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Background Ancient civilizations used natural products as food and as resources to treat various diseases. Today, food ingredients, especially those derived from plants, still play important roles in human nutrition and drug discovery. The health-promoting bioactive compounds or drug candidates need to be identified systematically and efficiently, for developing healthy diets and for alleviating the burden of chronic diseases worldwide. Scope and approach In this multi-disciplinary process, the separation and identification of diverse molecules, the analysis of their interactions with cellular targets, the chemical synthesis, and the animal and clinical trials, are all equally important. The focus of this mini-review is on the initial stage of the process, which is critical to future trends of health foods and food-derived drug discoveries. Through the strategy of targeting the critical proteins involved in many chronic diseases, the bioactive components can be fished out and studied further. Key findings and conclusions Three of the major methodologies to accelerate the discovery of the bioactive components: high throughput screening, phage display technique and virtual screening, are summarized with successful examples. The efficient strategy to identify and further validate the cellular targets, the in silico target prediction and the mass spectroscopy-based proteomics, are also highlighted. To achieve this very promising research goals, through the strategy of targeting the critical proteins involved in many chronic diseases, the establishment of an International Food Ingredients Consortium (IFIC) is proposed.

The direct modulation of Antrodia cinnamomea (AC) on the prominent role of liver fibrosis-hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) in situ remains unclear. Firstly, the administration of A. cinnamomea mycelial extract (ACME) could improve liver morphology and histological changes including collagen formation and GPT activity in the liver of thioacetamide (TAA)-injured rats. The morphology and fatty acid restore of TAA-induced HSCs (THSCs) returned to the non-chemical induced HSCs (NHSCs) type as measured by immunofluorescence and Oil Red O staining. PPARγ was upregulated associated with the lowering of α-SMA protein in NHSC-ACME. ACME inhibited the MMP-2 activity in NHSCs by gelatin Zymography. After LC-MS/MS, the cytoskeleton (tubulin, lamin A) and heat shock protein 8 in NHSC-ACME, and guanylate kinase, brain-specific kinase, SG-II and p55 proteins were downregulated in THSC-ACME. Whereas MHC class II, SMC6 protein, and phospholipase D were upregulated in NHSC-ACME. Furthermore, PKG-1 was downregulated in NHSC-ACME and upregulated in THSC-ACME. SG-II and p55 proteins were downregulated in NHSC-ACME and THSC-ACME by Western blotting. Taken together, the beneficial effect of A. cinnamomea on the induction of HSC cellular proteins is potentially applied as an alternative and complementary medicine for the prevention and amelioration of a liver injury.

The current study presents a new miniature microfluidic flow cytometer integrated with several functional micro-devices capable of viral sample purification and detection by utilizing a magnetic bead-based immunoassay. The magnetic beads were conjugated with specific antibodies, which can recognize and capture target viruses. Another dye-labeled anti-virus antibody was then used to mark the bead-bound virus for the subsequent optical detection. Several essential components were integrated onto a single chip including a sample incubation module, a micro flow cytometry module and an optical detection module. The sample incubation module consisting of pneumatic micropumps and a membrane-type, active micromixer was used for purifying and enriching the target virus-bound magnetic beads with the aid of a permanent magnet. The micro flow cytometry module and the optical detection module were used to perform the functions of virus counting and collection. Experimental results showed that virus samples with a concentration of 10(3)PFU/ml can be automatically detected successfully by the developed system. In addition, the entire diagnosis procedure including sample incubation and virus detection took only about 40min. Consequently, the proposed micro flow cytometry may provide a powerful platform for rapid diagnosis and future biological applications.