Abstract
Currently, the food additive industry has interest in replacing artificial dyes with natural pigments, trying to maintain consumer interest and increase their awareness towards healthy diets. Phycobiliproteins are light-harvesting and water-soluble proteins extracted from cyanobacteria and red algae that can be employed as natural additives. In the present work, a C-phycocyanin extract from the cyanobacterium Arthrospira platensis was tested as blue colorant in beverages to demonstrate that samples containing the protein extract have a color similar to marketed beverages containing synthetic dyes. Using spectroscopy and colorimetry, the extract was characterized and gave evidence of having good properties and good stability in the pH range between 3.0 and 9.0. The staining factors, representing the amount of blue protein needed to reproduce the color of bluish commercial samples, ranged between 15.6 and 111.7 mg·L−1, being sufficiently low in all samples. Additionally, color stability during a short period of cold storage was studied: it demonstrated that isotonic and tonic beverages remained stable throughout the 11-days analysis period with no significant changes. These results prove that the C-phycocyanin extract has potential applications in food as natural colorant, being an alternative option to synthetic coloring molecules.
Highlights
Cyanobacteria are oxygenic photosynthetic prokaryotes producing pigments such as chlorophyll, carotenoids, and phycobiliproteins (Prasanna et al 2010)
The present study demonstrates that the C-PC extract can be used as a coloring additive for beverages
Colors and color differences were measured according to the CIELAB color space, and the colorimetry-based approach was suitable for the purpose of the study
Summary
Cyanobacteria are oxygenic photosynthetic prokaryotes producing pigments such as chlorophyll, carotenoids, and phycobiliproteins (Prasanna et al 2010). The phycobiliproteins are proteins that form light-harvesting antenna complexes (phycobilisomes) and act as photosynthetic accessory pigments in cyanobacteria, red algae, cryptomonads, and glaucophytes (MacColl 1998; Kannaujiya et al 2017). These macromolecules are a family of hydrophilic, brilliantly colored, and. Natural colorants might be sensitive to light exposure, might change color when exposed to different pH, and degrade at high temperatures. They are generally available in a limited color range. All of these factors limit the use of natural colorants at the industry level, so that there is a demand for new natural colorants to be used as food additives and extend the coloring range of natural food dyes
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