Bioactive Compounds: Encapsulation, Delivery and Applications Using Albumins as Carriers

FLAVIA F. VISENTINI, ADRIÁN A. PEREZ, JOANA B. FERRADO, MARIA LAURA DESETA & LILIANA G. SANTIAGO

Biomolecules from Natural Sources: Advances and Applications

Wiley

Año: 2022;

A bioactive compound (BC) is a composite with the ability to interact with one or more components of living tissues and to produce a wide range of possible health benefits. Examples of relevant BCs are phenolic, vitamins and lipids molecules. All these compounds have different chemical structures, besides the hydrophobic ones are of particular interest due to their low water solubility and sensitiveness to injurious environmental factors, such as light and oxygen. It has been proven that their intake has numerous beneficial effects on human health; however, they are found in very small quantities in foods. Therefore, different systems have been developed to use them in the field of pharmaceutical and food applications and to overcome problems linked with solubility and stability. In this sense, nanoencapsulation using albumins, appear as a promising strategy. Albumins constitute a family of globular proteins, being the most common one the serum albumin, which is abundant in blood plasma. This specific albumin include human serum albumin (HSA) and bovine serum albumin (BSA). Other albumin types comprise the storage proteins such as ovalbumin (OVA) in egg white, alpha-lactalbumin (ALA) in milk and different storage albumins present in some plant seeds, e.g. legumes, amaranth and soybean seeds, etc. In general, BSA and HSA have been extensively investigated for pharmaceutical applications due to their immuno-compatibility, whereas OVA and ALA are widely used to improve the solubility and stability of different BCs.Based on that, this chapter comments some structural and conformational aspects about albumins, such as BSA, HSA, OVA and ALA, which were chosen in terms of their abundance, importance, technological implications and particularly, as protein systems for vehiculization and delivery of BCs. Subsequently, albumin binding sites and the BCs that could be transported are considered. In addition, methods and techniques to produce albumin nanocarriers for different applications in biomedical, biocontrol and bioprocess fields and/or to enhance bioavailability of BCs in food purposes, are summarized. In this sense, it is very important to remark that nanosupplements production using albumins as potential carriers of BCs has emerged as a vacancy area.