Benefits to health from a high consumption of fruits and vegetables are well established\nand have been attributed to bioactive secondary metabolites present in edible plants. However,\nthe effects of specific health-related phytochemicals within a complex food matrix are difficult to\nassess. In an attempt to address this problem, we have used elicitation to improve the nutraceutical\ncontent of seedlings of Brassica oleracea grown under controlled conditions. Analysis, by LC-MS, of\nthe glucosinolate, isothiocyanate and phenolic compound content of juices obtained from sprouts\nindicated that elicitation induces an enrichment of several phenolics, particularly of the anthocyanin\nfraction. To test the biological activity of basal and enriched juices we took advantage of a recently\ndeveloped in vitro model of inflamed human intestinal epithelium. Both sproutsâ�� juices protected\nintestinal barrier integrity in Caco-2 cells exposed to tumor necrosis factor �± under marginal zinc\ndeprivation, with the enriched juice showing higher protection. Multivariate regression analysis\nindicated that the extent of rescue from stress-induced epithelial dysfunction correlated with the\ncomposition in bioactive molecules of the juices and, in particular, with a group of phenolic\ncompounds, including several anthocyanins, quercetin-3-Glc, cryptochlorogenic, neochlorogenic and\ncinnamic acids.
Loading....