Author(s): Silva, Beatriz Nunes ; Cadavez, Vasco ; Santos, Pedro Miguel Ferreira ; Alves, Maria José ; Ferreira, Isabel C. F. R. ; Barros, Lillian ; Teixeira, J. A. ; Gonzales-Barron, Ursula
Date: 2021
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/71084
Origin: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
Subject(s): Polyphenolic extracts; Bioactive compounds; Antioxidants; Antimicrobials; Preservatives; Principal component analysis; Science & Technology
Plant extracts have been proposed as alternative biocides and antioxidants to be included in a variety of food products. In this work, to assess the potential of rosemary, lemon balm, basil, tarragon, sage, and spearmint to be used as food additives, the chemical profiles and bioactivities of such plant extracts were studied. Furthermore, to evaluate the influence of extraction methods and solvents on the chemical characteristics and bioactivities of the plant extracts, two extraction methods (solid-liquid and Soxhlet extraction) and two solvents (water and ethanol 70% (v/v)) were tested for each plant. Groupwise summary statistics were calculated by plant, extraction method, and solvent, and linear models were built to assess the main effects of those terms and their interactions on the chemical characteristics and bioactivities of the extracts. The results revealed that all factorstype of plant, extraction method and solventhave influence on the chemical profile and antioxidant activity of the resultant extracts. Interactions between factors were also observed. Hydroethanolic Soxhlet extracts presented the least potential as biopreservatives due to their low phenolic content and reduced antioxidant capacity. Oppositely, aqueous Soxhlet extracts and hydroethanolic solid-liquid extracts showed high contents in phenolic compounds and high antioxidant activities. In particular, the hydroethanolic solid-liquid extracts of lemon balm, spearmint, and sage presented the highest phenolic and flavonoid contents, accompanied by a high antioxidant activity, and they revealed antimicrobial activity against four pathogens (S. enterica ser. Typhimurium, E. coli, L. monocytogenes and S. aureus). These results demonstrate the potential of these natural resources to be incorporated as bioactive preservatives in foods or their packaging.
The authors are grateful to EU PRIMA programme and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for funding the ArtiSaneFood project (PRIMA/0001/2018); and to FCT for financial support through national funds FCT/MCTES to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020). This study was supported by FCT under the scope of the strategic funding of UIDB/04469/2020 unit and BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under the scope of Norte2020-Programa Operacional Regional do Norte. This work was also funded by ERDF through the Regional Operational Program North 2020, within the scope of the Project Green Health (POCI-01-0247-FEDER-046112). Barros and Gonzales-Barron acknowledge the national funding by FCT, P.I., through the Institutional Scientific Employment Programme contract.
Silva wishes to acknowledge the financial support provided by FCT through the PhD grant SFRH/BD/137801/2018. Ferreira-Santos acknowledges the European Social Fund (NORTE-08-5369-FSE-000036, call NORTE-69-2015-15).
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
