Abstract
Background: Eruca sativa Mill. is a good source of glucosinolates (GLS), phenolic compounds and unsaturated fatty acids, being a valuable material for the production of functional-foods or nutraceutical ingredients. Extraction by supercritical CO2 (SCO2) can be used and the limitations due to the apolar nature of CO2 can be overcome using co-solvents. In this paper different cosolvents and conditions were used for SCO2 extraction and the composition of the obtained extracts was studied by LC-MS. Results: Water resulted the ideal co-solvent, allowing the extraction of glucosinolates in comparable amounts to the classical procedure with boiling water, as it can be carried out at mild temperatures (45 °C vs. >100 °C). Increasing the pressure improved the GLS extraction. On the other hand polyphenol extraction under the studied conditions was not influenced by pressure and temperature variations. The in vitro antioxidant effect of the obtained extracts was also measured, showing significant activity in the DPPH and FC tests. Conclusions: The GLS, flavonoids and lipids composition of the obtained extracts was studied, showing the presence of numerous antioxidant constituents useful for nutraceutical applications. The extraction method using SCO2 and water as co-solvent presents advantages in terms of safety because these solvents are generally recognised as safe. Water as cosolvent at 8% resulted useful for the extraction of both glucosinolates and phenolics in good amount and is environmentally acceptable as well as safe for food production.
Highlights
Many cruciferous plants contain a number of nutrients and phytochemicals that are associated with health promoting effects, in particular glucosinolates, that are responsible for their typical pungent aromas and spicy taste [1,2]
In a previous paper we studied the extraction of bioactive constituents from Eruca sativa leaves by supercritical CO2 technology using different co-solvents [16]
With the aim of extracting active compounds from rocket salad and to study the composition of the obtained fractions, we examined the extraction of glucosinolates, phenolics and lipids using a comprehensive approach that employs pretreatment with pure supercritical CO2 followed by co-solvent extraction
Summary
Many cruciferous plants contain a number of nutrients and phytochemicals that are associated with health promoting effects, in particular glucosinolates, that are responsible for their typical pungent aromas and spicy taste [1,2]. In recent years there has been a growing interest of consumers towards these products, especially in the form of food supplements, nutraceuticals or functional-foods [7,11,12,13] Such products are not medicinal, are aimed to maintain or promote health and are frequently obtained using plant extracts. Due to their role in health promotion and disease prevention the safety and low risk toxicological profile of food supplements and functional foods must be ensured. To preliminarily assess the potential use of such extracts for nutraceutical applications the in vitro antioxidant activity was measured using the DPPH assay, while the total reducing capacity was assessed using the FC method
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