Extraction and characterization of passion fruit seed oil and investigation of its hypolipidemic activity

Abstract

Plant seed oils are rich in unsaturated fatty acids and lipid-soluble active ingredients, which have become a hot spot of research in recent years. In this study, a novel low-temperature continuous phase transition extraction device was utilized to extract passion fruit seed oil and its lipid composition, quality properties and hypolipidemic activity were investigated. The extraction rate of passion fruit seed oil by low-temperature continuous phase transition extraction was 20.37 %, which was about twice as much as that of solvent extraction (10.80 %). The contents of unsaturated fatty acids, vitamin E and β-carotene in passion fruit seed oil extracted by low-temperature continuous phase transition were 84.00 %, 21.03 μg/g and 6.28 μg/g, respectively, which were significantly better than those of solvent extraction. The acid value, peroxide value and saponification value of the resulting passion fruit seed oil were 0.275 mg/g, 0.034 g/100g and 185.175 mg/g, respectively. Passion fruit seed oil exhibited good hypolipidemic activity, and the IC50 of its inhibitory effect on pancreatic lipase and cholesterol esterase were 97.19 μg/mL and 48.08 μg/mL, respectively. Further 3T3-L1 cell experiments concluded that passion fruit seed oil not only reduces lipid production in cells, but also reduces triglyceride, total cholesterol, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol content in cells, while elevating high-density lipoprotein cholesterol content. This study provides a theoretical basis for the development and utilization of passion fruit seed oil as a functional lipid.

Keywords

• Low-temperature continuous phase transition extraction
• Passion fruit seed oil
• Fatty acid composition
• Active ingredients
• Hypolipidemic
• 3T3-L1 preadipocytes