Pectin-chitosan hydrogels with modified properties for the encapsulation of strawberry phenolic compounds.

Pectin-chitosan hydrogels with blends of low (50-190 kDa) and medium (310-395 KDa) molecular weight (MW) chitosan (LC and MC, respectively) were developed, and their characteristics were investigated before and after the encapsulation of an aqueous strawberry extract. The pectin to total chitosan mass ratio, the composition of the strawberry extract and the MW of chitosan greatly affected the interactions between pectin and chitosan at different pH values. More specifically, blends of low and medium MW chitosan improved the stability of the strawberry-gels in acidic conditions compared to their corresponding MC-gels, showed better flow and texture profiles, as well as slower release of phenolic compounds during in vitro digestion compared to the only stable LC-gel. Therefore, by manipulating the length range of chitosan chains would allow the formation of pectin-chitosan hydrogels with improved properties for the development of functional food products.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Katleen Raes reports financial support was provided by ERA-NET BlueBio Cofund. Johan Robbens reports financial support was provided by ERA-NET BlueBio Cofund. Katleen Raes reports financial support was provided by Research Foundation Flanders. Johan Robbens reports financial support was provided by Research Foundation Flanders. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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