The development of the Davis Food Glycopedia - A glycan encyclopedia of food

Authors: CASTILLO, JUAN - University Of California, Davis; COUTURE, GARRET - University Of California, Davis; BACALZO, NIKITA - University Of California, Davis; CHEN, YE - University Of California, Davis; Chin, Elizabeth; BLECKSMITH, SARAH - University Of California, Davis; BOUZID, YASMINE - University Of California, Davis; VAINBERG, YAEL - University Of California, Davis; MASARWEH, CHAD - University Of California, Davis; ZHOU, QING - University Of California, Davis; SMILOWITZ, JENNIFER - University Of California, Davis; GERMAN, J - University Of California, Davis; MILLS, DAVID - University Of California, Davis; Lemay, Danielle; LEBRILLA, CARLITO - University Of California, Davis

Submitted to: Nutrients
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/12/2022
Publication Date: 4/14/2022
Citation: Castillo, J.J., Couture, G., Bacalzo, N.P., Chen, Y., Chin, E.L., Blecksmith, S.E., Bouzid, Y.Y., Vainberg, Y., Masarweh, C., Zhou, Q., Smilowitz, J.T., German, J.B., Mills, D.A., Lemay, D.G., Lebrilla, C.B. 2022. The development of the Davis Food Glycopedia - A glycan encyclopedia of food. Nutrients. 14(8). Article 1639. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14081639.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14081639

Interpretive Summary: To understand the effect of dietary carbohydrates on human health, we need to first determine their chemical structure. The most basic building block of carbohydrates is the monosaccharide. In this work, the abundances of 14 monosaccharides in 800 foods was quantified and organized into a database called the Glycopedia. Glucose is the most prevalent monosaccharide in foods; other monosaccharides commonly found in foods include fructose, galactose, arabinose, xylose, ribose, and mannose. Food groups have distinct monosaccharide compositions. However, there is substantial variety of monosaccharide composition even within food groups. The Glycopedia can now be used to begin to design diets, such as those enriched with specific monosaccharides, to examine relationships between dietary carbohydrates and human health.

Technical Abstract: The molecular complexity of the carbohydrates we consume has been deceptively oversimplified due to a lack of analytical methods that possess the throughput, sensitivity, and resolution required to provide quantitative structural information. Such information is becoming an integral part of understanding how specific glycan structures impact health through their interaction with the gut microbiome and host physiology. In this work, the primary goal was to catalogue the glycans present in complementary foods commonly consumed as the first foods after breast milk by toddler. The monosaccharide compositions of over 800 foods from diverse food groups including fruits, vegetables, grain products, beans/peas/legumes/nuts/seeds, sweets and beverages, animal products, and more were obtained and used to construct the Glycopedia, an open-access database that provides quantitative structural information on the carbohydrates in food. While many foods within the same group possessed similar compositions, hierarchical clustering analysis revealed similarities between different groups as well. The Glycopedia can be used to formulate diets rich in specific monosaccharide residues to provide a more targeted modulation of the gut microbiome, thereby opening the door for a new class of therapeutic diets.