TACOSCOPY

The TACOSCOPY project is a multidisciplinary initiative at the intersection of chemistry, bioeconomics, and health. Its objective is to utilize innovative chemical profiling and biological screening methods to selectively extract antimicrobial compounds from agro-industrial co-products. As a first step, the biomass samples will be subjected to green extraction techniques under the concept of minimum environmental fingerprint and “zero” petro-sourced solvent consumption, thus answering the need to utilize sustainable, eco-friendly chemistry approaches. Following these guidelines, all produced extracts will undergo fractionation using bio-based solvent Centrifugal Partition Chromatography, whereupon the antibacterial activity of each sample will be assessed in vitro. In parallel, the project aims to propose a new workflow combining Liquid Chromatography coupled Ion Mobility and Tandem Mass Spectrometry and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance chemical profiling, leveraging state-of-the-art deep learning algorithms to enhance the dereplication process's identification rate. The resulting structural library of identified compounds will be subjected to a novel automatic molecular inverse docking on specific target proteins from T.gondii and bacteria. All the biological and structural data will steer the targeted isolation of the most promising constituents through chromatographic methods. Purified compounds will undergo IC50 determination by in vitro assays as well as conclusive identification by employing unambiguous spectroscopic techniques using Computer-Assisted Structure Elucidation (NMR). Ultimately, this project could help extend the value chain for several industrial co-products.