Non-alcoholic components of Pelinkovac, a Croatian wormwood-based strong liquor, counteract the inhibitory effect of high ethanol concentration on catalase in vitro

Antioxidant enzyme catalase protects the cells against alcohol-induced oxidative stress by scavenging free radicals and metabolizing alcohol. Concentrations of ethanol present in alcoholic beverages can inhibit catalase and foster oxidative stress and alcohol-induced injury. Non-alcoholic components of pelinkovac counteract the inhibitory effects of high ethanol concentration and acidic pH on catalase in vitro.

Flavor Chemical Profiles of Cabernet Sauvignon Wines: Six Vintages from 2013 to 2018 from the Eastern Foothills of the Ningxia Helan Mountains in China

The eastern foothills of the Helan Mountains in the Ningxia region (Ningxia), is a Chinese wine-producing region, where Cabernet Sauvignon is the main grape cultivar; however, little compositional or flavor information has been reported on Ningxia wines. Oenological parameters, volatile profiles, and phenolic profiles were determined for 98 Ningxia Cabernet Sauvignon wines from the 2013–2018 vintages, as well as 16 from Bordeaux and California, for comparison. Ningxia wines were characterized by high ethanol, low acidity, and high anthocyanin contents. Multivariate analysis revealed that citronellol and 12 characteristic phenolic compounds distinguish Ningxia wines from Bordeaux and California wines. The concentrations of most phenolic compounds were highest in the 2018 Ningxia vintage and decreased with the age of the vintage. To our knowledge, this is the first extensive regionality study on red wines from the Ningxia region.

Reduced rice paddy methane emission through dual compound mechanism in novel cultivars

Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and its concentrations have risen tenfold in the past decade due to agricultural activity1. Rice paddies are considered a major source of anthropogenic methane, however strategies to mitigate methane emission in rice paddies is not yet successful despite considerable efforts being made. Methane production is caused by microbial communities feeding on organic exudates from the rice root, and regulation of the dominant secretions has been suggested as leading way to put an end to the methane emission from rice paddies. Here, we introduced a new system to reduce methane emission in rice paddies based on the discovery that fumarate and ethanol are two specific rice-orchestrated compounds that determine the levels of methane emission from rice paddies. Moreover, stable low-fumarate high-ethanol secretion lines have been successively bred through hybrid breeding and shown to cut around 70% of methane emission in paddies as compared to control. Approaches to block fumarate reductase or increase ethanol level, were furthermore employed as cultivation managements and resulted in a reduction in methane emissions of around 60%, calculated from two-year four-site field work. All results highlight the application of our findings to largely mitigate influences of rice cultivation on global climate.

Analysis on Chemical Components of Woods to Predict Ethanol Production Values

This paper deals with analysis on chemical components of woods to predict ethanol production values. The aim is expected to give a reliable value of ethanol production, eliminating the effort needed to directly measure this ethanol production from each wood species. Since the data of wood chemical components is widely available, this result will be valuable in determining a potential use of a wood species as bio-ethanol feedstock. Saccharification and fermentation processes by enzymatic hydrolysis were applied for xylems derived from49 branch trees of Cibodas, 32 branch trees of Purwodadi, and 19 branch trees of Bali Botanical Gardens in Indonesia. Three major wood components were analysed, i.e. cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. The results show varied relationships between ethanol production and chemical components of wood. The content of cellulose in wood was not exactly related to its ethanol production. This trend was also occurred for the relationship between hemicellulose and ethanol production. However, lignin content in woods gave an expected trend where the less lignin content, the higher the ethanol production.Furthermore, the ratios of cellulose-hemicelluloses and cellulose-lignin have been quantified. The result showed that the celullose-lignin ratio can potentially be used to predict the value of ethanol production which is expressed by linear regression y = 0.0616x + 0.8341; where R² = 0.4127, x = ethanol production and y = cellulose-lignin ratio. Gymnostoma sumatranum with cellulose content of 43.8% and lignin content of 24.1% (celullose-lignin ratio of 1.8) has actual ethanol production of 12.1 mg/100mg wood meal, compared to 15.7 mg/100mg wood meal resulted from above equation. Therefore, by using its cellulose-lignin ratio, the woods having high ethanol production can be screened from literatures.

