Abstract
There are four basic tastes, including sweet, sour, bitter and salty. Any other taste is merely combination of these four. Red berries of Synsepalum dulcificum, which is an evergreen shrub native of tropical West Africa, have a property in modifying taste by switching sour into a sweet taste remarkably, so the berry has been called miracle fruit. Among all taste proteins, there is one in particular - miraculin - which lacks taste completely when absorbed on its own but has the power of modifying a disagreeable taste into a pleasant one. The active miraculin causes citric acid, ascorbic acid, acetic acid and hydrochloric acid which are normally sour to be perceived as sweet after being held in the mouth. In this review, we demonstrated the miracle fruit development and miraculin identification, including glycosylation and protein structure. We also extracted the fruit of S. dulcificum with methanol (MeOH), and the pulp with chloroform (CHCl3), respectively. All obtained extracts were evaluated for their tyrosinase inhibition and free radical scavenging. The anti-tyrosinase effects were to calculate the hydroxylation of L-tyrosine to L-dopa according to in vitro mushroom tyrosinase assay. The antioxidant potential was evaluated using the following in vitro method: scavenging of 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical. This was the first time to reveal these bioactivities from this species plant to date.
Call for Papers in Thematic Issues
Functional Foods in Human Health and Beyond
Foods are important source of nutrients including carbohydrates, proteins, lipids and other minerals. Furthermore, the functional foods are those agents that have additional components that are essential supports to the body in terms of antioxidant and pharmacologically active agents. The predominant functional foods are of plant in origin, whereas some ...read more
Harnessing Bioactive Compounds from Food Waste: Sustainable Extraction Strategies and Health Applications
Food waste presents a significant challenge across the postharvest cycle, from agricultural production to distribution. However, within this waste lies a treasure trove of bioactive chemicals that hold immense potential for nutraceuticals, functional foods, and postharvest additives, including antimicrobials. Various extraction methods, such as solvent extraction (SE), supercritical fluid extraction ...read more
Natural Bioactive Compounds Derivatives in Nutraceutical and Food Science
In the last years, plants have been widely used for their numerous properties and now there is growing interest in the study of classes of compounds obtained from plant species or derived from them. The importance of these natural compounds lies in their important therapeutic purposes, and in their capability ...read more
Related Books
Functional Foods for Health Maintenance: Understanding their Role in Cancer Prevention
Green Extraction Techniques in Food Analysis
Algal Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals: Benefits, Opportunities, and Challenges
Micronutrients: The Key to Good Health
Capillary Electrophoresis in Food Analysis
Nutritional Biochemistry: From the Classroom to the Research Bench
Hypersensitivity to Vitamins
Foods for Special Dietary Regimens
23