Abstract
The present study compares the gastrointestinal stability of rosmarinic acid in aqueous extracts of thyme, winter savory and lemon balm with the stability of pure rosmarinic acid. The stability of rosmarinic acid was detected after two-phase in vitro digestion process (gastric and duodenal) with human gastrointestinal enzymes. The concentration of rosmarinic acid in undigested and digested samples was detected using HPLC-DAD. Results showed that gastrointestinal stability of pure rosmarinic acid was significantly higher than that of rosmarinic acid from plant extracts after both gastric and intestinal phases of digestion. Among plant extracts, rosmarinic acid was the most stable in lemon balm after gastric (14.10%) and intestinal digestion phases (6.5%). The temperature (37 °C) and slightly alkaline medium (pH=7.5) did not affect the stability of rosmarinic acid, while acid medium (pH=2.5) significantly decreased its stability (≥50%). In addition, the stability rate of rosmarinic acid is influenced by the concentration of human gastrointestinal juices.
Highlights
Research on biologically active compounds, such as plant phenolics, represents a big scientific challenge due to a great number of identified substances, their chemical diversity as well as their huge biological potential, important for the maintenance of healthy balance in our body
Before the two-step in vitro digestion, the concentration of rosmarinic acid was normalized in all prepared aqueous extracts so that the concentration measured in thyme (471.48 mg/L) was taken as primary concentration before in vitro digestion
Results of this study showed several interesting observations on digestive stability of rosmarinic acid using in vitro digestion with human gastrointestinal enzymes
Summary
Research on biologically active compounds, such as plant phenolics, represents a big scientific challenge due to a great number of identified substances, their chemical diversity as well as their huge biological potential, important for the maintenance of healthy balance in our body. Rosmarinic acid is formed from amino acids phenylalanine (caffeic acid part of rosmarinic acid) and tyrosine (3,4-dihydroxyphenyllactic acid part) [9] It was isolated for the first time from Rosmarinus officinalis and its structure was characterized as an ester of caffeic acid and 3,4-dihydroxyphenyllactic acid [10,11]. According to some authors [12,13], rosmarinic acid cannot be used as chemotaxonomic marker for differentiation of plant families due to its occurrence in various plant families such as Lamiaceae, Boraginaceae, Blechnaceae and Asteraceae. Lamiaceae species such as Satureja montana L., Thymus vulgaris L. and Origanum majorana L. are known as rich sources of rosmarinic acid [14,15,16]
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