Extraction and evaluation of antimicrobial potential capsaicinoid of the genus Capsicum

• Grant number: 10/05712-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: June 01, 2010
• End date: May 31, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Microbiology - Applied Microbiology
• Principal Investigator: Crispin Humberto Garcia Cruz
• Grantee: Karin Martins Nunes
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências, Letras e Ciências Exatas (IBILCE). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de São José do Rio Preto. São José do Rio Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The food industry has as a major concern for food security, due to consumer demands with the hygienic quality of food and nutrition. There is great interest in finding natural preservatives, aiming to replace or minimize the use of synthetic additives, so asked about the possible negative effects on health. In this context, the Capsicum peppers herbs are plants that not only give a distinctive flavor to foods can also have a preservative. Also, are composed of vitamins C, A, E, and B complex, ²-carotene, ²-cryptoxanthin, and capsaicinoid alkaloids that are responsible for these characteristic spicy peppers. Among capsaicinoid, the highest concentrations are capsaicin and dihidrocapsaicin. Given the importance of these peppers will be determined the antimicrobial activity of crude extract (CE) and hexane fractions (HF), chloroform (CF) and ethyl acetate (AF) of three species of chilli peppers: the "finger-chili lady" (C. baccatum), "chilli" (C. frutescens) and "true cumari" (C. baccatum L. var. praetermissum) on eight microorganisms: two Gram-negative bacteria (Salmonella spp. and Escherichia coli), two Gram-positive (Bacillus cereus and Staphylococcus aureus), two molds (Aspergillus niger and Penicillium expansum) and two yeasts (Rhodotorula rubra and Saccharomyces cerevisiae). The result of the antimicrobial activity will be done by analyzing the size of inhibition zone that will serve as a parameter to indicate a greater or lesser susceptibility of microorganism to the crude extract and fractionated by comparing its effectiveness with 12 specific antibiotics for Gram-positive, 12 to Gram-negative and the fluconazole antifungal. Be also analyzed the total capsaicinoid concentration by spectrophotometry for each of the extracts. These concentrations serve as a reference for the results obtained in the antibiograms analysis. (AU)