eChapters

Lactate dehydrogenase: An enzyme that reversibly catalyses conversion of pyruvate to lactate by utilizing NAD as coenzyme. This operates under anaerobic respiratory condition.

Lactate fermentation: Lactic acid fermentation is a biological process by which glucose and six carbon sugars (also, disaccharides of six carbon sugars, e.g. sucrose or lactose) are converted into cellular energy and the metabolite lactate. It is an anaerobic fermentation reaction.

Latent heat: The heat required to convert a solid into a liquid or vapour, or a liquid into a vapour, without change of temperature. It is also called as hidden heat.

Leaching requirement: (LR) The amount of water in excess of the plant requirement that is needed to remove salt from the root zone in order to prevent soil salinity from exceeding a specified value.

Leaf Area Duration (LAD): It is the functional leaf area or estimated photosynthetic area which contributed for the total biomasss. To correlate dry matter yield with Leaf area, Power et al., (1967) integrated the Leaf area with time and called as Leaf Area Duration. LAD taken into account, both the duration and extent of photosynthetic tissue of the crop canopy. The LAD is expressed in m². days.

Ketose: A simple sugar in which carbonyl group is a ketone.

Kinases: Enzymes that catalyse phosphorylation of an acceptor molecule such as protein molecule by ATP.

Jasmonic acid: Jasmonic acid is derived from the fatty acid, linolenic acid. It is a member of the jasmonate class of plant hormones. It is biosynthesized from linolenic acid by the octadecanoid pathway. The major function of JA and its various metabolites is regulating plant responses to abiotic and biotic stresses as a well as plant growth and development processes.

Ice nucleation: It is a process of reducing the formation of ice crystal under freezing stress, by some polysaccharides and proteins known as ice nucleators.

Imbibitions: It is a special type of diffusion when water is absorbed by solids-colloids-causing them to enormously increase in volume. The classical examples of imbibition are absorption of water by seeds and dry wood.

Immobile elements: The elements which get translocated slower inside the plant are called immobile elements. Examples: Ca, Fe and B.

Immunoassay: This is very sensitive method of identifying and or quantifying the hormones and other molecules which has antigen and antibody interaction.

Indeterminate growth: Plant growth in which the main stem continues to elongate indefinitely without being limited by a terminal inflorescence or other reproductive structure; also growth is characterized by sequential flowering from the lateral or basal buds to the central or uppermost buds.

Indole -3 acetic acid: It is naturally occurring auxin responsible for cell elongation, apical dominance and other physiological functions of auxins.

Induced dormancy: Induced dormancy in which dormancy develops as a response to external environmental factors.

Gel: A semi-solid medium in to which proteins or nucleic acids are subjected to electrophoresis, to determine their size or to separate them from other components.

Gene family: A set of genes whose sequences differ only slightly that encode identical products; within a single species, a multigene family.

Gene tagging: The addition of a marker to a gene; often by the introduction of a transposon or insertion element.

Gene transfer: Transformation; the insertion of foreign DNA into a host conferring a trait not previously inherant in that organism.

Gene: The concise meaning might be the sequence of DNA that encodes a gene product (an RNA or protein), including all upstream and downstream sequences involved in the expression of the gene.

Genome: Sum of all genetic information of an organism, nucleus, organelle, or virus.

Geotropism (Barytropism or gravitropism): When a seedling is kept horizontally on the soil, the radicle always grows towards soil, and the plumule grows away from the soil. This type of growth movement of radicle and plumule is called positively geotropic and negatively geotropic respectively. But some runners and rhizomes grow parallel to the surface of the soil and this is referred to as diagiotropic. When the lateral roots grow obliquely into the soil, it is referred to as plagiogeotropic phenomenon.

Germination percentage: Germination percentage is an estimate of the viability of a population of seeds.

Ectodormancy: A kind of dormancy which is due to environmental factors.

EDTA: An important chelating agent often used in modern nutrient solutions. It forms soluble complexes with metal ions such as that of iron and prevents from precipitation in the solution.

Elaiosomes: Greek élaion means “oil” and sóma means “body” , are fleshy structures that are attached to the seeds of many plant species. The elaiosome is rich in lipids and proteins, and may be variously shaped. Many plants have elaiosomes that attract ants, which take the seed to their nest and feed the elaiosome to their larvae and by which the seed get dispersed.

Electrical conductivity: Electrical conductivity is the measure of a material’s ability to allow the transport of an electric charge. It is used to measure the level of salinity in water or soil. When electrical conductivity is more, then salinity is more since as salt concentration is more in water or soil, then those salts will conduct more of electricity. Normally measured in μS/cm.

