Development and characterization of iron-pectin beads as a novel system for iron delivery to intestinal cells

ESTEBAN GERBINO; PATRICIA ALVES; AYELEN HUGO; ANDREA GOMEZ-ZAVAGLIA; BENILDE COSTA; PEDRO N SIMOES; FLORENCIA GHIBAUDO; MONICA SIMOES; VIVIANA CAMPODALL´ORTO

COLLOIDS AND SURFACES B-BIOINTERFACES

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2018 vol. 170 p. 538 - 543

0927-7765

Iron deficiency is the most common nutritional deficitworldwide. The goal of this work was to obtain iron-pectin beads by ionicgelation and evaluate their physiological behavior to support theirpotential application in the food industry. The beads were firstlyanalyzed by scanning electronic microscopy, and then physical-chemicallycharacterized by performing swelling, thermogravimetric, porosimetry,Mössbauer spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence analyses, as well as bydetermining the particle size. Then, physiological assays were carriedout by exposing the beads to simulated gastric and intestinalenvironments, and determining the iron absorption and transepithelialtransport into Caco-2/TC7 cells.Iron-pectin beads were spherical (diameter 1-2 mm), with high density(1.29 g/mL) and porosity (93.28 %) at low pressure, indicating their highpermeability even when exposed to low pressure. Swelling in simulatedintestinal medium (pH 8) was higher than in simulated gastric medium. Thesource of iron [FeSO4 (control) or iron-pectin beads] did not have anysignificant effect on the mineral absorption. Regarding transport, theiron added to the apical pole of Caco-2/TC7 monolayers was recovered inthe basal compartment, and this was proportional with the exposure time.After 4 hours of incubation, the transport of iron arising from the beadswas significantly higher than that of the iron from the control (FeSO4).For this reason, iron-pectin beads appear as an interesting system toovercome the low efficiency of iron transport, being a potential strategyto enrich food products with iron, without altering the sensoryproperties.