Abstract
Peach palm fruits (Bactris gasipaes) are native to the Amazonia and exhibit high levels of bioactive compounds, especially carotenoids and phenolic compounds. In our study, the ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) technique with different solvents [ethanol, ethyl acetate and ethanol/water (1:1, v/v)] was investigated to determine the best conditions for the simultaneous extraction of carotenoids and phenolic compounds from pulps of orange and yellow peach palm fruits to produce extracts with high bioactive compound contents. During the UAE experiments, the number of extraction and solid-liquid ratio were the variables that most affected bioactive compounds extraction (p < 0.05) and ethanol allowed the extraction of the highest carotenoid contents, while ethanol/water was the most efficient solvent to extract phenolic compounds. Through response surface methodology, ethanol/water resulted in optimal conditions at 10 extractions of 2 min each at a solid-liquid ratio of 1:12 (w/v) to extract phenolic compounds. Notwithstanding, the simultaneous extraction of carotenoids and phenolic compounds with ethanol and ethyl acetate was observed to be achieved at the same UAE conditions for both fruit varieties. Regardless the solvent, the UAE proved to be an efficient technique to carry out simultaneous extraction of high contents of carotenoids and phenolic compounds from pulps of peach palm fruits.
Highlights
Peach palm (Bactris gasipaes Kunth) is native to the Amazon, which the varieties of ripe fruit vary according to the colour of the peel (Silva & Silva, 2016; Costa et al, 2019)
For the pulp of orange peach palm fruits, the procedures with ethanol and ethyl acetate solvents resulted in very low variation [relative standard deviation (RSD) = 2.4% and 1.4%, respectively] in the total carotenoid concentration at the central composite rotational design (CCRD) central points, which indicated high repeatability of the extraction procedure, while ethanol/water exhibited higher values (RSD = 16.6%)
Ethanol is a solvent with high permeability to cell matrixes and its high diffusion favours solid-liquid extraction processes, which may increase the extraction efficiency of bioactive compounds by ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) due to the cavitation phenomenon that causes rupture of the cell walls (Moreira et al, 2017; Hazli et al, 2019), and the pulp of yellow peach palm fruits seemed to be more susceptible to this process than the orange variety
Summary
Peach palm (Bactris gasipaes Kunth) is native to the Amazon, which the varieties of ripe fruit vary according to the colour of the peel (green, light yellow, orange and red) (Silva & Silva, 2016; Costa et al, 2019). Among the bioactive compounds found in peach palm fruits, carotenoids and phenolic compounds are the most expressive and, according to the literature, the frequent intake of these compounds generally found in fruit and vegetables have been associated with a decrease in the incidence of chronic degenerative diseases (Luna-Guevara et al, 2018; Britton, 2020). Among the carotenoids reported in peach palm fruits, β-carotene is the major compound and plays an important role with high provitamin A activity and antioxidant action against free radicals and other reactive oxygen species, which are naturally generated during physiological processes by the human body (Jatunov et al, 2010). A recent study has reported that di-C-glycosyl flavones (schaftoside and vicenin-2) are the major phenolic compounds in peach palm fruits and these compounds are reported to exhibit various relevant biological activities (Chisté et al, 2021)
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