tibet are the lowest cancer mortality and the largest producer for anticancer crops (brown rice, barley, buckwheat, tea, walnut, mushrooms, and so forth). Shanghai and Jiangsu province in China have the highest mortality of cancers, which are associated with the sharp decline of barley.

Elemental Content in Brown Rice by Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy Reveals the Evolution of Asian Cultivated Rice

The phylogenetic relationship for classification traits and eight mineral elements in brown rice (Oryza sativa L.) from Yunnan Province in China was carried out using microwave assisted digestion followed by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy, and the analytical procedures were carefully controlled and validated. In general, the results show that the mean levels of K, Ca, Mg, Fe and Cu in brown rice for 789 accessions of rice landraces was distinctly lower than that of improved cultivars. They further demonstrate that Ca plays an important role in the differentiation of subspecies indica-japonica, especially to enhance adaptation of cold stress, and that five mineral elements in brown rice enhance the eurytopicity from landrace to improved cultivar. Hierarchical cluster analysis, using average linkage from SPSS software based on eight mineral elements in brown rice, showed that Yunnan rice could be grouped into rice landrace and improved cultivar, with the rice landrace being further clustered into five subgroups, and that, interestingly, purple rice does not cluster with either of the groups. Our present data confirm that indica is the closest relative of late rice and white rice, and that they constitute rice landraces together, whereas japonica is the closest relatives of non-nuda, early-mid and glutinous rice. It is further shown that japonica, non-nuda, early-mid, glutinous, white and red rice might be more primitive than indica, nuda, late, non-glutinous and purple rice, respectively.

Preventive and Therapeutic Role of Functional Ingredients of Barley Grass for Chronic Diseases in Human Beings

Barley grass powder is the best functional food that provides nutrition and eliminates toxins from cells in human beings; however, its functional ingredients have played an important role as health benefit. In order to better cognize the preventive and therapeutic role of barley grass for chronic diseases, we carried out the systematic strategies for functional ingredients of barley grass, based on the comprehensive databases, especially the PubMed, Baidu, ISI Web of Science, and CNKI, between 2008 and 2017. Barley grass is rich in functional ingredients, such as gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), flavonoids, saponarin, lutonarin, superoxide dismutase (SOD), K, Ca, Se, tryptophan, chlorophyll, vitamins (A, B1, C, and E), dietary fiber, polysaccharide, alkaloid, metallothioneins, and polyphenols. Barley grass promotes sleep; has antidiabetic effect; regulates blood pressure; enhances immunity; protects liver; has anti-acne/detoxifying and antidepressant effects; improves gastrointestinal function; has anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, hypolipidemic, and antigout effects; reduces hyperuricemia; prevents hypoxia, cardiovascular diseases, fatigue, and constipation; alleviates atopic dermatitis; is a calcium supplement; improves cognition; and so on. These results support that barley grass may be one of the best functional foods for preventive chronic diseases and the best raw material of modern diet structure in promoting the development of large health industry and further reveal that GABA, flavonoids, SOD, K-Ca, vitamins, and tryptophan mechanism of barley grass have preventive and therapeutic role for chronic diseases. This paper can be used as a scientific evidence for developing functional foods and novel drugs for barley grass for preventive chronic diseases.

Correlation Analysis of Functional Components of Barley Grain

Barley is a medicinal and edible crop that is not only the most stress tolerant and comprehensively utilized cereal, but is also a functional food crop used in strategies for chronic disease prevention, such as reduction of obesity and Type II diabetes. Using spectrophotometry methods, four functional components in 830 accessions of Yunnan improved landraces barley grains have been detected: resistant starch, total flavonoids, total alkaloids, and γ-aminobutyric acid. The average content of resistant starch was 3.57 ± 2.72 mg/100 g. The average content of total flavonoids was 133.09 ± 27.65 mg/100 g. The average content of total alkaloids was 21.26 ± 9.18 mg/100 g. The average content of γ-aminobutyric acid was 5.70 ± 2.82 mg/100 g. Sixty accessions of high functional components of high superior landraces were detected, including 14 accessions with high content of total flavonoids (content >195 mg/100 g), 17 accessions with high content of resistant starch (content >12%), 11 accessions of high content of total alkaloids (content >45.19 mg/100 g), 18 accessions of high content of γ-aminobutyric acid (content >13.03 mg/100 g). These superior barley functional landraces offer excellent landraces for barley breeding. By correlation analysis of four functional components of barley grain, total flavonoids and γ-aminobutyric acid have a significant negative correlation (r = −0.154**, n = 830), total flavonoids and resistant starch have a significant negative correlation (r = −0.097**, n = 830), total alkaloids and γ-aminobutyric acid have a significant negative correlation (r = −0.096**, n = 830), and γ-aminobutyric acid and resistant starch have a significant negative correlation(r = −0.122**, n = 830). By a principal component analysis of functional components, the first principal component is γ-aminobutyric acid and the second is resistant starch, followed be flavonoids. Content of γ-aminobutyric acid changes the most, followed by resistant starch and flavonoids.

Identification of quantitative trait locus (QTLs) for γ-aminobutyric acid content in grain of barley

r-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) has not only some physiological functions in plants and animals, but also has been used extensively in pharmaceuticals and functional foods for human health. To realize its genetic basis, in this study, a 192 plants F 2 population derived from the cross between Ziguang manluoerling (ZGMLEL) and Schooner was used for quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping for GABA content in grain for barley ( Hordeum vulgare L.). As a result, four QTLs (qGABA3-1, qGABA4-1, qGABA4-2, and qGABA4-3) were identified on chromosomes 3 and 4, of which these QTLs could explain phenotypic variance from 8.02 to 24.50%, due to additive effects for qGABA3-1 and qGABA4-1 from ZGMLEL on chromosome 3 and 4. Meanwhile, part dominance effects for qGABA4-2 and qGABA4- 3 from ZGMLEL on chromosome 4, especially the marker interval (GBM1299-GBM1482) of qGABA4-2 accounting for 24.50% of the phenotypic variance. To our knowledge, these are the first QTLs to be identified controlling GABA content in grains of barley. These results are beneficial for understanding the genetic basis of GABA and developing the markers linked with GABA for marker-assisted selection breeding in barley. Key words: γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA), quantitative trait locus (QTL), grain, barley.