Enzymatic acylation of blueberry (Vaccinium ashei) pomace anthocyanins and determination of their cytotoxic properties

Abstract

To expand the application of acylated blueberry pomace anthocyanins in food and nutraceuticals, their enzymatic acylation reaction and the cytotoxic response were explored. In this study, enzymatic acylation was carried out with cyanidin-3-O-glucoside (C3G) as the main body and Novozyme 435 as the biocatalyst. With a series of improvements, the reaction was carried out under the conditions of lauric acid as the acyl donor, tert-amyl alcohol as the reaction medium, the molar ratio of C3G to lauric acid of 1:10, the reaction time of 24 h and the reaction temperature of 60 °C, and 35.29 % acylation rate was obtained. Moreover, it was found that the lipophilicity, thermostability and photostability of the enzymatic acylated blueberry pomace anthocyanins were improved compared with the untreated blueberry pomace anthocyanins. Cytotoxicity studies showed that acylated blueberry pomace anthocyanins inhibited tumor cells (HeLa, HepG2, and B16 cells) significantly and were less toxic to normal cells (L929 cells) at the maximum concentration (1000 µg/mL) and the longest duration of action (72 h). This study established a method for acylation of blueberry pomace anthocyanins that may be applied to other natural sources of anthocyanins.