Phaeodactylum tricornutum extracts as structuring agents for food applications: Physicochemical and functional properties

Microalgae are a promising and sustainable ingredient for functional food development, due to their rich nutritional and health-promoting effects. Moreover, microalgae generally contain large amounts of structural biopolymers such as proteins and polysaccharides, which might display interesting technological features and rheological properties. This study aims at unravelling Phaeodactylum tricornutum extracts (PTE) potential role as structuring agents for food applications. Distilled water and a mixture of water/ethanol (75/25, v v1) were used as solvents. Extracts physicochemical properties were analysed regarding protein folding, molecular weight distribution, polymer interactions, and their main functional groups. PTE thermal properties, rheological behaviour, and emulsifying capacities were also evaluated. PTE showed different gelling mechanisms, with 40°C aqueous purified extracts reporting the strongest gel character. Moreover, 80°C ethanolic purified extracts showed the greatest emulsifying potential, with an initial emulsification index (EI) of around 90%. This EI decreased to 60% after 10 days, but remained constant for the following 15 days, showing an interesting emulsion stability. Overall, these findings suggest that PTE have a great potential for further application as thickening or emulsifier food ingredients. This diatom revealed to be a valuable source of structurally diverse, technologically active compounds.
Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2020 unit and OH2O (grant agreement nº POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029145). This study has also received funding from the European Fund for Regional Development (FEDER), COMPETE 2020 – Competitiveness and Internationalization Operational Program (Portugal 2020) and the European Regional Development Fund (Algarve 2020 and Lisboa 2020), under the scope of the project AlgaValor (grant agreement nº POCI-01-0247-FEDER-035234; LISBOA-01-0247-FEDER-035234; ALG-01-0247-FEDER-035234) and OH2O. Ricardo N. Pereira acknowledges FCT for its Assistant Research contract obtained under CEEC Individual 2017
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