DAVE: Optimizing Wasabi Agriculture Through Automation and Successive Approximation

Wasabi agriculture continues to predominantly rely on traditional practices. There currently exists an abundance of botanical literature surrounding the optimization of the wasabi growth environment to increase crop quality, however this research is detached and independent. Considering the recent rise to prominence of cyber-agriculture technology, its use in further optimizing the wasabi growth environment should be considered. By designing and constructing two wasabi-oriented food computer prototype iterations, uniting and synchronizing the results of existing wasabi optimization research, and growing Wasabia japonica plants inside these food computers, it was found that despite the widely reported difficulty of traditional wasabi farming, the crop is a strong contender for novel cyber-agriculture: the plant tissues showed a 69.3% increase in flavour compound (allyl isothiocyanate) concentration overall. The plants also exhibited a 74.7% decrease in overall plant mass, pointing to a well-documented phenomenon dubbed the “dilution effect” present in intensive agriculture. Overall, given future design improvements and more extensive data collection, there exists the possibility to revolutionize wasabi agriculture by engineering cyber-agriculture solutions tailored to wasabi growth.

Bioactive Immunomodulatory Compounds: A Novel Combinatorial Strategy for Integrated Medicine in Oncology? BAIC Exposure in Cancer Cells

The Standardized Cultured Extract of Lentinula edodes Mycelia (also known as Active Hexose Correlated Compound, AHCC) and Wasabia japonica (Wasabi) are natural nutritional supplements known for their immunomodulatory and anticancer potential. The aim of this study was to evaluate the combinatorial effect of the bioactive immunomodulatory compound (BAIC), obtained by combining Wasabi and AHCC, on human breast (MCF-7) and pancreatic (Panc02) adenocarcinoma cell lines. Data obtained revealed that BAIC determines a striking decline in cancer cell growth at minimal concentrations compared with the use of Wasabi and AHCC as single agents. A significant increase in the G0/G1 subpopulation together with a marked augmentation in the percentage of apoptotic cells was demonstrated by flow cytometry, together with a significant upregulation in the expression of genes associated to the apoptotic cascade in both cell lines. The inhibitory role BAIC plays in mammospheres formation from MCF-7-derived cancer stem cells was shown with a marked reduction in size and number. Interestingly, when BAIC was exposed to monocytic cells, no cytotoxic effects were observed. A monocytes-to-macrophages differentiation was rather observed with the concomitant acquisition of an anti-inflammatory phenotype. Taken together, our findings suggest that BAIC could be used as a potential integration of standard chemotherapy treatments because of the improved inhibitory activity on cancer cell proliferation and reduced potential adverse effects.