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To develop a high-efficiency process for removing phosphorus (P) from metallurgical grade silicon, a novel method of combining Si-Cu solvent refining and CaO-CaF2-CaCl2 slag treatment was investigated through simultaneously re-constructing P-containing phases of CaCu2Si2 in the Si-Cu alloy and Ca3P2 in the slag. After acid leaching, P-containing phases can be eliminated, whereupon high-purity silicon could be recovered from the Si-Cu alloy. The effect of slag components and alloy composition on the P removal efficiency was studied systematically. When the Si-40 wt.% Cu alloy is treated with 20 wt.% CaO-32 wt.% CaF2-48 wt.% CaCl2 slag for 60 min at 1400 °C, the P removal efficiency reaches 90.1%. Furthermore, the mechanism of enhanced P removal was also discussed. It was indicated that a silicothermal reduction reaction occurred between CaO and Si, which caused Ca to migrate into the alloy and precipitate the P-containing CaCu2Si2 in the Si-Cu alloy. Simultaneously, P in silicon is reduced to P3− at the slag–alloy interface, forming Ca3P2 in the slag, thereby establishing a dual-path purification mechanism. Hence, this study provides new insight into silicon high-efficiency purification from economical and practical considerations.

Caloric restriction (CR) delays aging-related hallmarks in various organisms by slowing growth and development while enhancing metabolic homeostasis. However, desirable diets that harness the metabolic benefits of CR without imposing food intake restrictions remain elusive. Here we evaluated the effects of a high-fiber diet we developed, in which 30% of the macronutrients in a standard diet are replaced with indigestible cellulose, compared to a CR control consisting of a nighttime-2h-restricted feeding regimen. Our findings show that the 2h-restricted feeding triggered a robust systemic response associated with the anti-aging benefits typically observed with CR. Intriguingly, the high-fiber diet did not reduce food intake but mimicked the aging-related signatures of CR in male mice from young to old age. These results indicate that the high-fiber diet confers promising benefits for metabolic homeostasis and represents a valuable candidate for further health and aging studies. Caloric restriction promotes healthy aging, but dietary alternatives are needed. Here, the authors show that a high-fiber diet mimics caloric restriction’s benefits in mice, improving metabolism, cognition, and aging markers without reducing food intake.

New nanocomposites, Fe3O4@Au–FITC, were prepared and explored to develop a fluorescent detection of Pb2+. The Fe3O4@AuNPs–FITC nanocomposites could be etched by Pb2+ in the presence of Na2S2O3, leading to fluorescence recovery of FITC quenched by Fe3O4@Au nanocomposites. With the increase of Pb2+ concentration, the fluorescence recovery of Fe3O4@AuNPs–FITC increased gradually. Under optimized conditions, a detection limit of 5.2 nmol/L of Pb2+ with a linear range of 0.02–2.0 µmol/L were obtained. The assay demonstrated negligible response to common metal ions. Recoveries of 98.2–106.4% were obtained when this fluorescent method was applied in detecting Pb2+ spiked in a lake-water sample. The above results demonstrated the high potential of ion-induced nanomaterial etching in developing robust fluorescent assays.

Coarse tea is made of mature tea plant (Camellia sinensis L.) shoots and is generally discarded as a worthless crop product, but has been proved an excellent material for the treatment of diabetes. This study aims to evaluate the effects of the extraction techniques WE (water extraction), UAE (ultrasound-assisted extraction), MAE (microwave-assisted extraction), and EE (enzyme extraction) on the physicochemical properties and antidiabetic activities of polysaccharides from coarse tea (CTPSs). The results showed that all four CTPSs had homogeneity in the monosaccharide types and similar IR (Infrared spectroscopy) characteristic absorption peaks, but differed in monosaccharide proportion and molecular weight distribution. Compared with the other three extraction techniques, CCTPS extracted by EE had the lowest protein content, the highest total sugar content of 71.83% and a polysaccharide yield of 4.52%. In addition, EE-CTPS had the best hypoglycemic activity that was better than ordinary green tea polysaccharides, the α-glucosidase and α-amylase inhibitory activities of EE-CTPS were highest in the range of 2–10 mg/mL compared with the other three CTPSs, which may be related to its smaller molecular weight and porous structure. The results suggested that the EE method was a good way to extract polysaccharides from coarse tea for food and pharmaceutical production.

