Macrophages are the core effector cells of the innate immune system. The dysregulation of amino acid, glucose, lipid, and energy metabolism in macrophages has a profound impact on inflammatory pathways. A comprehensive analysis of metabolites in macrophages can identify inflammatory metabolic biomarkers, elucidate inflammatory metabolic pathways, and provide a deep understanding of inflammation. Metabolomics technology, as a high-throughput detection method for analyzing small molecule metabolites in the body, can reveal the relationship of metabolic networks by detecting changes in the metabolites of macrophages. Therefore, this review summarizes the application of metabolomics in macrophages, comprehensively elaborates the metabolic network within macrophages, and aims to provide a new perspective for the discovery of potential inflammatory biomarkers and therapeutic targets.

Natural remedies are often used as standalone treatments or as complementary approaches to modern medicine for controlling type 2 diabetes. Gardenia jasminoides, a substance used in both food and medicine, has been clinically employed in traditional Chinese medicine to treat hyperglycemia. Here, we first identified crocetin as the compound responsible for the primary hypoglycemic activity of G. jasminoides and revealed that G protein-coupled receptor kinase 5 (GRK5) is the key target through which crocetin improves glucose homeostasis and insulin resistance. To identify the bioactive components in G. jasminoides, we conducted high-resolution mass spectrometry analysis and bioactivity-guided fractionation, confirming that crocetin is the primary bioactive constituent. We demonstrated the direct binding of crocetin to GRK5 via cellular thermal shift (CETSA) and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) assays. Further knockdown experiments confirmed the essential role of GRK5 in enhancing crocetin-mediated improvements in glucose metabolism. Additionally, we explored direct downstream targets of GRK5 and demonstrated for the first time that AKT2 is a novel GRK5-interacting protein. Collectively, these findings reveal that crocetin is a promising glucose-regulating phytochemical that targets GRK5 to phosphorylate AKT2, thereby improving glucose homeostasis.

The theory of food and medicine homology emphasizes the integration of food and medicine functions to achieve health interventions through daily diet, becoming a significant development direction for the health industry. With the rapid advancement of modern disciplines such as mass spectrometry, omics technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), and bioinformatics, the scientific underpinnings of food and medicine homology are gradually being revealed. The in-depth exploration and development of food and medicine homology resources and their products are increasingly shaping the future of food innovation. This paper summarizes the application of classical herbal texts, folk practices, and cutting-edge technologies like AI and multimodal omics technology in mining food and medicine homologous resources. It also highlights the bidirectional value exploration, uncovering medicinal properties in edible resources and the edible potential in medicinal resources, to foster innovative scientific paradigms in this field. This approach accelerates the development of food and medicine homologous resources and paves new pathways for future food innovation.

Soybean is widely used in diets, and numerous reports have highlighted its antioxidant properties. However, constructing a methodology for rapid identifying and predicting a series of antioxidant active ingredients in Soybean presents certain challenges. Therefore, we introduced the spectrum-effect relationship-ingredient knockout identification technique to identify a series of antioxidant active ingredients in soybean. By combining untargeted metabolomics with network pharmacology, we predicted the antioxidant active ingredients and their target sites. We successfully identified 4 antioxidant active compounds (daidzein, genistein, daidzein, and glycitin) and 10 corresponding antioxidant targets (epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), estrogen receptor 1 (ESR1), steroid receptor coactivator (SRC), tumor necrosis factor (TNF), kinase insert domain receptor (KDR), AKT serine/threonine kinase 1 (AKT1), growth factor receptor bound protein 2 (GRB2), signal transducer and activator of transcription1 (STAT1), mitogen-activated protein kinase 8 (MAPK8), B-cell lymphoma-2 (BCL2)) by our analysis. The validation results from cell experiments revealed that glycitin exhibited the best antioxidant activity and significantly influenced the expression of EGFR and the proteins associated with nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2/NAD(P)H quinone dehydrogenase 1 (NRF2/NQO1) signaling pathways. These findings were consistent with the predicted outcomes and were further confirmed in a zebrafish model. It suggests that glycitin may exert antioxidant effects by regulating the expression of EGFR, NRF2, and NQO1 proteins. The results demonstrate that a rapid analytical method for determining antioxidant activity was established.

Flowers have a high medicinal value and contain secondary metabolites including flavonoids, volatile oils, organic acids, terpenoids and alkaloids as well as polysaccharides as important active compounds with many functions including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, hypoglycemic, hypolipic, anti-tumor, and immunoenhancing properties. In this article, the progress in the chemical composition and biological activity of polysaccharides in flowers in the past five years is summarized, and future research directions and application prospects are discussed. Through this review, we hope to provide an impetus for further research on flower-derived polysaccharides and provide reference for the development and utilization of related health products.

