This work aimed to formulate and perform physicochemical and functional characterization of maltodextrin microcapsules containing ethanolic extract of stevia, rich in antioxidant compounds, encapsulated by a spray-drying process with two maltodextrins (DE10 and DE19). The powders were named M10 and M19, respectively. We analyzed the physicochemical parameters, antidiabetic activity, cytotoxicity, bioaccessibility of the compounds by in vitro digestion, as well as the structure of the microcapsules by scanning electron microscopy. Microcapsules showed higher solubility (∼35%), lower moisture content (∼29%), and the maltodextrin DE10 had higher efficiency as an encapsulating agent (87%) when compared to DE19 (76%) and showed well-defined spherical structures. The microencapsulation preserved the content of phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity present in the extract (7.2% and 87.5%, respectively). The bioaccessibility of these microencapsulated compounds and antioxidant activity were higher under different conditions of in vitro digestion (mouth, gastric, and intestinal conditions) and showed no cytotoxic effects. We identified 41 compounds (by UHPLC-MS/MS-Qtof) related to the nutritional benefits offered by stevia and the microencapsulation technique can be recommended to preserve bioactive compounds.
Stevia rebaudiana is a shrub of the Asteraceae family, native to South America. Sweeteners called steviol glycosides are extracted from the leaves of this plant, which have a sweetening power that can be up to 450 times greater than the sweetening power of sucrose (Das et al., 2015). Among the glycosides found in Stevia are stevioside, steviolbioside, rebaudiosides A, B, C, D, E, F and dulcoside (Ahmed & Mukta, 2017), being rebaudioside A, among the major glycosides, the one with the best sensory profile. NEPRON, the Nucleus of Research in Natural Products at the State University of Maringá, obtained an elite plant named Stevia UEM-13 that has rebaudioside A as its main glycoside (Milani et al., 2017).
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