Avaliação da bioatividade de extratos da polpa e da semente de Synsepalum dulcificum

Abstract

There is in Brazil, a rise in the cultivation and knowledge of exotic fruits, thus generating employability and movement of the economy. In addition, a growing worldwide interest in the use of herbal products. As the fight against free radicals by compounds that have antioxidant activity in a natural way. In addition, natural products capable of fighting diseases such as diabetes. In addition, type 2 diabetes mellitus is a disease that is growing in Brazil and worldwide. This validates the research of natural source products that can help in their treatment. Synsepalum dulcificum is an exotic fruit from the African continent also known as the miracle fruit, which can present compounds that inhibit the activity of carbohydrate hydrolyzing enzymes, reducing postprandial glycemia and thus assisting in the treatment of diabetes. Thus, this work aimed to obtain hydroethanolic extracts of the pulp and seed of Synsepalum dulcificum, to characterize its chemical structures by spectroscopy in the mid-infrared, to evaluate its antioxidant capacity by the DPPH method, and to analyze the inhibitory effect of extracts under the activity of human salivary alpha-amylase and porcine pancreatic. Regarding the characterization of the extracts by the Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy method, it was shown that there are similarities between the analyzed parts and simple differences between them, which may justify the differences in the behaviors of the subsequent tests. Regarding the antioxidant capacity using the DPPH as a free radical showed both the pulp extract and the seed can act sequestering this radical, but only the pulp extracts were able to inhibit more than 50% of the oxidant activity in the concentrations tested. The in vitro evaluation of the enzyme activity of the amylase group demonstrated that the hydroethanolic extracts of the pulp are able to inhibit more than 50% of the activity of the enzymes tested, but the extracts of the seed did not present inhibition at the concentrations tested. Concluding that the fruit pulp reached the desired levels of inhibition tested for DPPH and alpha-amylase enzymes, with the chosen extraction method, however, in this case, the seed extracts could not reach the results close to the pulp. Demonstrating that there is the possibility of application of miracle fruit pulp extract in the development of new products, with high added value.