1 Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Brazil.
Juçara (Euterpe edulis Mart.) is a typical palm tree from the Atlantic Forest, which occupies a vast Brazilian Coast territory. Anthocyanins are the most important group of juçara’s compounds pigments, responsible for its intensive blue colour. Besides their colorant properties, anthocyanins are also a dietary factor, influencing the risk of developing chronic diseases like heart disease, stroke and cancer. The biological effectiveness action of anthocyanins depends of various factors, such as absorption, metabolism, tissue distribution and excretion. These properties of anthocyanins can also be affected by glycosylation. One way to promote glycosylation of anthocyanins is employing a fermentation process for the production of enzymes as β-glucosidase. Thus, the objective of this work was investigate the potential of three prebiotic strains (Bifidobacterium dentium, Lactobacillus brevis and Lactobacillus deubruekii) for enzymatic conversion of anthocyanins present in juçara pulp. Enzymatic activities were measured spectrophotometrically, and the juçara pulp extracts were filtered and concentrated for injection into HPLC-PDA employing chromatographic conditions optimized for quantification these compounds. After 48h of fermentation by Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus strains, was evaluated the maximum values of enzymatic activities of β-galactosidase, α-galactosidase and β-glucosidase were respectively 1.3 U/mL, 56.8 mU/mL and 38.3 mU/mL. Chromatograms obtained from fermented pulp juçara indicates anthocyanins profile changes, whereas the Cyanidin -3- glucoside (majority anthocyanin) has had decrease concentration about 21 % in extracts fermented. Therefore, the Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium strains were able to degrade the phenolic compounds to varying degrees, probably involving glycosidic bond cleavage, anthocyanidine ring fission and metabolism not yet characterized. The strain that showed better preliminary results was Lactobacillus deubruekii, which is going to be tested in order to obtain optimized fermentation conditions for better performance, more bioavailability, and adding nutritional and economic value to juçara pulp.