Influence of extrusion process on the release of phenolic compounds from mango (Mangifera indica L.) bagasse-added confections and evaluation of their bioaccessibility, intestinal permeability, and antioxidant capacity

Highlights

• Non-extruded/extruded mango bagasse-added confections were digested in vitro.

• Extrusion increased the bioaccessibility of phenolic acids.

• Extruded confections exhibited the highest permeability of polyphenols.

• The non-digestible fraction showed the highest DPPH antioxidant capacity.

• Mangiferin displayed the highest DPPH binding affinity in silico.

Abstract

Extruded polyphenol-rich by-products like mango bagasse (MB) could be used to manufacture functional confections. However, few reports have assessed the extrusion impact on MB polyphenols within a food matrix. This research aimed to evaluate the impact of extrusion on the bioaccessibility, intestinal permeability, and antioxidant capacity of phenolic compounds (PC) from non-extruded and extruded MB-added confections (EMBC and MBC, respectively). The inhibition of 2,2-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radicals and in silico approaches were used to evaluate the antioxidant capacity. MBC displayed the highest gastric bioaccessibility (%) of xanthones and flavonoids, whereas selective release of gallic acid, mangiferin, and quercetin glucoside was shown for EMBC. Lower PC’ apparent permeability coefficients were found in EMBC compared to MB (0.11 to 0.44-fold change, p < 0.05). EMBC displayed the highest antioxidant capacity by the DPPH method for the non-digestible fraction, being mangiferin the highest in silico contributor (-4 kcal/mol). Our results showed that the extrusion process helps release selective phenolics from MBC, which increases their bioaccessibility and intestinal permeability.

Introduction

Extrusion is a processing technique with several food industry applications, which combines high pressure and mechanical force for a limited period. As a result, physicochemical changes are displayed in the original food matrices, such as reductions in the particle size of solids and efficient mixing of materials (Chávez, Ascheri, Carvalho, Godoy, & Pacheco, 2017). Extrusion allows the incorporation of fruit and vegetable-based ingredients to improve the health properties of the extrudates. In this sense, underutilized food sources such as agro-industrial wastes or by-products have potential as functional ingredients (Guven, Sensoy, Senyuva, & Karakaya, 2018).

Mango (Mangifera indica L.) by-products reached an average worldwide production of 30.39 million metric tons in 2017 (Shahbandeh, 2019). This production can be considered an average value since higher values has been reported for other fruits such as banana (101 million tons) and citrus fruits (88 million tons), but it is higher than apple (3–4.2 million tons) or pineapple (29.5 million tons) by-products (Campos, Gómez-García, Vilas-Boas, Madureira, & Pintado, 2020). These by-products are considered waste and are commonly disposed into landfills without any treatment. Mango bagasse (MB) is one of the most abundant by-products from the mango industry after the pulping process, contributing together with the peel and seeds up to 60% of the raw fruit weight (Blancas-Benitez et al., 2015). In previous publications, we showed that MB has a significant amount of bioaccessible phenolic compounds, mainly flavonoids, condensed tannins, and mangiferin (Herrera-Cazares et al., 2017), that could reach the colon to undergo fermentation and produce health-associated bacterial metabolites such as short-chain fatty acids (Herrera-Cazares, Ramírez-Jiménez, Wall-Medrano, Campos-Vega, Loarca-Piña, Reyes-Vega, & Gaytán-Martínez, 2019).

Extruded MB has been shown to affect the texture and the rheological properties of foodstuffs when used as ingredient (Wall-Medrano et al., 2020). For instance, the extrusion technology at the targeted temperature of 50–100 °C has proven to be adequate for the production of acceptable mango bars with an enhanced content of total phenolic compounds and antioxidant capacity (DPPH) (Salgado, Giraldo, & Orrego, 2017) or β-carotene-enriched starch-based snacks (Pensamiento-Niño et al., 2018). These food applications have opened windows of opportunities for designing alternative foods for children and teenagers segment, providing both craving satisfaction and health benefits (Mason, Do, Wang, & Dunton, 2020) and the potential to promote the consumption of underutilized food products using the appropriate vehicles for sustainable growth.

Assessing the impact of processing technologies on the bioaccessibility of phenolic compounds is crucial to establish the nutritional quality of foods since this feature is related to the release of molecules from the food matrix for their further absorption (Quirós-Sauceda et al., 2017). In this sense, bioaccessibility refers to the amount of selected compounds released from the food matrix during the physiological digestion process and become available for the small intestinal absorption (Ribas-Agustí, Martín-Belloso, Soliva-Fortuny, & Elez-Martínez, 2018). This concept differs from liberation since the quantified bioaccessible compounds result from a physiological digestive process rather than the amount of compounds mixed with digestive fluids (Müller-Maatsch et al., 2017). Despite the reports about applying extrusion for manufacturing convenient food products, the effect of this process on bioactive components is still limited (Guven et al., 2018). So far, there are no reports about the impact of the extrusion process on the bioaccessibility of phenolics from non-extruded and extruded MB confections and their in silico and in vitro intestinal permeability. Therefore, the aim of this research was to evaluate the influence of the extrusion process on the release of phenolic compounds and their bioaccessibility, intestinal permeability, and antioxidant capacity of phenolic compounds from extruded and non-extruded MB confections.