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Many peptides derived from protein resources have physiological functions other than nutrient supply [1-5]. The yam storage protein of dioscorin, which was different from dioscorine, an alkaloid found in tubers of Dioscorea hirsute, and the hydrolyzed peptides have been proved to have functional activities in enzymatic and animal models, including antioxidant activities [6,7], anti-aging activities [8,9] anti-hypertensive activities [10,11] immunomodulatory activities [12], and dipeptidyl peptidase-IV inhibitory activities for glucose tolerance improvement [13]. Recently, the hot topics of relative abundance of gut microbiota, the Bacteroidetes and the Firmicutes, revealed the correlations with the obesity in human and rodents [14,15]. Therefore, the dioscorin and NW intervention might change the gut microbiota of HFD-induced mice, which may result in the reduction of body weight gains and total visceral fats that will need further investigations.
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(12) Liu, Y. W.; Liu, J. C.; Huang, C. Y.; Wang, C. K.; Shang, H. F.; Hou, W. C. Effects of oral administration of yam tuber storage protein, dioscorin, to BALB/c mice for 21-days on immune responses. J. Agric. Food Chem. 2009, 57, 9274-9279.
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