Electrical impedance: The application of alternating electrical current to pre-frozen or frozen plant tissues to predict damage or measure injury, respectively.

Dark reactions: It is light independent reactions occurs during daytime. This includes C₃, C₄ and CAM pathway involving the utilization of NADPH and ATP to fix CO₂ into carbohydrates. It is also called as stromal reactions.

Day neutral plants: The plants that flowers regardless of the length of the period of the light that is exposed to. They are called as day neutral plants.

DCMU (Dichlorophenyl dimethyl urea or diuron): An herbicide that inhibits non-cyclic photophosophorylation specifically blocks the electron flow at the quinone acceptors of PSII, by competing for the binding site of plastoquinone that is normally occupied by PQB.

DCPIP (Dichlorophenol indophenols): A dye often used as artificial hydrogen acceptor to demonstrate in Hills reaction in isolated chloroplast in laboratory. The oxidized form is blue in alkali and red in acid, while reduced form is colourless.

C₃ cycle or Calvin cycle: It is a process of dark reaction of photosynthesis. It is also called as photosynthetic carbon reduction cycle which results in the production of sugars. It occurs not only in C₃ plants but also in C₄ and CAM pathway also. It occurs in the mesophyll cells. It is described in three stages: (1) Carboxylation, (2) Reduction, (3) Regeneration.

C₃ plants: Group of plants with calvin cycle wherein the first stable product is 3-phosphoglyceric acid, a three carbon compound. e.g., rice, wheat, barley.

C₄ cycle: C₄ cycle may also referred to as the dicarboxylic acid cycle or Hatch and Slack Cycle. The first stable product is a C₄ compounds like oxaloacetic acid. Here CO₂ molecule is accepted by phosphoenol pyruvate in the carboxylation reaction. The main purpose of this cycle is carbondioxide enrichment.

C₄ plants: Plants with Hatch-slack pathway and kranz anatomy of leaves in which the first stable product is four carbon compound, oxaloacetic acid. These plants posses high photosynthetic efficiency and low photorespiration rate. e.g., sugarcane, maize, sorghum.

Bacteriochlorophylls: A group of light absorbing photosynthetic green pigments of anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria.

Ballistic transformation: The use of a particle gun to insert foreign DNA into a host.

Beneficial elements: These are the elements that help to optimize the growth and development only in some species. It is not essential to all the plants. Aluminum is beneficial to some species that are adapted to acidic soils. Cobalt can have a number of beneficial effects, especially in leguminous plants.

Betalains: Highly coloured nitrogen containing glycosylated compound in the category of alkaloids imparting red-purple and yellow colour in plants of centropsermae (e.g., beet root).

Beta-oxidation: Breakdown of fatty acids into Acetyl co-A by successive oxidation. It is the first step of lipids breakdown.

Bidirectional transport: Simultaneous transport of solutes in opposite directions in the same file of sieve elements. Bidirectional transport may occur under some circumstances. For e.g., in a file of cell, as a result of cytoplasmic streaming.

Abiotic stress: Unfavourable situation created by non-living factors to the growth and development of plants. Factors include water, temperature, soluble salts, heavy metals, etc.

Abscissic acid (ABA): A plant hormone belongs to isoprenoid compounds. It is also known as stress hormone since it has relevance in stress tolerance in plants. Some of the physiological effects of ABA are closing of stomata, synthesis of osmolytes and seed dormancy.

Abscission layer: Distinct layer of cells with weakened cell walls in abscission zone.

Abscission zone: A region near the base of petiole of leaf which contain abscission layer.

Fermentation process is known to humans since ancient times. It involves the transformation of raw materials into value added or nutritional products as a result of microbial action or their growth. The fermentation as a science involves aspects of the biological action of microbes, biochemical changes in the substrates and metabolites formed and their effect on food, health and nutritional applications. While fermentation as technology, involves chemical engineering, food engineering and instrumentation aspects and commercialization of the products prepared keeping in view the consumer acceptability. The term fermentation is derived from the Latin word ‘Fervere - to boil’ thus describing the actions of yeasts on extracts of fruits or malted grain. Fermented foods and beverages enhance the pleasure of eating and their nutritional roles include indirect contributions through subjective enhancement of appetite. The instant mixes for fermented or fermentable products such as idli, dosai, dhokla and bhatura mix can reduce the overnight fermenting of the raw materials required for preparation of these products. The instant mixes for idli & dhokla are quite common in the market. However, instant mix for Jalebi and Bhatura are still emerging. Such products add convenience to the consumers and products can be prepared instantly. Certain other fermented foods include dairy products, pickles, sauerkrauts, Kanji, beverages, food supplements and nutraceuticals from fermented biomass.