The structure and hypoglycemic activity of tea polysaccharides has been extensively studied, while there are few reports on the characterization and hypoglycemic activity of dark tea polysaccharides. The crude dark tea polysaccharide (CDTPS) was optimally extracted from Fuzhuan dark tea. Six polysaccharide fractions (namely DTPS-1, DTPS-2, DTPS-3, DTPS-4, DTPS-5, and DTPS-6) were isolated from CDTPS, and their physicochemical, structural, and biological properties were compared and analyzed. The results revealed that the compositions, structural characteristics, and biological properties of the six DTPSs were different. Therein, DTPS-4 and DTPS-6 had looser morphology, faster solubility, and a more stable structure. Additionally, DTPS-4 had the optimum in vitro antioxidant capabilities, and DTPS-6 had the strongest in vitro hypoglycemic capabilities. In addition, a correlation analysis revealed that the molecular weight and uronic acid content were significantly related to their antioxidant and hypoglycemic activities. Our results indicated that DTPS-4 and DTPS-6 could be further developed into functional foods or additives, respectively.

In this study, two novel mixed ACE-inhibiting peptides, namely Se-TAPep 1 and TAPep 1, were prepared and purified from selenium-enriched and common alkali-soluble proteins using a series of process, and then its physicochemical properties and oligopeptide sequence were analyzed. The results showed that Se-TAPep 1 and TAPep 1 could be successfully separated, but their ACE inhibitory activities were different (IC50 values were 13.39 mg/mL and 23.56 mg/mL, respectively), this may be related to the difference in selenium content. Further analysis of physicochemical properties showed that the protein or peptide fractions contained their characteristic absorption peaks and contained aromatic amino acids, while the apparent morphology was different, the presence of selenium could change the apparent morphology of protein or polypeptide fractions, arranging of selenium-enriched fractions more irregular. The amino acid composition analysis showed that the Pro content of the selenium-enriched fractions was higher than that of the ordinary component, whereas the oligopeptide sequence analysis showed that both LQPSLGFP derived from Se-TAPep 1 and AETGEIKGHY derived from TAPep 1 contained some characteristics of highly active ACE-inhibiting peptides, but the characteristics of LQPSLGFP were more conspicuous, which may be related to its molecular weight and source of mixed peptides. These findings indicated that the selenium-enriched tea mixed peptides had better potential uses than ordinary tea mixed peptides in the preparation of functional food.

Although dark tea is a unique microbial-fermented tea with a high reputation for having an antiobesity effect, little is known about the effect of microbial fermentation on tea leaves’ antiobesity properties. This study compared the antiobesity effects of microbial-fermented Qingzhuan tea (QZT) and unfermented Qingmao tea (QMT), providing insight into their underlying mechanisms associated with gut microbiota. Our results indicated that the supplementation of QMT extract (QMTe) and QZT extract (QZTe) displayed similar antiobesity effects in high-fat diet (HFD)-fed mice, but the hypolipidemic effect of QZTe was significantly stronger than that of QMTe. The microbiomic analysis indicated that QZTe was more effective than QMTe at regulating HFD-caused gut microbiota dysbiosis. Akkermansiaceae and Bifidobacteriaceae, which have negative correlations with obesity, were enhanced notably by QZTe, whereas Faecalibaculum and Erysipelotrichaceae, which are positively correlated with obesity, were decreased dramatically by QMTe and QZTe. A Tax4Fun analysis of QMTe/QZTe-mediated gut microbiota revealed that QMTe supplementation drastically reversed the HFD-induced upregulation of glycolysis and energy metabolism, whereas QZTe supplementation significantly restored the HFD-caused downregulation of pyruvate metabolism. Our findings suggested that microbial fermentation showed a limited effect on tea leaves’ antiobesity, but enhanced their hypolipidemic activity, and QZT could attenuate obesity and associated metabolic disorders by favorably modulating gut microbiota.

