Development of an Optimized Drying Process for the Recovery of Bioactive Compounds from the Autumn Fruits of Berberis vulgaris L. and Crataegus monogyna Jacq
Hot air drying has proven to be an efficient method to preserve specific edible plant materials
with medicinal properties. This is a process involving chemical, physical, and biological
changes in plant matrices. Understanding these processes will lead to an improvement in the yields
of bioactive compounds. This study aims to optimize the drying process of two species’ fruits used
in folk medicine, Berberis vulgaris and Crataegus monogyna. The optimized extracts’ antioxidant capacity
was assessed using various assays, with the barberry extract showing very good activity
(50.85, 30.98, and 302.45 mg TE/g dw for DPPH, TEAC, and FRAP assays, respectively). Both species
exerted good fungal α-glucosidase inhibitory activity (IC50 = 0.34 and 0.56 mg/mL, respectively) but
no activity on mammalian α-glucosidase. Additionally, this study identified and quantified the
main bioactive compounds. The results presented herein are a breakthrough in industrializing this
drying process. Additional studies are necessary to mechanistically understand the drying process
involved in these plant materials.
This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research,
CNCS–UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P2-2.1-PED-2019-5360.The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT; Portugal) for financial support through national funds FCT/MCTES to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020), the national funding for F.C.T. and P.I. and through the institutional scientific employment program contract for M.I.D., and L.B. The authors are grateful to FEDER—Interreg España—Portugal programme
for financial support through the project TRANSCoLAB 0612_TRANS_CO_LAB_2_P.
