R-ficoeritrína da macroalga marinha vermelha Solieria filiformis: purificação, encapsulação e caracterização morfológica da microcápsula

Abstract

R-phycoeritrin is a photosynthetic natural proteic pigment (phycobiliprotein) found in red macroalgae, such as Solieria filiformis, found in the cearense coast. Such pigment possess applications such as fluorescent probe in cytometry techniques and histochemists essays besides numerous applications in the pharmaceutical industry for its antioxidant, anti-tumor and anti-inflamatory activities already described in the literature. Besides that, there is the possibility of application in the food industry, as natural dye. However, this molecule presentes spectroscopic, chemical and biological instability in situations of extreme temperature and pH and high light intensities for long periods and encapsulation has been used to increase the molecule stability and its properties. Many different encapsulation techniques and coating materials have been evaluated. Therefore, the present work aimed the encapsulation of pure R-phycoeritrin extracted from S. filiformis, using iota-carragenan as coating material, in order to increase the molecule stability through spray drying and freeze drying. The influence of the concentration of iota-carragenan as coating material and R-PE spectroscopy properties were evaluated. For that, a extraction was conducted following the protocol established by Bastos-Filho (2016), which yielded 1,6 mg R-PE/g dry algae and PI of 0,53, followed by purification according to Lopes (2018), stage that presented final yield of 0,6 mg R-PE/g dry alge and PI of 2,50. The pigment was forwarded to drying in spray dryer and freeze-dryer in homogeneous solutions with concentration gradient (0,5%, 1,0%, 1,5%, 2,0%) of coating material iota-carragenan. The efficiency of the methods was analyzed by confocal and electron scanning, being verified the success of the encapsulation techniques. The spray drying process showed microcapsule formation with satisfactory particle size and morphology, as for the spectroscopics properties of the pigment were kept with more efficiency in the freeze-dried material.