PRODIGEST · Nanostructure formation during food protein digestion and influence on intestinal transport

The global food system is currently facing great challenges, which are mainly motivated by environmental and health-related concerns: (i) The existing food resources are not efficiently utilized; while some of them are overexploited, causing water/soil shortage, biodiversity losses, etc., others are not properly valorized (e.g. seaweeds). (ii) Moreover, the unhealthy dietary habits of modern societies are leading to a dramatic increase in the incidence of diet-related chronic diseases (e.g. obesity, diabetes, etc.). In this context, the food industry is actively looking for ‘novel’ food sources with added health benefits. However, to design strategies for a sustainable production of nutritious food products from alternative sources and to predict their potential metabolic responses (e.g. satiety, allergenicity, etc.), it is essential to understand how food structure, digestibility and bioavailability are correlated.PRODIGEST seeks to investigate this topic from a novel perspective, focusing on the mechanistic and structural aspects of the gastrointestinal digestion of food proteins and studying their implications on bioavailability. The type of structures formed by the assembly of the digestion products through intermolecular associations or by interactions with physiological medium components, as well as the effect of dietary fibres (which are abundant in alternative protein sources) will be studied and linked to their intestinal transport and susceptibility to trigger metabolic responses. To address this challenge, a set of advanced structural characterization tools (including X-ray and neutron scattering techniques, peptidomic analyses and rheology), as well as intestinal transport studies, will be combined through a multi-disciplinary approach, interconnecting structural characterization, food science and biotechnology. The project outcomes will find potential applications to diverse research areas, such as nutrition, food technology, pharmacology and medicine.