Recent advances in the production of oligogalacturonides and their biological properties

The human population is becoming old and ageing, which is related to a variety of health issues, such as Alzheimeŕs disease, obesity, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, and some types of cancers like colorectal cancer. Furthermore, diet is a determining factor in the appearance of some of these diseases due to its direct effect at the systemic level (for instance, increase in glucose and LDL-cholesterol levels in the serum) and its influence on the composition and activity of the gut microbiota. In this context, the use of functional ingredients can be a useful strategy to prevent or even treat (in combination with drugs) some of the above-mentioned pathologies. Among the variety of functional ingredients, prebiotics have received significant attention by the scientific community. Although the already commercialized FOS are the most studied prebiotics, some efforts have been devoted to the search and evaluation of new prebiotic candidates with additional properties. In particular, in the last decade, a variety of in vitro and in vivo assays have been carried out using well isolated and characterized oligogalacturonides, demonstrating that some of them have interesting biological properties, including anticancer, antioxidant, antilipidemic, anti-obesity and anti-inflammatory activities besides prebiotic effects. This work reviews the scientific literature published recently on the production of oligogalacturonides with a special focus on their biological properties.