Studying Nutrigenomics

In addition to fish oil, nutrigenomic studies have identified other possible modulators of TNF-a production and/or release in vitro. Kang et al. reported that soybean saponins suppressed the release of TNF-a by LPS-stimulated murine peritoneal macrophages.100 Horrigan et al. demonstrated that concentrations of caffeine that were relevant to human consumption consistently suppressed the production of TNF-a in human blood.101 Clearly, more studies that address the anti-inflammatory effects of food components in studies involving humans are warranted. 

As it has been discussed in this chapter, transcriptomic profiling of food crops is a hot application for RNA-Seq technologies. Nevertheless, the applicability of RNA-Seq in Food Science and Nutrition is still in its infancy and it is not fully exploited yet. In the near future, it can be anticipated that many relevant topics in Food Science will benefit from RNA-Seq techniques. For instance in Nutrigenomics studies, it can be expected that RNA-Seq studies will improve our limited understanding of the roles of nutritional compounds... 

The beginning chapters of this volume are devoted to aspects of phytochemical research that are fundamental to this new era of activity. Chapter 1 introduces the fundamentals of nutritional genomics (nutrigenomics), notably DNA arrays, proteomics, and metabolomics, while Chapter 2 indicates the manifold factors affecting bioavailability, critically compares various methods for its measurement, and highlights crucial differences between studies on new drug formulations and dietary phytochemicals. The fundamental importance of considering metabolic processes is addressed in Chapter 3, with particular attention to those associated with the ubiquitous polyphenols. 

Nutrigenomics Nutrigenomics is the study of the effects of diet on gene expression, their translation into proteins and metabolic changes that result. It corresponds to understanding how of genes are involved in the metabolism, the variation in the expression of these genes under the influence of these dietary components and their respective functions. 

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