The interaction mechanism of whey proteins with theaflavin (TF1) in black tea was analyzed using multi-spectroscopy analysis and molecular docking simulations. The influence of TF1 on the structure of bovine serum albumin (BSA), β-lactoglobulin (β-Lg), and α-lactoalbumin (α-La) was examined in this work using the interaction of TF1 with these proteins. Fluorescence and ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) absorption spectroscopy revealed that TF1 could interact with BSA, β-Lg and α-La through a static quenching mechanism. Furthermore, circular dichroism (CD) experiments revealed that TF1 altered the secondary structure of BSA, β-Lg and α-La. Molecular docking demonstrated that the interaction of TF1 with BSA/β-Lg/α-La was dominated by hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interaction. The binding energies were −10.1 kcal mol−1, −8.4 kcal mol−1 and −10.4 kcal mol−1, respectively. The results provide a theoretical basis for investigating the mechanism of interaction between tea pigments and protein. Moreover, the findings offered technical support for the future development of functional foods that combine tea active ingredients with milk protein. Future research will focus on the effects of food processing methods and different food systems on the interaction between TF1 and whey protein, as well as the physicochemical stability, functional characteristics, and bioavailability of the complexes in vitro or in vivo.

In order to improve the detection performance of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), a low-cost Au@Ag nanorods (Au@Ag NRs) substrate with a good SERS enhancement effect was developed and applied to the detection of malachite green (MG) in aquaculture water and crayfish. By comparing the SERS signal enhancement effect of five kinds of Au@Ag NRs substrates with different silver layer thickness on 4-mercaptobenzoic acid (4-MBA) solution, it was found that the substrate prepared with 100 µL AgNO3 had the smallest aspect ratio (3.27) and the thickest Ag layer (4.1 nm). However, it showed a good signal enhancement effect, and achieved a detection of 4-MBA as low as 1 × 10−11 M, which was 8.7 times higher than that of the AuNRs substrate. In addition, the Au@Ag NRs substrate developed in this study was used for SRES detection of MG in crayfish; its detection limit was 1.58 × 10−9 M. The developed Au@Ag NRs sensor had the advantages of stable SERS signal, uniform size and low cost, which provided a new tool for SERS signal enhancement and highly sensitive SERS detection method development.

The research on the activity of selenium (Se)-enriched agricultural products is receiving increasing attention since Se was recognized for its antioxidant activities and for its enhancement of immunity in trace elements. In this study, antioxidant Se-containing peptides, namely, Se-TAPepI-1 and Se-TAPepI-2, were optimally separated and prepared from Se-enriched tea protein hydrolysates by ultrafiltration and Sephadex G-25 purification, and subsequently, their physicochemical properties, oligopeptide sequence, and potential antioxidant mechanism were analyzed. Through the optimization of enzymatic hydrolysis conditions, the Se-enriched tea protein hydrolyzed by papain exhibited a better free radical scavenging activity. After separation and purification of hydrolysates, the two peptide fractions obtained showed significant differences in selenium content, amino acid composition, apparent morphology, peptide sequence, and free radical scavenging activity. Therein, two peptides from Se-TAPepI-1 included LPMFG (563.27 Da) and YPQSFIR (909.47 Da), and three peptides from Se-TAPepI-2 included GVNVPYK (775.42 Da), KGGPGG (552.24 Da), and GDEPPIVK (853.45 Da). Se-TAPepI-1 and Se-TAPepI-2 could ameliorate the cell peroxidation damage and inflammation by regulating NRF2/ARE pathway expression. Comparably, Se-TAPepI-1 showed a better regulatory effect than Se-TAPepI-2 due to their higher Se content, typical amino acid composition and sequence, higher surface roughness, and a looser arrangement in their apparent morphology. These results expanded the functional activities of tea peptide and provided the theoretical basis for the development of Se-containing peptides from Se-enriched tea as a potential natural source of antioxidant dietary supplements.