In 1907, the Russian Nobel laureate, Dr. Elie Metchnikoff, fascinated by the unusual longevity of Bulgarian farmers, consuming beneficial lactic acid bacteria by way of traditional fermented milk products, suggested that regular intake of friendly microbes could benefit human health. Although Dr. Metchnikoff ’s recommended bacteria for the purpose proved largely ineffective, the theory was carried forward with moderate success until the war on bacteria began because of the advent of sulfa drugs and antibiotics (Scott, 2012). However soon after their rampant use and the realization of the rapid spread of antimicrobial resistance, researchers turned yet again to ecological notions and the time was fertile for the advent of probiotics. By the 1980’s the term had stabilized both in medical and veterinary literature. The mid 1990’s witnessed a surge of exponential studies on probiotics, the definition of Probiotics emerged in 2001 and the years thereafter saw tremendous progress in the science of probiotics.

Almost simultaneous was the study on the study of the intestinal microbiota when Alfred Nissile demonstrated that transferring members of the human gut microbiota to healthy typhoid carriers helped in Salmonella being cleansed from their system (Nissle, 1916). It was then, that the importance of the gut microbes in prevention of infection became evident. What followed was the advent of culture independent, modern biotechnological tools for whole genome sequencing and the successful launch of two most ambitious projects - Human Microbiome project (Turnbaugh et al., 2007) and the Met Hit project (Metahit, 2009; Qin et al., 2010). They provided fascinating insights into the highly complex microbial ecosystem harboured by the human body. The term Microbiome (refers to the collective genome of our microbial inhabitants) had entered literature in 2001 and the concept of gut microbiota in maintaining overall health gained wider attention.

Introduction

Since the last century, nutritional science has made a remarkable contribution to the biological sciences through identification of diverse nutrients and their sources, functions, requirement, deficiency symptoms and their remedial measures etc. The advent of high-throughput sequencing technologies together with bioinformatic tools identified the presence of 100 trillion of microorganism belonging to all forms of life in the gastrointestinal tract. In fact, the whole gut microbial consortia are considered as a virtual organ in human and animals and is responsible for the development and functioning of series of essential physiological activities including digestion, absorption, metabolism, immunity, homeostasis, brain and gut development, resistance against disease etc. According to the modern scientific dogma, the human being is in fact a “Superorganism”, carrying consortium of numerous symbiotic Eukarya, Bacteria, Archaea and Viruses. The gut microflora has been co-evolved with human and presumed to maintain an intricate balance among different microbial communities. Upon introspection about the functionality of the gut microflora, it is amply clear that a few of these microorganisms have the ability to make healthy state; while other members are responsible for health-related problems including food poisoning, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, indigestion, inflammatory bowel disease, predisposition to colon cancer, compromising immunity, allergy etc.

Preamble

Historically, food has been an integral part of human civilization and diet with varied food components has sustained human life on this planet over the centuries. Similarly, culturing of food with natural fermentation as means of preserving foods with extended shelf life for future use. In the background of sustaining food security, advances made in biotechnology and molecular biology has provided ample scientific platform to use the advances in increasing and expanding food production on a global magnitude, so as to meet the needs of an ever-growing world population.

The intestinal microbiota is a key component of both the metabolism and immunity of humans and animals. The desirable microbes do have a significant role to play in healthcare through control of digestive disorders and foodborne illnesses. The continued research in this area over the years has led to the identification of important molecules that regulate major functional attributes in the betterment of human health and wellness in the long run. The science and technique of genetic engineering through molecular biology approaches has enabled in enriching the beneficial molecules for the benefit of human life. The accuracy in targeting and designing of molecules will go a long way in developing genetically modified (GM) lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and GM probiotics to significantly rewrite the medical care with food-based approach in the form of targeted specific diets – “Dietomics”.

