4.7 Article

Prickly Pear Betalain-Rich Extracts as New Promising Strategy for Intestinal Inflammation: Plant Complex vs. Main Isolated Bioactive Compounds

Journal

FRONTIERS IN PHARMACOLOGY
Volume 12, Issue -, Pages -

Publisher

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fphar.2021.722398

Keywords

Opuntia ficus indica L; (Mill); prickly pear; betalains; antioxidant activity; anti-inflammatory activity; Caco-2 cells

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This study investigated the potential of betalain-rich extracts in managing intestinal inflammation, showing that prickly pear extracts have stronger antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities compared to pure betalains. The synergistic effects of prickly pear extracts without cytotoxicity or barrier system alteration were also demonstrated.
Recently, many studies have highlighted the health effects of betalains beyond their use as food dyes. The present study investigated betalain-rich extracts with different colors and their main bioactive compounds in order to provide first evidence as a new promising strategy for intestinal inflammation management. Prickly pear betalain-rich extracts, obtained by a QuEChERS method, have been characterized by LC-DAD-ESI-MS/MS analysis. The potential role of betanin, indicaxanthin, and prickly pear extracts in counteracting the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory events was evaluated by several in vitro cell-free and cell-based assays. Indicaxanthin and betanin represent the most abundant compounds (>= 22.27 +/- 4.50 and 1.16 +/- 0.17 g/100 g dry extract, respectively). Prickly pear extracts showed the strongest antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities with respect to the pure betalains both on in vitro cell-free and cell-based assays, demonstrating the occurrence of synergistic activity, without any cytotoxicity or alteration of the barrier systems. The release of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and key inflammatory markers (IL-6, IL-8, and NO) was strongly inhibited by both betalains and even more by prickly pear extracts, which showed a similar and sometimes better profile than the reference compounds trolox and dexamethasone in counteracting the IL-1 beta-induced intestinal inflammation.

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