TY - JOUR
T1 - Finding a Needle in a Haystack
T2 - Producing Antimicrobial Cutin-Derived Oligomers from Tomato Pomace
AU - Escórcio, Rita
AU - Bento, Artur
AU - Tomé, Ana S.
AU - Correia, Vanessa G.
AU - Rodrigues, Rúben
AU - Moreira, Carlos J.S.
AU - Marion, Didier
AU - Bakan, Bénédicte
AU - Silva Pereira, Cristina
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge funding from the European Research Council through grant ERC CoG-647928, from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program within the project 713475–FLIPT–H2020-FETOPEN-2014–2015, and from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) by Project MOSTMICRO ITQB with refs UIDB/04612/2020 and UIDP/04612/2020. R.E. is grateful to FCT funding for her PhD scholarship (2021.06435.BD). The NMR data were acquired at CERMAX, ITQB-NOVA, Oeiras, Portugal, with equipment funded by FCT. The authors are thankful to Daryna Piontkivska for the assistance in creating graphs in the R language. The authors are thankful to Pedro Lamosa for support in the NMR analyses.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.
PY - 2022/8/29
Y1 - 2022/8/29
N2 - Agro-industrial residues comprise a rich diversity of plant polymers and bioactive compounds, constituting promising sources for the development of materials, including bioplastics, and food supplements, among other applications. In particular, the polyester cutin is abundant in fruit peel, a plentiful constituent of pomace agro-industrial residues. The potential of diverse fruit pomaces as a source for the development of cutin-derived materials/products has been extensively sought out. This study expands the established knowledge: it sets proof of concept for the production of antimicrobial oligomers from cutin-rich materials isolated in a single step from tomato pomaces generated by two remote agro-industries. Specifically, it first analyzed how the chemical signature (nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS)) of a pomace (and of its major constituents) mirrors that of the corresponding cutin-rich material isolated using an ionic liquid extractant. The cutin-rich materials were then deconstructed (using mild hydrolyses), and the resultant mixtures were chemically characterized and screened for bactericidal activity against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. The presence of esterified structures, linear and/or branched, likely comprising dioic acids as a major building block (but not exclusively) is a prerequisite for activity against E. coli but not against S. aureus that was susceptible to monomers as well. Further studies are required to optimize the production of broad bactericidal oligomers from any cutin-rich pomace source, moving ahead toward their circular usage.
AB - Agro-industrial residues comprise a rich diversity of plant polymers and bioactive compounds, constituting promising sources for the development of materials, including bioplastics, and food supplements, among other applications. In particular, the polyester cutin is abundant in fruit peel, a plentiful constituent of pomace agro-industrial residues. The potential of diverse fruit pomaces as a source for the development of cutin-derived materials/products has been extensively sought out. This study expands the established knowledge: it sets proof of concept for the production of antimicrobial oligomers from cutin-rich materials isolated in a single step from tomato pomaces generated by two remote agro-industries. Specifically, it first analyzed how the chemical signature (nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS)) of a pomace (and of its major constituents) mirrors that of the corresponding cutin-rich material isolated using an ionic liquid extractant. The cutin-rich materials were then deconstructed (using mild hydrolyses), and the resultant mixtures were chemically characterized and screened for bactericidal activity against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. The presence of esterified structures, linear and/or branched, likely comprising dioic acids as a major building block (but not exclusively) is a prerequisite for activity against E. coli but not against S. aureus that was susceptible to monomers as well. Further studies are required to optimize the production of broad bactericidal oligomers from any cutin-rich pomace source, moving ahead toward their circular usage.
KW - antimicrobial activity
KW - biopolyester
KW - cutin
KW - pomace
KW - sustainable process
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85136211013&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acssuschemeng.2c03437
DO - 10.1021/acssuschemeng.2c03437
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85136211013
SN - 2168-0485
VL - 10
SP - 11415
EP - 11427
JO - ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering
JF - ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering
IS - 34
ER -