Location: Children's Nutrition Research Center
Project Number: 3092-10700-066-000-D
Project Type: In-House Appropriated
Start Date: Mar 4, 2024
End Date: Mar 3, 2029
Objective:
The overall goal of our research is to contribute knowledge useful in the development of strategies aimed at securing a more nutritious food supply. Additionally, research will be conducted that will focus on two groups of foods/food components: carotenoids found in human milk and the phytochemicals hypoglycin-A and sulforaphane to support optimal health and nutrition. To accomplish this the following objectives will be undertaken: 1) establish abiotic tolerant and nutritionally improved legumes, assess their nutritional quality and productivity, and investigate the mechanisms regulating nutritional quality and productivity under non-stress and abiotic stress conditions; 2) determine the intestinal uptake and metabolism of tomato phytochemicals in the presence of different amounts/types of steroidal alkaloids; 3) determine how calcium oxalate consumption impacts gut microbial composition and regulates calcium bioavailability; 4) define carotenoid absorption, biodistribution, metabolism, and excretion in lactating mothers; 5) define carotenoid bioactivity related to cell growth and metabolism; and 6) Determine mechanisms for the glucose lowering effects of hypoglycin-A and sulforaphane in healthy and type 2 diabetes mouse models.
Approach:
These research studies will use various techniques to accomplish the research to be undertaken. Investigation into the mechanisms conferring the drought tolerance and nutritional improvement will be initiated using molecular-genetic methodologies. A second aspect will focus on steroidal alkaloids and developing novel systems to intrinsically label crops. Steroidal alkaloids are bioactive molecules prominent in tomatoes, which account for ~25% of American vegetable consumption. Determining their bioavailability and metabolism is critical to understanding their role in health. Systems to efficiently generate intrinsically labeled crops will further our understanding of plant metabolism, phytochemical bioavailability, and better define human nutritional needs. Investigation of the degree to which carotenoid intake and physiologic factors predict colostrum, transitional milk, and mature milk carotenoid composition in healthy lactating mothers. We will test the effect of carotenoids on oxidative stress, inflammation, growth, and differentiation of in vitro muscle and adipose cells as a model of infant physiology. We will investigate the nutritional significance of hypoglycin and sulforaphane, two compounds found naturally in certain fruits and vegetables, in the regulation of glucose metabolism. We will test the hypothesis that these compounds will improve glucose metabolism by increasing whole-body and hepatic insulin sensitivity, which in turn elicits increased glucose utilization plus reduced glucose production via suppression of gluconeogenesis in a mouse model of type 2 diabetes.
