engleski

The synergy challenge – developing encapsulated nutraceutical mixtures with enhanced antioxidant properties

Bioactive features of diverse nutraceutical compounds as novel therapeutic supplements led to an increased interest of pharmaceutical and food domains in obtaining encapsulated dosage forms of those compounds that enable their wide applications. Polyphenolic antioxidants impart the largest number of evaluated and established antioxidant properties, however the possibility of synergistic effect of polyphenols with other bioactive compounds, such as amino acids and vitamins has not been evaluated properly. The present study was focused on defining the antioxidant potential of quercetin as a model polyphenolic compound in combination with ascorbic acid and amino acids L-lysine and taurine, aiming to obtain the most potent nutraceutical mixture that was encapsulated in alginate-based hydrogel particles by ionotropic gelation. The assessment of synergistic antioxidant properties by the ABTS, DPPH and FRAP assays revealed that although L-lysine and taurine water solutions did not exert antioxidant capacity, they enhanced the antioxidant potential of their binary mixtures with quercetin, providing up to 30% higher antioxidant capacity than just plain quercetin solutions. The combination of quercetin, L-lysine and ascorbic acid (each 150 mg/L), exhibited the most potent antioxidant properties, with up to 2-fold higher antioxidant capacity than just plain quercetin (150 mg/L) or 3-fold higher than plain ascorbic acid (150 mg/L). By encapsulating the stated synergistic mixture in 2% sodium alginate via calcium-induced crosslinking, 78% of rosmarinic acid was entrapped inside the freeze dried particles, along with 62% of vitamin C and 86% of L-lysine (established by spectrophotometric assays). Although L-lysine contributed less by its antioxidant properties, its cationic nature may have contributed to the augmented encapsulation efficiency of the active compounds by enhanced crosslinking due to the polyelectrolyte character of alginate-L-lysine matrix. The obtained results provide a novel approach to establishing innovative formulations of potent, functional nutraceutical dosage forms.

Amino acids ; Antioxidant capacity ; Encapsulation ; Quercetin

nije evidentirano