Bioactive Compounds in Plant Derived Beverages

Dear Colleagues,

As a consequence of the on-going consumption of plant-based drinks (soft drinks, juices, tea, coffee, and alcoholic beverages) worldwide, there is an increasing interest on the actual composition of those drinks, not only limited on the major compounds and essential nutrients, but also focused on the identification of minor compounds, which are able to positively or negatively affect human health and on the study of their biological activities. In fact, plants produce a broad range of bioactive compounds, which play a key role in the determination of the nutraceutical proprieties of the derived drinks. These plant specialized metabolites might be found unaltered in plant-derived beverages or, during processing and storage steps, might undergo chemical, physical or enzymatic modifications in their chemical structure.

Specific nutritional effects that are dependent on the chemical structure, thus, might be compromised or enhanced. Moreover, it is recently emerging the importance of the synergic effects among different compounds, a topic still little explored.

This Special Issue will focus on articles contributing to clarify the composition of bioactive compounds in plant derived beverages, but also those articles contributing to understand the role of plant derived beverages (including traditional and novel drink products) in the diet.

In particular, this Special Issue will provide an overview of the new data and existing works especially focusing on:

• novel detection methods of trace compounds;
• structure elucidation;
• development, improvement or modification of manufacturing process in order to enhance / decrease their concentration in final drinks;
• mechanism of action and synergic mechanism with other minor on major compounds;
• identification of genes regulating the accumulation of secondary metabolites in the plant organs (fruit, leaf, seed, etc.) used for beverage preparation;

This Special Issue will include original research and review papers, moreover, studies with negative results or replication studies will also be accepted.

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Beverages is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.