Search

Sarcopeltis skottsbergii is an endemic species of the southern region of South America, with R-phycoerythrin (R-PE) as an accessory photosynthetic pigment. The production of S. skottsbergii is around twenty thousand tons of dry alga per year. The evaluation of (R-PE) in a biorefinery model is still incipient in the algal biotechnology area and will be used in the food, pharmaceutical, cosmeceutical, and nutraceutical industries. This work evaluated the cell disruption and separation processes by using two green technologies, ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) and high-pressure homogenization (HPH), to obtain an R-phycoerythrin enriched extract from S. skottsbergii. Two-levels three-factor central composite design (CCD) and response surface methodology (RSM) were carried out to optimize the extraction conditions, including the factors for UAE (time, amplitude, and solvent) and HPH (Pressure, number of passes, and solvent). Additionally, a second-order polynomial fit was performed to fit the experimental data by the green method. HPH method was the most efficient extraction method under the conditions obtained of 100-400 MPa pressure power, 2-3 number of passes, and distilled water as solvent. Furthermore, the experimental extraction yields ranged from 4.4-5.7 mg of PE g-1 of dry biomass under the optimal extraction conditions (400 MPa; 2 passes), which agreed with the predictive yield of 4.6-5.5 mg g-1 DW. The ultrafiltration membrane used for the separation process for both methods exhibited a rejection of R-phycoerythrin concentrated at 30 KDa. Furthermore, R-phycoerythrin showed a positive correlation between the antioxidant capacity (ORAC) in the best-selected extractions. After the extraction, the same pattern was observed in Chlorophyll a and total carotenoids with DPPH. Thus, it was an attractive non-aggressive extraction alternative with biological activity of interest for formulating biotechnological products for the food industry is suggested.

Abstract In this work, the critical role of temperature (the values assayed were 22, 37 and 60 °C), the chemical characteristics of the medium (ethanol, methanol and water) and the reaction time on the antiradical capacity of phenolic systems was studied. An initial increase and a following decrease in antiradical activity were observed for catechin and resveratrol solutions in all solvents assayed. The maximum antioxidant activity was higher and occurred in a shorter time as the storage temperature was increased or the solvent polarity was decreased. The maximum values of the latter variable in the catechin and resveratrol cases (reaching an antiradical activity value higher than 50% in comparison with the initial one) were detected when oxidation was carried out in ethanol at 60 °C after 6 and 24 h of storage, respectively. Such variations were due to different reaction pathways. In fact, oxidative polymerization and oxidative formation of hydroxyl groups were found to be responsible for the enhancements of antiradical activity in catechin and resveratrol, respectively. A similar trend with variations of temperature in the different media was also observed in the grape extract case. The evolution of antiradical activity was followed by high-performance liquid chromatography analysis, which pointed to the phenol polymerization of the monophenols detected (catechin, gallic acid, epicatechin and quercetin) as mainly responsible for such variations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]