Analysis of Transcriptomic Response to SO 2 by Oenococcus oeni Growing in Continuous Culture

Malolactic fermentation is an indispensable step in the elaboration of most wines and is generally performed by Oenococcus oeni , a Gram-positive heterofermentative lactic acid bacterium species. While O. oeni is tolerant to many of the wine stresses, including low pH and high ethanol concentrations, it has high sensitivity to SO 2 , an antiseptic and antioxidant compound regularly used in winemaking.

Effects of Ethanol Exposure during Lactation on Ultrasonic Vocalizations of Rat Pups upon Their Isolation: Increase in Pup Distress Calls

Recording ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) is a highly sensitive tool to study the dam–pup social relationships, and USV recordings have been used to study the effects of ethanol on pups. Gestational effects of ethanol on the emission of USVs in rat pups have been studied in our previous research. In the present study, the effects of ethanol given to dams during lactation on the acoustic parameters of USVs emitted by isolated pups were examined. Ethanol was administered to dams from postnatal days (PNDs) 5–21. From PNDs 11–21, the high- and low-ethanol-treated dams were exposed to ethanol-containing water (v/v) at concentrations of 30% and 15%, respectively. Tap water without ethanol (0%) was provided to the control dams. The pups in all three ethanol-treated groups were separated from the dam and littermates on PNDs 4, 8, 12, and 16, and USVs produced by the pups were recorded for 5 min. It was found that elevated distress USVs with longer duration and higher percentage of frequency modulations were displayed by the pups from the high-ethanol dams. Alterations in USVs were particularly evident in the pups with a reduced body weight at PND 12. This effect might be because high-ethanol dams showed significantly lower intake of higher ethanol-containing water, and consequently, produced lower amount of milk, as well as exhibited poor maternal care. Insufficient maternal care and malnutrition resulted in pup growth retardation and increased mortality rate in the high-ethanol group, which were not observed in the low-ethanol or control pups. Accordingly, the pups in the high-ethanol group experienced elevated negative emotionality during isolation from their dam and increased emission of USVs. Longer duration and increased frequency modulation of pup USVs are expected to be noticed by the dam and to initiate/increase proper maternal care. It is concluded that ethanol given to lactating mothers has more serious consequences on pup development than the gestational ethanol exposure, and has more harmful effects on pups.

Adaptive response to wine selective pressures shapes the genome of a Saccharomyces interspecies hybrid

During industrial processes, yeasts are exposed to harsh conditions, which eventually lead to adaptation of the strains. In the laboratory, it is possible to use experimental evolution to link the evolutionary biology response to these adaptation pressures for the industrial improvement of a specific yeast strain. In this work, we aimed to study the adaptation of a wine industrial yeast in stress conditions of the high ethanol concentrations present in stopped fermentations and secondary fermentations in the processes of champagne production. We used a commercial Saccharomyces cerevisiae × S. uvarum hybrid and assessed its adaptation in a modified synthetic must (M-SM) containing high ethanol, which also contained metabisulfite, a preservative that is used during wine fermentation as it converts to sulfite. After the adaptation process under these selected stressful environmental conditions, the tolerance of the adapted strain (H14A7-etoh) to sulfite and ethanol was investigated, revealing that the adapted hybrid is more resistant to sulfite compared to the original H14A7 strain, whereas ethanol tolerance improvement was slight. However, a trade-off in the adapted hybrid was found, as it had a lower capacity to ferment glucose and fructose in comparison with H14A7. Hybrid genomes are almost always unstable, and different signals of adaptation on H14A7-etoh genome were detected. Each subgenome present in the adapted strain had adapted differently. Chromosome aneuploidies were present in S. cerevisiae chromosome III and in S. uvarum chromosome VII–XVI, which had been duplicated. Moreover, S. uvarum chromosome I was not present in H14A7-etoh and a loss of heterozygosity (LOH) event arose on S. cerevisiae chromosome I. RNA-sequencing analysis showed differential gene expression between H14A7-etoh and H14A7, which can be easily correlated with the signals of adaptation that were found on the H14A7-etoh genome. Finally, we report alterations in the lipid composition of the membrane, consistent with conserved tolerance mechanisms.