Garlic is a polyphenolic and organosulfur enriched nutraceutical spice consumed since ancient times. Garlic and its secondary metabolites have shown excellent health-promoting and disease-preventing effects on many human common diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular and metabolic disorders, blood pressure, and diabetes, through its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and lipid-lowering properties, as demonstrated in several in vitro, in vivo, and clinical studies. The present review aims to provide a comprehensive overview on the consumption of garlic, garlic preparation, garlic extract, and garlic extract-derived bioactive constituents on oxidative stress, inflammation, cancer, cardiovascular and metabolic disorders, skin, bone, and other common diseases. Among the 83 human interventional trials considered, the consumption of garlic has been reported to modulate multiple biomarkers of different diseases; in addition, its combination with drugs or other food matrices has been shown to be safe and to prolong their therapeutic effects. The rapid metabolism and poor bioavailability that have limited the therapeutic use of garlic in the last years are also discussed.

TRNA‐derived fragments (tRFs) have been defined as a novel class of small noncoding RNAs. tRFs have been reported to be deregulated in cancer, but their biologic function remains to be fully understood. We have identified a new tRF (named tRF3E), derived from mature tRNA ^Glu , that is specifically expressed in healthy mammary glands but not in breast cancer (BC). Consistently, tRF3E levels significantly decrease in the blood of patients with epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)‐positive BC reflecting tumor status (control > early cancer > meta‐static cancer). tRF3E down‐regulation was recapitulated in Δ16HER2 transgenic mice, representing a BC preclinical model. Pulldown assays, used to search for proteins capable to selectively bind tRF3E, have shown that this tRF specifically interacts with nucleolin (NCL), an RNA‐binding protein overexpressed in BC and able to repress the translation of p53 mRNA. The binding properties of NCL‐tRF3E complex, predicted in silico and analyzed by EMSA assays, are congruent with a competitive displacement of p53 mRNA by tRF3E, leading to an increased p53 expression and consequently to a modulation of cancer cell growth. Here, we provide evidence that tRF3E plays an important role in the pathogenesis of BC displaying tumor‐suppressor functions through a NCL‐mediated mechanism.—Falconi, M., Giangrossi, M., Elexpuru Zabaleta, M., Wang, J., Gambini, V., Tilio, M., Bencardino, D., Occhipinti, S., Belletti, B., Laudadio, E., Galeazzi, R., Marchini, C., Amici, A. A novel 39‐tRNA ^Glu ‐derived fragment acts as a tumor suppressor in breast cancer by targeting nucleolin. FASEB J. 33, 13228–13240 (2019). www.fasebj.org

Presently, biopreservation through protective bacterial cultures and their antimicrobial products or using antibacterial compounds derived from plants are proposed as feasible strategies to maintain the long shelf-life of products. Another emerging category of food biopreservatives are bacteriophages or their antibacterial enzymes called “phage lysins” or “enzybiotics”, which can be used directly as antibacterial agents due to their ability to act on the membranes of bacteria and destroy them. Bacteriophages are an alternative to antimicrobials in the fight against bacteria, mainly because they have a practically unique host range that gives them great specificity. In addition to their potential ability to specifically control strains of pathogenic bacteria, their use does not generate a negative environmental impact as in the case of antibiotics. Both phages and their enzymes can favor a reduction in antibiotic use, which is desirable given the alarming increase in resistance to antibiotics used not only in human medicine but also in veterinary medicine, agriculture, and in general all processes of manufacturing, preservation, and distribution of food. We present here an overview of the scientific background of phages and enzybiotics in the food industry, as well as food applications of these biopreservatives.

The interaction between nutrition and human infectious diseases has always been recognized. With the emergence of molecular tools and post-genomics, high-resolution sequencing technologies, the gut microbiota has been emerging as a key moderator in the complex interplay between nutrients, human body, and infections. Much of the host–microbial and nutrition research is currently based on animals or simplistic in vitro models. Although traditional in vivo and in vitro models have helped to develop mechanistic hypotheses and assess the causality of the host–microbiota interactions, they often fail to faithfully recapitulate the complexity of the human nutrient–microbiome axis in gastrointestinal homeostasis and infections. Over the last decade, remarkable progress in tissue engineering, stem cell biology, microfluidics, sequencing technologies, and computing power has taken place, which has produced a new generation of human-focused, relevant, and predictive tools. These tools, which include patient-derived organoids, organs-on-a-chip, computational analyses, and models, together with multi-omics readouts, represent novel and exciting equipment to advance the research into microbiota, infectious diseases, and nutrition from a human-biology-based perspective. After considering some limitations of the conventional in vivo and in vitro approaches, in this review, we present the main novel available and emerging tools that are suitable for designing human-oriented research.