In Vitro and Ex Vivo Chemopreventive Action of Mauritia flexuosa Products.

Mauritia flexuosa (Arecaceae), known as "Buriti," is a Brazilian palm tree with high economic potential for local communities. Herein, we investigated the phytochemistry profile and antioxidant potential of M. flexuosa fruits and determined the bioaccessibility of phenolic compounds. Peels revealed upper values for phenols, flavonoids, carotenoids, tannins, and ascorbic acid when compared to the pulps and endocarps. All samples showed capacity to scavenger free radicals (0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 4.0, and 8.0 mg/mL) but peels presented higher scavenger action in all methods explored. Phenolic compounds identified by HPLC displayed reduced bioaccessibility after in vitro simulated gastrointestinal digestion for pulp (38.7%), peel (18.7%), and endocarp (22.3%) extracts (P < 0.05). Buriti fruits also protected rat blood cells against lysis induced by peroxyl radicals. We demonstrated the promising chemopreventive potentialities of M. flexuosa fruits and their by-products and peels with higher quantities of bioactive compounds and phenolic substances before and after in vitro bioaccessibility investigation. In Brazil, these parts are discarded or underused, mainly as feed for ruminant animals. Consequently, it is extremely important to explore nutritional characteristics of these by-products for human/livestock foods and to install biofriendly techniques and sustainable biotechnology handling of natural resources.

In vitro bioaccessibility of copper, iron, zinc and antioxidant compounds of whole cashew apple juice and cashew apple fibre (Anacardium occidentale L.) following simulated gastro-intestinal digestion.

Considering the lack of research studies about nutrients' bioaccessibility in cashew apple, in this study the whole cashew apple juice and the cashew apple fibre were submitted to simulated in vitro gastrointestinal digestion. The samples were analysed before and after digestion and had their copper, iron, zinc, ascorbic acid, total extractable phenols and total antioxidant activity assessed. As a result, for the whole cashew apple juice, the content of copper and iron minerals bioaccessible fraction were 15% and 11.5% and for zinc this level was 3.7%. Regarding the cashew apple fibre, the bioaccessible fraction for these minerals was lower than 5%. The ascorbic acid, total extractable polyphenols and total antioxidant activity bioaccessible fraction for whole cashew apple juice showed bioaccessibility percentages of 26.2%, 39% and 27%, respectively, while for the cashew apple fibre, low bioaccessibles levels were found. The bioacessible percentage of zinc, ascorbic acid and total extractable polyphenols were higher in cashew apple juice than cashew apple fibre.