Extracción y microencapsulación de antocianinas a partir de la planta sangorache (Amaranthus quitensis)

Abstract

Anthocyanins are one of the most studied plant pigments thanks to their viable health benefits due to their antioxidant capacity and their use as a natural dye in the food industry. This research work consisted of the solid liquid extraction of anthocyanins from sangorache using water as the main solvent at specific optimal conditions. Amaranthus quitensis is an ancestral plant grown in the Andean area of the Ecuadorian Sierra known for it’s incalculable source of nutrients, especially iron and calcium, in addition to being considered an antioxidant. To protect the extracted bioactive substances, the microencapsulation process was carried out by spray drying with two types of polymeric matrices (maltodextrin and the mixture of maltodextrin with gum arabic) where the maximum efficiency of the microspheres was analyzed by means of concentration and an infrared spectrophotometry study resulting in maltodextrin as the best polymer to cover and protect anthocyanins at 92.30 percent efficiency. The antioxidant properties were corroborated by in vitro tests by DPPH analyzing the inhibitory capacity of each sample obtaining a maximum response (306.56 micromole equivalent of Trolox on gram dry extract) corresponding to the anthocyanins encapsulated with maltodextrin while, the antioxidant capacity In vivo, the process was confirmed by induction of cellular oxidative stress to S. cerevisiae with hydrogen peroxide. This process confirmed that sangorache's anthocyanin microspheres have a high antioxidant capacity even better than the vitamin C used as a control agent.