Vascular endothelial effects of dibutyl phthalate: In vitro and in vivo evidence.

Dibutyl phthalate (DBP) is widely used in many consumer and personal care products. Here, we report vascular endothelial response to DBP in three different exposure scenarios: after short-term exposure (24 h) of human endothelial cells (ECs) EA.hy926 to 10-6, 10-5, and 10-4 M DBP, long-term exposure (12 weeks) of EA.hy926 cells to 10-9, 10-8, and 10-7 M DBP, and exposure of rats (28 and 90 days) to 100, 500, and 5000 mg DBP/kg food. We examined different vascular functions such as migration of ECs, adhesion of ECs to the extracellular matrix, tube formation, the morphology of rat aorta, as well as several signaling pathways involved in controlling endothelial function. Short-term in vitro exposure to DBP increased migration of ECs through G protein-coupled estrogen receptor, extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2, and nitric oxide (NO) signaling and decreased adhesion to gelatin. Long-term in vitro exposure to DBP transiently increased EC migration and had a bidirectional effect on EC adhesion to gelatin and tube formation. These effects were accompanied by a sustained increase in NO production and endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) and Akt activity. In vivo, exposure to DBP for 90 days decreased the aortic wall-to-lumen ratio and increased eNOS and Akt phosphorylation in ECs of rat aorta. This comparative investigation has shown that exposure to DBP may affect vascular function by altering EC migration, adhesion to gelatin, and tube formation after short- and long-term in vitro exposure and by decreasing the aortic wall-to-lumen ratio in vivo. The eNOS-NO and Akt signaling could be important in mediating the effects of DBP in long-term exposure scenarios.

Optimization of rheological characteristics of bread dough supplemented with defatted wheat germ.

Optimization of bread dough formulation with defatted wheat germ (DWG) in terms of dough rheological properties was the objective of this study. Fractional factorial design 2V5-1 was applied in order to investigate influence of DWG granulation (<150 µm and 150-1000 µm), DWG content (10 and 20%), addition of gluten (0 and 5%), ascorbic acid (0.004 and 0.008%) and combined improver (0.1 and 0.3%) on farinograph and extensograph parameters. Responsive variables were water absorption and the degree of softening, obtained by farinograph, and resistance to extension and extensibility as well as their ratio, obtained by extensograph analysis. Gluten addition expressed dominant positive effect on water absorption and the degree of softening. The most pronounced negative effect on dough resistance exhibited DWG content (contribution of 57%). The combination of DWG with smaller particle size and 5% of gluten addition increased both resistance and extensibility, but R/E ratio was not affected. The optimal values for DWG granulation, DWG content, gluten content, ascorbic acid content and combined improver content were: < 150 µm, 14.24%, 4.83%, 0.004% and 0.1%, respectively, while predicted values for desired responsible variables were: water absorption 65.90%, degree of softening 84.05 FU, resistance 301.30 EU, extensibility 108.55 mm and R/E 2.5.

Development of a Novel Rice-Based Snack Enriched with Chicory Root: Physicochemical and Sensory Properties.

A novel rice-based snack enriched with chicory root flour (CRF) was developed by twin-screw extrusion. Chicory (Cichorium intybus L.) is one of the promising medicinal plants for the development of innovative food and may be considered a functional food ingredient. Central composite design (CCD) was employed to generate snack formulations by varying feed moisture (M, 16.3-22.5%), screw speed (SS, 500-900 rpm) and CRF content (20-40%). The optimization according to artificial neural network modeling and a genetic algorithm was applied to define optimal process conditions (17.6% moisture, 820 rpm and 24.1% of CRF) for obtaining the product with the highest expansion (3.34), crispiness (3.22 × 10-3), volume (2040 m3), degree of gelatinization (69.70%) and good color properties. Bulk density (110.33 g/L), density (250 kg/m3), and hardness (98.74 N) resulted in low values for the optimal sample. The descriptive sensory analysis evaluated low hardness and bitterness, with high crispiness for the optimal extrudate. This study points to the possibility of a novel chicory enriched extrudate production with desirable physicochemical and sensory properties.