In Vitro Gastrointestinal Digestion and Colonic Catabolism of Mango (Mangifera indica L.) Pulp Polyphenols

Mango (Mangifera indica L.), a fruit with sensorial attractiveness and extraordinary nutritional and phytochemical composition, is one of the most consumed tropical varieties in the world. A growing body of evidence suggests that their bioactive composition differentiates them from other fruits, with mango pulp being an especially rich and diverse source of polyphenols. In this study, mango pulp polyphenols were submitted to in vitro gastrointestinal digestion and colonic fermentation, and aliquots were analyzed by HPLC-HRMS. The main phenolic compounds identified in the mango pulp were hydroxybenzoic acid-hexoside, two mono-galloyl-glucoside isomers and vanillic acid. The release of total polyphenols increased after the in vitro digestion, with an overall bioaccessibility of 206.3%. Specifically, the most bioaccessible mango polyphenols were gallic acid, 3-O-methylgallic acid, two hydroxybenzoic acid hexosides, methyl gallate, 3,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid and benzoic acid, which potentially cross the small intestine reaching the colon for fermentation by the resident microbiota. After 48 h of fecal fermentation, the main resultant mango catabolites were pyrogallol, gallic and 3,4-dihydroxybenzoic acids. This highlighted the extensive transformation of mango pulp polyphenols through the gastrointestinal tract and by the resident gut microbiota, with the resultant formation of mainly simple phenolics, which can be considered as biomarkers of the colonic metabolism of mango.

The Relationship Between Bulb Yield and Allicin Concentration in Garlic Varieties

Garlic (Allium sativum L.) is used as a vegetable and medicinal plant. It is a rich source of organosulfur compounds, in particular allicin, which contributes to the flavour and health benefits. Although worldwide garlic production is increasing, demand continues to outstrip supply. Improving the yield of garlic will address the increasing demand, while increasing allicin concentration will improve its potential health benefits and flavour. It is unknown if increasing garlic bulb size (yield) has a negative effect on allicin concentration of garlic. Therefore, a fundamental understanding of the relationship between yield and allicin concentration is required. A field experiment was conducted at Gatton (QLD, Australia) with 32 varieties, of which 29 varieties were sourced from World Vegetable Centre and 3 varieties from existing Queensland sub-tropical varieties. The garlic cloves were planted in March 2018 with 4 replicates in a randomised complete block design and harvested when garlic had 70% senescence. Varieties showed large variation in bulb size, ranging from about 35 to 120 g, with fresh yield ranging from about 5.5 to 16 t/ha. The allicin concentration ranged from 3.5 to 6.6 mg g−1 fresh weight (FW) between varieties and more than 50% of varieties were under the minimum pharmaceutical standard for allicin concentration (>4.5 mg g−1 in FW). Across varieties there was an inverse relationship between yield and allicin concentration. However, there were some varieties which had both high allicin concentration and yield. Current field trials investigate the effect of agronomic practices on yield and allicin concentration in garlic varieties.

In vitro micropropagation in tropical short day onion (Allium cepa L.)

For in vitro micropropagation, short day tropical varieties of onion ‘Agrifound Dark Red’, ‘Punjab Naroya’ and ‘PRO-6’ were exposed to different concentrations and combinations of growth hormones. Pre-sterilization of basal plate of onion in 0.5% solution of bavistin followed by treatment with 0.1% mercuric chloride for 10 min. produced the highest rate of survival of explants (47.9%). Survival was further enhanced to 53.17% with the addition of 750 ppm cefotaxime in MS medium. Varietal differences were observed for in vitro establishment, multiplication and root induction. Among various combinations of growth hormones, MS medium supplemented with 4.0 mg/l BAP + 0.5 mg/l NAA, 2 mg/l BAP and 0.5 mg/l NAA and half MS carrying 1.0 mg/l IBA + 0.5 mg/l NAA produced the highest in vitro establishment (53.07%), multiplication (64.46%) and rooting (66.37%) respectively, in ‘Agrifound Dark Red’.

Kernels in tropical geometry and a Jordan–Hölder theorem

When considering affine tropical geometry, one often works over the max-plus algebra (or its supertropical analog), which, lacking negation, is a semifield (respectively, [Formula: see text]-semifield) rather than a field. One needs to utilize congruences rather than ideals, leading to a considerably more complicated theory. In his dissertation, the first author exploited the multiplicative structure of an idempotent semifield, which is a lattice ordered group, in place of the additive structure, in order to apply the extensive theory of chains of homomorphisms of groups. Reworking his dissertation, starting with a semifield[Formula: see text][Formula: see text], we pass to the semifield[Formula: see text][Formula: see text] of fractions of the polynomial semiring[Formula: see text], for which there already exists a well developed theory of kernels, which are normal convex subgroups of [Formula: see text]; the parallel of the zero set now is the [Formula: see text]-set, the set of vectors on which a given rational function takes the value 1. These notions are refined in supertropical algebra to [Formula: see text]-kernels (Definition 4.1.4) and [Formula: see text]-sets, which take the place of tropical varieties viewed as sets of common ghost roots of polynomials. The [Formula: see text]-kernels corresponding to tropical hypersurfaces are the [Formula: see text]-sets of what we call “corner internal rational functions,” and we describe [Formula: see text]-kernels corresponding to “usual” tropical geometry as [Formula: see text]-kernels which are “corner-internal” and “regular.” This yields an explicit description of tropical affine varieties in terms of various classes of [Formula: see text]-kernels. The literature contains many tropical versions of Hilbert’s celebrated Nullstellensatz, which lies at the foundation of algebraic geometry. The approach in this paper is via a correspondence between [Formula: see text]-sets and a class of [Formula: see text]-kernels of the rational [Formula: see text]-semifield[Formula: see text] called polars, originating from the theory of lattice-ordered groups. When [Formula: see text] is the supertropical max-plus algebra of the reals, this correspondence becomes simpler and more applicable when restricted to principal [Formula: see text]-kernels, intersected with the [Formula: see text]-kernel generated by [Formula: see text]. For our main application, we develop algebraic notions such as composition series and convexity degree, leading to a dimension theory which is catenary, and a tropical version of the Jordan–Hölder theorem for the relevant class of [Formula: see text]-kernels.