Isabela Mateus Martins

Development of Functional Food From Enzyme Technology: A Review

Abstract In recent years, there has been a consensus that functional foods play a key role in reducing disease and improving health. The development of these food products using biotechnology processes has become a promising area of research in academia and industry. Protein sources and associated by-products can be used to produce bioactive hydrolysates and peptides with potential use as functional food ingredients. Resistant starches that improve colonic health and microbiota can be produced by enzymatic hydrolysis of starch sources. Lipases can be used for the production of certain fatty acids as flavoring and antioxidant esters. Enzymes such as tannase, phytase, and l -asparaginase have certain specificities for the production of functional foods. Tannase is used for bioconversion of tannin-rich materials into value-added products. l -Asparaginase is an enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of l -asparagine, not allowing the reaction of reducing sugars with this amino acid for the generation of acrylamide. Phytase has been found increasingly interesting for use in the processing and manufacturing of food, particularly because the decline in food phytate results in enhancement of mineral bioavailability. Accordingly, this chapter will present a review of recent studies from the technical literature that explored different enzymes for the production of functional foods.

Antioxidant Potential and Modulatory Effects of Amazonian Restructured Lipids in Liver Cells

Enzymatic interesterification is used to manipulate oil and fat in order to obtain improved restructured lipids with desired technological properties. However, with raw materials containing significant amounts of bioactive compounds, the influence of this enzymatic process on the bioactivity of the final product is still not clear. Thus, the aim of this study is to evaluate the antioxidant potential and modulatory effects of two raw materials from the Amazonian area, buriti oil and murumuru fat, before and after lipase interesterification, on human hepatoma cells (HepG2). The results indicate that minor bioactive compounds naturally found in the raw materials and their antioxidant capacity are preserved after enzymatic interesterification, and that the restructured lipids modulate HepG2 endogenous antioxidant enzyme.