Simgi® platform as a tool for the study of wine active compounds in the  gastrointestinal tract

Abstract

Simgi® platform pursues the need for dynamic in vitro simulation of the human gastrointestinal tract optimized and adapted to food safety and health fields. The platform has confirmed the model’s suitability since its first’s studies with the consistency between the simulated colonic metabolism of wine polyphenols and the metabolic evolution observed with the intake of wine in human intervention studies [1]. 

Functioning under computer control of the physicochemical parameters, simgi® system is able to simulate separately or continuously the steps of gastric, intestinal digestion and colonic fermentation. In particular, this modular configuration has allowed the simulation of gastrointestinal digestions of red wine [1] or soluble grape extracts [2], and gastrointestinal survival of probiotic enological yeasts [3], as well as the evaluation of the food matrix effect when wine and its active compounds are ingested in combination with proteins, lipids or sugars. 

The physiological conditions of the ascending, transverse and descending regions of the colon are reproduced sequentially and include the human microbial intestinal community what makes able to study the interaction between gut microbiota and polyphenols. Part of simgi® simulation studies have been carried out with wine and winery by-products using healthy [2] and diabetic microbiota. Furthermore, the dynamic operation of simgi® system made it feasible to simulate a chronic intake (14 days) of a red grape pomace extract in combination with a probiotic strain of Lactobacillus plantarum, to assess the reciprocal benefits between polyphenols and probiotics on the growth and functionality of colonic microbiota [4]. Simgi® system is also an exclusive tool to carry out avant-garde products of interest in the wine industry, for example, antimicrobial silver nanoparticles [5] and microplastics which food safety is yet to be determined. Simgi® platform (www.cial.uam-csic.es/simgi/) proposes solutions to complex challenges to effectively support research and food industry development by acting as a complement and/or as a previous step to human studies, given their ethical and economic restrictions.

[1] Cueva et al., Food Res Int. 2015; 72: 149-59
[2] Gil-Sánchez et al., J Food Compost Anal. 2018; 68: 41–52  
[3] Fernández-Pacheco et al., Food Funct. 2019; 10: 4924-31
[4] Gil-Sánchez et al., Food Res Int. 2020; 129: 108790
[5] Cueva et al., Food Chem. Toxicol. 2019; 132: 110657