The housekeeping genes atpD, gyrB, infB, fusA and glnS in Cronobacter sakazakii were selected as target sequences to construct plasmid standards for rapidly detecting C. sakazakii. The constructed recombinant plasmids was verifiedby colony polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and sequencing and was checked for stability after 15 passages. The atpD, gyrB, infB, fusA and glnS plasmid standards were qualitatively tested and evaluated in terms of limit of detection (LOD) and stability. Then, these plasmid standards were used to detect C. sakazakii in infant milk powder. The results of colony PCR and sequencing showed successful construction of the atpD, gyrB, infB, fusA and glnS plasmid standards. The PCR system was specificfor the detection of the plasmid standards. The detection limits of atpD, gyrB, infB, fusA and glnS were 1.14 × 10⁶, 1.07 × 10⁷, 1.09 × 10⁷, 1.73 × 10⁵ and 7.54 × 10⁵ copies/μL, respectively. The lyophilized plasmids could be stored stably at -20, 4 and 25 ℃ for 90 days. The plasmid standards were used to detect 23 samples of infant milk powder, and one of them was detected positive for gyrB. However, C. sakazakii was undetectable by the traditional national standard method (GB 4789.40-2016). Compared with the traditional method, the application of the plasmid standards greatly improved the detection efficiency of samples

Inflammation caused by obesity, particularly in adipose tissue and the liver, can lead to insulin resistance (IR) and trigger type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). It is crucial to identify therapeutic agents that alleviate IR by reducing inflammation. Here, we report that isobavachromene (IB), a flavonoid derived from Psoralea corylifolia Linn., ameliorates IR in 3T3-L1 adipocytes by inhibiting the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) signaling pathway. We first found that IB could promote glucose uptake in 3T3-L1 adipocytes by activating the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI-3K)/protein kinase B (Akt) signaling pathway and was more effective than the positive control sodium orthovanadate at concentrations ranging from 25 to 100 μmol/L. Additionally, IB inhibited RAW264.7 macrophage infiltration into 3T3-L1 adipocytes and suppressed the secretion of inflammatory factors from RAW264.7 macrophages, as well as the phosphorylation levels of key proteins (NF-κB p65, extracellular-signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2), Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), and mitogen-activated protein kinase 38 (p38)) in the NF-κB and MAPK signaling pathways. In summary, IB improves glucose uptake in IR adipocytes, activates the PI-3K/Akt signaling pathway, inhibits the JNK and NF-κB inflammatory signaling pathways, and reduces adipocyte inflammation, thereby improving of IR in 3T3-L1 adipocytes.

In the ethnic regions of Yunnan province, China, Cinnamomum chago is recognized as a nutraceutical food that possesses significant economic, ecological, and medicinal value. Although studies have highlighted the seeds of C. chago with high content in polyphenols, flavonoids, and tannins, the studies of components and biological activities of C. chago are under investigated. To explore the functional components hidden in the edible and medical plant C. chago, UPLC-MS/MS and Feature-Based Molecular Networking (FBMN) strategies were applied to investigative the antioxidant components in C. chago. A total of 104 compounds including 43 lipids, 21 phenols, 20 alkaloids, 10 amino acids, six organic acids and four terpenoids were identified by MS/MS analysis for the first time. It is noteworthy that there are four previously undescribed lipids were characterized. The n-butanol fraction (n-BuF) of C. chago extracts exhibited the strongest antioxidant capacity in radical-scavenging assays. Namely, the n-BuF effectively mitigated oxidative stress in H₂O₂-induced HepG2 cells by significantly reducing intracellular ROS levels and apoptosis via the Nrf2/NQO1 pathway. The results highlighted that the kernels of C. chago hold great potential as a source for developing functional and nutritional foods.

Rehmannia radix is a kind of food and medicinal material, riched in monoterpenoids, phenylethanol glycosides, triterpenes, flavonoids, and other kinds of chemical compounds, among which monoterpenoids such as iridoids and ionones, and phenylethanol glycosides are the characteristic components of R. radix, with various biological activities. To excavate more characteristic active ingredients, the chemical compositions were identified from the 75% ethanol extract by v a variety of column methods and their hypoglycemic activities were evaluated in HepG2 cells. As a consequence, 13 compounds (1-13) were identified, including 4 iridoid compounds, 3 ionones, and 6 phenylethanol compounds, among them compound 3 was a new iridoid. The hypoglycemic activity showed that 7 compounds (1~2, 4~7 and 13) could promote glucose uptake of IR-HepG2 cells. And compound 6 could significantly upregulate protein levels of PI-3K, p-GSK3β, p-AKT and GLUT4, and significantly downregulated protein levels of PEPCK and G6Pase. These results revealed that compound 6 improved insulin resistance in HepG2 cells probably by activating PI-3K/AKT signaling pathway and inhibiting gluconeogenesis. These results succeeded in enriching the chemical composition of R. radix and provided an important scientific basis for the application of Rehmannia in the treatment of diabetes.