Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Functional Foods journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jff Improvement of bioavailability for resveratrol through encapsulation in zein using electrospraying technique Heera Jayan, M. Maria Leena, S.K. Sivakama Sundari, J.A. Moses, C. Anandharamakrishnan ⁎ Computational Modeling and Nano Scale Processing Unit, Indian Institute of Food Processing Technology (IIFPT), Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Government of India, Pudukkottai Road, Thanjavur 613005, India ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Nanoencapsulation Resveratrol Electrospraying Sustained release Bioavailability ABSTRACT Resveratrol has proven antioxidant, anticancer, anti-inflammatory and cardioprotective effects. However, poor water solubility, low bioavailability and UV light sensitivity hinder its usage in food applications. Encapsulation of resveratrol can help to overcome these problems. In this work, encapsulation by electrospraying was adopted, owing to the possibility of obtaining spherical and nano-sized particles at room temperature. This study proved that resveratrol can be efficiently encapsulated with zein without modifying its native form. Size of na- noencapsulated particles obtained ranged from 230 to 330 nm. Nanoencapsulation through electrospraying process yielded 68.49% encapsulation efficiency at 1:50 resveratrol to zein w/w%. Further, nanoencapsulated resveratrol showed better stability and sustained release profiles as compared to the unencapsulated form. Nanoencapsulation with zein protected resveratrol in simulated stomach conditions and released resveratrol in the intestinal condition. Additionally, nanoencapsulated resveratrol showed increased permeability of 1.15 fold in ex-vivo dynamic engineered small intestinal system which in turn relates to improved bioavailability. Prepared nanoparticles can be used for oral administration by incorporation into food products or in tablet form. 1. Introduction Resveratrol (trans-3,4′,5 trihydroxy-stilbene) is a polyphenolic compound synthesized by plants as a response to stress, such as injury, ozone exposure and fungal infection. Grape skin, peanuts, jackfruit and mulberries are good sources of resveratrol (Amri, Chaumeil, Sfar, & Charrueau, 2012). Among its Cis, and Trans forms, the latter is biolo- gically active and exhibits antioxidant, anticancer, anti-inflammatory and cardio protective effects (King, Bomser, & Min, 2006). Trans- re- sveratrol gets converted to cis-resveratrol upon exposure to light through photoisomerisation (Tomao, Gallet, Vian, Lacombe, & Coulomb, 2005). Low water solubility (∼50 μg/mL in pH 7.4 buffer) (Zupancic, Lavric, & Kristl, 2015) and sensitivity to UV light limits its incorporation in food systems. These challenges can be overcome by binding resveratrol with suitable proteins (Hemar, Gerbeaud, Oliver, & Augustin, 2011). When administered orally, absorption of resveratrol in humans is high. However, bioavailability is less than 1% due to the extensive first pass metabolism in the liver (Amri et al., 2012). Generally, to improve bioavailability of food bioactive molecules, micro and nanoencapsulation are accepted approaches. These involve entrapment of bioactives in a matrix at the size range of micro or nanometers (Anandharamakrishnan, 2014). When the size of the encapsulate is reduced to nanometer range, its adherence to the mucus layer covering intestinal epithelial cells increases and thus results in increased retention time in the gastrointestinal tract (Chen, Weiss, & Shahidi, 2006). Also, changes in morphology allow targeted delivery of the molecule (Bouwmeester et al., 2009). Greater surface area of na- noparticles provide improved dispersion of bioactives, in turn enhan- cing its bioavailability (Gomez-Estaca, Balaguer, Gavara, & Hernandez- Munoz, 2012). Several research works have been conducted to improve the stability and solubility of resveratrol by encapsulating it into solid- lipid nanoparticles, liposomes, polymer materials, and cyclodextrins (Davidov-Pardo and McClements, 2014). When resveratrol is entrapped in cyclodextrins, its solubility gets enhanced, but has no significant implication on oral bioavailability and stability (Das & Ng, 2010). Also, cyclodextrins cannot be used to achieve targeted delivery of resveratrol. Liposomes can overcome these limitations; but reduction in drug loading capacity, particularly when hydrophobic molecules get en- capsulated remain a concern (Summerlin et al., 2015). Detoni, Souto, Da Silva, Pohlmann, and Guterres (2012) proved that when trans-re- sveratrol was loaded in liposomes isomerisation to cis-resveratrol was only upto 29.3%, even after 4 h of exposure to UV radiation, providing the highest photostability as compared to all other nano-formulations. But, with increase in exposure time to 8 h, isomerisation resulted in https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jff.2019.04.007 Received 31 January 2019; Received in revised form 2 April 2019; Accepted 2 April 2019 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: anandharamakrishnan@iifpt.edu.in (C. Anandharamakrishnan). Journal of Functional Foods 57 (2019) 417–424 1756-4646/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T