Introduction

Off late our understanding of the composition and functions of the human gut microbiota has increased exponentially and there is a great interest in producing healthy foods in particular that which have an impact in improving the gastrointestinal health such as probiotics, prebiotics and synbiotics. Many of these functional foods are dairy based and have been accepted greatly worldwide. Nonertheless, there has been a need for the development of nondairy probiotic, prebiotic and synbiotic products (Salmeron 2017). This has prompted food scientists and food industrialists to study the feasibility of applying other fermenting substrates such as cereals for the development of innovative nondairy fermented functional foods. The importance of including nanoscience and nanotechnology techniques for the creation of fermented cereal beverages that contain specific bioactive nanoparticles and their role in food packaging systems will be discussed.

Introduction

The entire living organism from the smaller creatures viruses to the advanced human beings are composed of a set up of biochemical reactions which form the metabolism. These set of metabolic reactions are responsible for the life of organism. The rate of these reactions is a major concern for effective working of organism which is governed by biocatalyst. These biocatalysts are known as enzymes, which accelerates rate of biochemical reaction. These are not utilized in reaction. In 1877, Wilhelm Friedrich Kuhne (Kuhne, 1877) proposed the term enzyme which means ‘in yeast’ and is derived from the Greek word; inzume “leavened” or “in yeast”. At the molecular level of study it is observed that enzymes are proteins which are functional as tertiary and quaratanary structures. Enzymes have active site for the binding to substrate. The active site has two positions; binding and catalytic site (Ogeston, 1948). The former help to bind the substrate with the enzyme followed by the catalysis of reaction by the catalytic site.

Introduction

Since long time fermentation process is in use for the production of functional food products for human welfare. SSF is a cost effective industrially important method that could be used by food industries to improve the nutritional profile of natural substrates (Salar and Purewal, 2016; Postemsky et al., 2017). The process is being carried out by trained microbiologists in the presence of aseptic conditions using suitable starter culture on steam sterilized substrates. Steam sterilized substrates possess minimal amount of moisture so as to support the microbial growth during the fermentation period. Growth of microbial strains on specific substrates during the fermentation time results in formation of koji (antioxidant rich fermented product). Selection of substrates and starter microbial strains is an important step in the fermentation process which will determine the nutritional properties of fermented product. One of the major advantages of SSF at industrial level is its potential to be utilized on cereal grains, fruits, vegetables and even agricultural wastes (Salar et al., 2012; Postemsky and Curvetto, 2015; Bhanja et al., 2009). Most common substrates that are being used as solid platform for the growth of microbial strains are cereal grains.

Introduction

Wine is a very unique fermented beverage. It was an essential part of various religious and cultural ceremonies in ancient civilizations; and continues to be considered as a ‘drink for elite’. The reason is that wine was considered as ‘Gift of God and ‘God’s nectar’ in religious text books, and medicinal value of the beverage is well supported by modern science. Wine is a beverage well tagged with its geographical origin. This concept originally comes from French concept of terroir; which explains that a varietal wine from a defined region possess distinctive qualities. Wine makers of the past enjoyed this definition of quality for better marketing opportunities. Today, globalization and advancement in wine science created empowered consumers who could clearly discriminate quality of wines. In addition to a product with high sensory qualities, consumers expect a healthful beverage produced in an environmentally sustainable manner. Enology research projects focus on such aspects; and this chapter is a glance on enology advancements and proven health benefits of wine, such as cardiovascular health gut health, dental health etc.

Introduction

Fermented foods and beverages comprise an indispensable part of the human diet. They can be generally defined as those foods and beverages produced via controlled microbial growth and conversion of various substrates using either enzymes or as whole cell itself, as shown in Figure 1.

Introduction

The improvement of the quality of foods can be made by fortification of foods nutrients quality and quantity in food. It can be a very cost effective public health intervention. As a result of the high consumption pattern of dairy products viz. yogurt, the fortification process will effectively diminish or prevent diseases associated with nutritional deficiencies (Gahruie et al., 2015). However, due to nutrients deficiencies in human population especially in certain stages of life, holding, importing, and consumption of fortified foods is increasing (Preedy et al., 2013). As a general rule, addition of one or more essential nutrients to a food and increasing their concentration in that particular food to levels higher than normal is known as fortification. This is intended at preventing and correcting shortages in one or more micronutrients in the society or specific population groups (Bonner et al., 1999). The major ways of food fortification are (1) commercial and industrial fortification for wheat flour, corn meal, cooking oils, (2) bio-fortification of crops to augment their nutritional value, which can include conventional as well as selective breeding, and genetic engineering and (3) house hold fortification like vitamin D drops. Fermentation has twofold outcome on glycemic index though there are conflicting results after consumption. The reduced glycemic index of fermented food has been featured to the production of short?chain organic acids during fermentation.