Aqueous solutions of dispersed lycopene in which gum arabic, gum ghatti and polyglycerol monostearate ester had been used as emulsifiers were photoirradiated. The photodegradation rate of lycopene tended to vary depending on the amount of polyglycerol monostearate ester used. We found that the photodegradation rate of lycopene with polyglycerol monostearate ester was considerably slower than those with gum arabic and gum ghatti. Therefore, this study suggests that the absorption state of the emulsifier on the crystal surface may affect the photodegradation rate of lycopene.Keywords: lycopene, photostability, gum arabic, gum ghatti, polyglycerol ester of fatty acid *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mnisino@saneigenffi.co.jp (M. Nishino) yossan@cc.okayama-u.ac.jp (Y. Nakamura)
IntroductionCarotenoids are used as a colorant in many food products (Nishino et al., 2007). For these purposes, it is very important to elucidate the photodegradation mechanism of carotenoids in aqueous solution and to improve their photostability. We previously conducted a study to evaluate the photostability of lycopene in aqueous solution by using dispersions containing gum arabic as an emulsifier and found a correlation between dissolved oxygen concentration and the photostability of lycopene (Nishino et al., 2011). Other emulsifiers commonly used in food production, when processing oil-soluble substances such as carotenoids into water-dispersible preparations, include synthetic surfactants such as polyglycerol esters of fatty acids, sucrose esters of fatty acids and polysorbates, and emulsifying polysaccharides such as modified starch and gum ghatti (Nishino et al., 2002;Sakata and Nishino, 2010;Ido et al., 2008). The type of emulsifier to be used for the development of an emulsion is determined based on the emulsification stability of the emulsion (Dluzewska et al., 2005). Although several studies have been done on the color degradation stability of oil-in-water (O/W) emulsions of carotenoids in aqueous solution (Ribeiro et al., 2003;Ax et al., 2003), the relationship between the type of emulsifier used and the photostability of carotenoids in the emulsion system remains unclear. In order to clarify the role of emulsifiers in the photolytic mechanism of carotenoids, we compared the photostability of lycopene dispersions containing gum arabic, gum ghatti and polyglycerol monostearate ester.
Materials and MethodsIn this study, we used gum arabic and gum ghatti, which are natural polysaccharides widely used as emulsifiers in Japan, and polyglycerol monostearate ester, a synthetic surfactant containing a stable saturated acyl group. A tomato lycopene dispersion was prepared using gum arabic, gum ghatti or polyglycerol monostearate ester as an emulsifier. The gum arabic, gum ghatti and polyglycerol monostearate ester used were Gum Arabic Powder No. 21 (San-Ei Gen F.F.I., Inc., Osaka, Japan), Ghatti Gum RD (San-Ei Gen F.F.I., Inc., Osaka, Japan) and Poem J-0081HV (Riken Vitamin Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan). The dispersions...